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This article offers a discursive analysis of the Conservative green paper for international development, published as part of the closely fought election campaign of 2010 that culminated in a UK coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. The article examines the paper in comparison with the discursive shifts represented by the first Department for International Development (DfID) white paper, published by the outgoing Labour administration in 1997. In contrast with the optimistic and globalist developmentalism that characterised Labour's development discourse, the green paper sounds a more cautious note, using empire to focus on Britain's leadership role in poverty alleviation rather than on global progress, and brings back the full force of developmentalism only at the point where it seeks to legitimate spending on security concerns as a development concern. The article then moves on to examine the green paper's most explicit discursive move, the signalling of a 'post-bureaucratic age'. This move towards increased information provision to promote transparency and accountability is likely to signal greater control by powerful donors in securitised times, albeit with a potential re-scaling of responsibility for poverty alleviation to the poorest local communities. Finally, the article looks briefly at information technologies in relation to the transnational spatiality of civil society, arguing that attention needs to be paid to the more embodied forms of transnational association encouraged by the green paper, and to the selection and impacts of information, which need to be seen in the discursive context of wider Conservative constructions of the 'big society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discursive analysis of Great Britain's Conservative Party 2011 Green Paper "One World Conservatism: A Conservative agenda for international development." It offers a comparison of the conception of development in that paper with the 1997 Labour Party White Paper which launched the development of the Department for International Development (DFID). The discourse used to describe Britain's role in promoting global development and reducing poverty is examined.

Presents the perspective of the Independent Group on British Aid (IGBA) 1997 White Paper on International Development. Measures for which the IGBA has been campaigning since the publication of "Real Aid: A Strategy for Britain," in 1982; Significance of the White Paper; Advice from the group regarding the White Paper on International Development.

The article discusses the interpretation on the concept of "The White Paper on the Nationalized Industries." The Paper declares the governmental policy of the nationalized industries following the investigation into the role of the nationalized industries and the corresponding relationship with government undertaken at the Government's bid. The Paper also provides the Government's response to the recommendation in the report published on November 18, 1976. The discussion includes the drawing of attention towards the important aspects in the Paper, to remark major departures from the last White Paper and to comment upon the probable effectiveness of the new proposal.

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Levelling up and the everyday economy are two crucial concepts for understanding the direction of policy making in the UK, but the relationship between them has not yet been fully explored. Moreover, the UK's industrial and regional policies are woefully underdeveloped. This article suggests how levelling up and the everyday economy concepts could contribute to Labour's emerging industrial and regional policies. It argues that Labour is right to pursue an economic growth agenda, but must make growth work for communities and workers, and the everyday economy can help. The everyday economy can contribute to, and benefit from, local productivity growth, but regions still need companies that export or are at the technological frontier to raise demand, productivity and pay. Labour should work with the government's Levelling Up White Paper, but this was overly focussed on cities and knowledge intensive business services: there is an economic case for including towns and manufacturing too, and they should prioritise connecting places and sectors, building on the diverse strengths which different places can offer, and setting a long‐term direction of travel. Over time, Labour should try to ensure that cities, towns and smaller communities are better connected, better coordinated and more specialised within larger regions. Labour should, therefore, set out an industrial and regional strategy; work up an economic development toolkit; and devolve economic powers to Mayoral Combined Authorities and councils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the implementation of the rule by the Advisory Council on Public Records under the provisions of the Public Records Act of 1967 in Great Britain. Most contemporary historians saw the First World War as a historical watershed from which time onwards the activity and potential role of governments in influencing British economic and social development were much enhanced. As a result, particular areas of historical research, such as diplomatic history and historical studies of social and economic policy, were given enormous stimulus. For all historians access to records is essential. New records are almost always welcome and any restriction on access to information is generally deplored or regretted. In the initial euphoria at the release of so much new material comparatively little attention was paid to the status of the public records as research evidence. In 1970, however, doyen of British interwar historians, the late G. L. Mowat, referred to a part of the new material with characteristic shrewdness.

Abstract: As the formal process of Brexit has already started, there is much uncertainty about Brexit's impacts on Britain's social, political and economic future. This paper examines the economic impact. After briefly discussing some significant EU treaties that serve as the background materials, it presents the key arguments advocated by the leave and remain camps. The economic impact depends critically on the negotiation outcomes. Aside from the debate on the divorce costs, there are numerous issues that must be negotiated, such as immigration, trade in goods, services, agriculture, fisheries and financial regulations. We discuss various scenarios of possible new trade regimes, resulting in different impacts on the UK economy. With each side having its bargaining chips to play, the trade‐offs between “give and take” in the negotiation game are analysed. Considering various strategic options, this paper urges rationality and cooperation, especially weighing both sides’ entwined economic interests, in addition to their mutual security, defence, environmental and world concerns. The potential gains and losses in the event where the UK contemplates new trade arrangements with the non‐EU countries are analysed in the Appendix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the development of tax policy in the UK over the last decade or so and assesses policy change against a low bar-consistency and coherence. While this government has followed some consistent policies-notably, in some aspects of corporation tax and in increasing the income tax personal allowance-there are few signs of a wider coherent strategy. The same has been true of other recent governments. Many aspects of the system have become more complex. There have been numerous policy reversals. And few of those aspects of the system in most need of reform have been tackled. The need for reform, and a clear strategy for reform, remain as pressing as ever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the UK productivity puzzle using new data on outputs and inputs and clarifying the role of output mismeasurement, input growth and industry effects. Our data indicate an implied labour productivity gap of 13 percentage points in 2011 relative to the productivity level on pre‐recession trends. We find that: (a) the labour productivity puzzle is a TFP puzzle, since it is not explained by the contributions of labour or capital services; (b) the reallocation of labour between industries deepens rather than explains the puzzle (i.e. there has been a reallocation of hours away from low‐productivity industries and toward high productivity industries); (c) capitalization of R&D does not explain the productivity puzzle; (d) assuming increased scrapping rates since the recession, a 25% (50%) increase in depreciation rates post‐2009 can potentially explain 15% (31%) of the productivity puzzle; (e) industry data show that 35% of the TFP puzzle can be explained by weak TFP growth in the oil & gas and finance sectors; and (f) cyclical effects via factor utilization could potentially explain 17% of the productivity puzzle. Continued weakness in finance would suggest a future lowering of TFP growth to around 0.8% p.a. from a baseline of 0.9% p.a. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the implication of a simple class of fiscal rules for long-run economic growth and welfare. The Golden Rule of Public Finance that we examine is motivated by institutional arrangements in countries such as Germany and the UK. We find that rules that seek to limit government borrowing to productive investment spending have a clear justification in terms of growth and welfare when government-provided goods are otherwise excessively provided. Even in the case where it is private consumption that is excessive, the Golden Rule of Public Finance is likely to be good from a growth perspective, but the welfare effects are more ambiguous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of local economic development agencies in the UK are turning to tourism as a means of urban regeneration and employment creation. Although initiatives vary, there is a nationally inspired emphasis on the development of employee skills as a core element of many regeneration strategies. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study of the demand for and utilisation of skills by tourism firms in East London, an area that is the recipient of substantial urban aid funding, a proportion of which has an overt focus on skills enhancement designed to develop the tourism sector. It then examines the processes of skills supply within the locality. The paper concludes by identifying the key issues likely to be important if regeneration programmes are to be effective. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the dynamic relationship between interest rates, inflation and economic growth using a long dataset for the UK. The approach adopted enables us to identify structural breaks in the dynamic system (vector autoregression (VAR)). We find interest rates respond much more strongly to growth and inflation over recent decades, and forecast error variance decomposition analysis indicates there is increasing interconnectedness between the variables in recent years. Economic policymakers need to carefully monitor the linkages between these variables and be prepared to adjust their monetary policy tools when faced with structural changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the report `White Paper on Regional Development Agencies' published by Great Britain in December 1997 which described the economic performance of the country. Failure of the conventional regional economic policy; Examination on the flaws of the economic policies implemented by the government; Aim of the country to level with its international competitors; Strategies and policies which the government should launch to spur economic development.

There is a growing body of literature that suggests that advanced economies are experiencing an economic restructuring such that the engines of economic development are smaller, more independent, firms acting in an increasingly cooperative manner. In assessing whether the UK economy is actually experiencing such a shift in inter-firm relations, the paper firstly assesses the existing evidence. This evidence suggests the continued dominance of large firms and only limited and uneven movements away from a low-trust system. Secondly, the paper presents evidence on the nature of inter-firm relations in the UK engineering construction industry in the 1980s and 1990s. The research shows considerable improvement in performance against schedule associated with the emergence of management contractors. Management contractors can improve performance either by adopting a high-trust route in which they seek to make overall efficiency gains by integrating design and construction, or by adopting a low-trust route in which they seek to reduce scope for opportunism by rigidifying design, and by passing on risk. Evidence is presented which shows that management contractors in the UK have so far predominantly adopted the low-trust route to improved performance. Cumulatively, the evidence suggests the dominance of the 'top down' control of inter-firm relations in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the estimation of an econometric model designed to test the Modigliani-Miller (henceforth MM) hypothesis. The primary interest is not in the theoretical validity of the hypothesis. The major sources of theoretical disagreement with Modigliani and Miller arise from the key role they impute to the arbitrage process and the effect of leverage on the expected value of the returns to equity through the increased probability of bankruptcy. These issues have occasioned a number of important contributions in recent years (see especially [2] and [23]). The first section of the paper provides a skeletal outline of the MM hypothesis and discusses the problems of formulating an appropriate econometric model. In the second section an econometric model is developed, which, while drawing on the ideas of several
1 This study is part of a continuing program of research into company financial behavior financed by a grant from the Social Science Research Council. I am indebted to Mrs. Eileen Sutcliffe of the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of York, and Milton Chen of New York University for assistance with data collection and computer processing, and to the personnel of the SRC Atlas Computer, Chilton, the University of York Computer Center and the New York University School of Commerce Computer Center.
2 References in square brackets are listed on pp. 161-2, below.
3 In terms of the implicit aggregation procedures, the old Liquidity-Preference/ Loanable-Funds controversy has yet to be satisfactorily resolved.
different writers, has certain elements of originality in the way it seeks to incorporate growth and leverage. Finally, in the third section the results of the econometric tests are evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers 'unconventional' monetary stimulus and supply-side reform as ways to speed up UK recovery in the context of fiscal consolidation, drawing on the experience of the 1930s and 1980s. To imitate the 1930s, the inflation-targeting regime may need to be reformed to cut real interest rates, with land-use planning liberalised to 'crowd in' residential investment. To emulate the 1980s, supply-side reforms to improve productivity and to raise permanent income are required and possibilities in the areas of infrastructure, education and taxation are outlined. A problem common to all these options is that they are 'politically challenging'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing policy interest in charitable giving in the UK. As part of its Big Society agenda, the current government is keen to encourage a higher level of donations, highlighting new technologies, new social norms and tax incentives as potential mechanisms for raising giving. In the 2012 Budget, however, the Chancellor also proposed limiting tax relief on donations to £50,000, sparking an intense discussion about the effectiveness and desirability of tax incentives for major donors. This paper brings together recent evidence relevant to the ongoing policy debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores satisfaction with the political domain of local government performance, using survey data from a contemporary British city as the empirical context. It employs a factor-augmented ordered logit analysis of data emerging from a representative city-wide series of over 1,000 household interviews. Affective reactions to local economic performance and policy effectiveness are constructed in the spirit of the approach used in earlier work by social scientists. The key significant influences that raise or depress satisfaction at this geographical level are presented. Affective reactions to past policy and the economy are both shown to be statistically significant, but with reactions to the economy being negative while those for other policy reactions seemingly positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses an empirical approach to test the specific causal relationship between debt and growth in the UK, in the context of the debate surrounding the use of a policy known as austerity measures. This time series perspective makes use of more recent Granger causality and cointegration tests that allow for non-stationarity in macroeconomic time series data in the presence of structural breaks. Controlling for exogenous shocks associated with the period around the financial crisis, we find no evidence of a causal relationship between economic growth and public debt for the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the UK, City Deals, essentially bespoke packages of funding and decision-making negotiated between national government and local authorities, are increasingly taking centre stage in promoting economic growth. Each City Deal is seen to reflect the needs of individual cities and their surrounding regions, and each has its own distinctive funding and development agenda. Although the City Deal model has been broadly welcomed by national and local political leaders, concerns have been more widely expressed about its operation and effectiveness. This paper outlines the development and characteristics of the City Deals programme and offers a reflective commentary on a number of issues surrounding the programme, namely, accountability and evaluation, the relationship between the local and national states, the role of planning, and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The paper implements a methodology for assessing the regional impact of investment grants on foreign direct investment (FDI) location, taking data for U.K. regional policy over the period 1985-2005. Using a Generalized Methods of Moments estimator it finds that each £25 million of grant changes the regional location of about six inward FDI projects. On average, projects have 150 jobs and each job diverted costs £27,500 (1995 prices). It also finds that the size of the area designated for grants has a positive location effect. The effect is small in relation to the overall scale of FDI, which may explain the weak grant effect found in recent plant-based location studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Arbo and Benneworth (2007) have alerted us, higher education institutions are now expected not only to conduct education and research, but also to play an active role in the development of their economic, social and cultural surroundings. They call this the ‘regional mission’ of HEIs. This paper is concerned with cultural engagement. Research on universities’ cultural engagement in their regions and the impact of that engagement is still in its infancy, partly because there are different understandings of ‘culture’ and of what ‘engagement’ entails. In this paper, qualitative data from the reports of mixed teams of academics and regional administrators involved in a large international project designed to improve universities’ regional engagement are analysed and discussed. The on-going study — PASCAL Universities' Regional Engagement (PURE) — investigates the role of HEIs in their regions across in a variety of fields such as the economy, community development, the environment and others. This article analyses the data from the study to identify the different perspectives universities and regions have of cultural engagement. The aim here is to demonstrate the value of PURE in facilitating the development of mutual understanding both between universities through a common language and between universities and their regions in respect of mutual expectations. For example, particularly difficult to de-construct is universities’ engagement with disadvantaged communities (Doyle, 2007) but Powell's (2009) work suggests that universities might engage more broadly and effectively ‘through better knowledge sharing and co-creation with business and community partners’ to become ‘real drivers of creative change in developing socially inclusive projects’. Others have written about the educational role of universities in developing a ‘lifelong learning culture’ in their region (European Universities’ Charter on Lifelong Learning, 2008). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the SVAR methodology to investigate the effects of public investment on GDP and, more specifically, the effects of the introduction of a golden rule of public finance. We extend the existing literature by estimating a model for the British economy that takes into account long-run factors such as public debt accumulation and policy interactions. We find that in such a long-run framework, public investment has a significant and permanently positive effect on GDP; this result runs counter to the most recent literature on the topic using SVAR, which was limited to a short-run specification. We further find, by comparing different subsamples, that the introduction of the golden rule in 1997 strengthened the positive effect of public investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous Acts of Parliament changed the financing of transport infrastructure in eighteenth-century England. This paper examines the economic effects of turnpike acts, which greatly improved road infrastructure by introducing tolls. It shows that turnpike trusts increased property income in local areas by at least 20 per cent. The findings shed light on why local property owners promoted and managed turnpikes. They also show that turnpike trusts accounted for at least 20 per cent of the total growth in real land rents between 1690 and 1815, and added at least 1.65 per cent to national income in 1815. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge intensive services (KIS) have grown rapidly across Europe in recent years and are often regarded as critical to economic growth and knowledge diffusion. This paper focuses on the factors determining spatial variations in the growth of these services. Combining insights from the regional innovation systems approach and modern growth theory, it is argued that local economic diversity may be beneficial to the growth of KIS. An empirical study of Great Britain over the period 1991–2002 reveals significant regional variations, with rapid growth occurring in a central cluster and major urban areas. The results of an empirical model provide support for the positive impact of diversity on employment growth but no evidence of a positive effect of sector specialisation. From a policy perspective, the analysis suggests that greater attention needs to be devoted to enhancing economic diversity and understanding sector specific effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the development of wine sales via supermarkets in the UK in the 1970s wine consumption has more than doubled so now the UK is the largest wine import market (by value) in the world. Wine is now consumed by approximately 61% of the UK adult population on a regular basis. For many social wine consumption has become part of their lifestyle. Given the international importance of the UK wine market, plus the increasing incorporation of wine into regular consumption behaviour, it is remarkable how few academic studies have been undertaken into the consumption behaviour of moderate, social UK wine consumers. This paper aims to start developing that knowledge, thus adding to our understanding of consumer behaviour in general. The results show that consumers use wine in very sophisticated ways via purchasing, gifting and consumption. The findings also show that social interaction with wine varies significantly, dependant upon occasion and environment. Behaviour also varies if the purchase, as gift and/or for consumption, is perceived as a private or public activity. This paper places UK wine consumer behaviour within a social context, and is able to show that all consumers display a range of behaviours in relation to wine which are situation and occasion dependant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the link between economic growth and unemployment, using microeconometric evidence for the United Kingdom. The results show a significant and negative relation between unemployment and economic growth, using fixed effects panel regression methods. This implies that faster sectoral change, driven by higher rates of innovation and therefore by higher rates of economic growth, would foster structural unemployment. Moreover, we find that economic growth even more strongly influences job creation and job destruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) are widely recognized and acknowledged as vital and significant contributors to economic development. In many countries, the SME sector is a major source of employment, revenue generation, innovation and technological advancement. Its importance to economic development cannot be overemphasized. The UK is no exception. • This exploratory study focuses on a sample of West Midlands-based businesses that are located within the area known as the Central Technology Belt and examines the effect of the age and size of businesses (measured in number of employees) on their managerial capability. The work will contribute to a longitudinal study assessing the managerial capabilities of small businesses more widely. • The data discussed in this paper is part of comprehensive ongoing research into SMEs in the Central Technology Belt of the UK and has been subjected by the authors to a range of parametric and non-parametric statistical analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the ability of workers to change job, sector or industry and the short-run adjustment costs associated with a reallocation of labor is the subject of lively debate among academics. This paper examines recent sector and industry level labor market adjustment in the UK using data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey. We explore the link between the nature of UK trade patterns and labor adjustment within the manufacturing sector and employ a multinomial logit approach to examine the determinants of “within” and “between” industry mobility. By controlling for individual skill specificity we find some evidence of a link between intra-industry trade and intra-industry labor adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines patterns of persistence, mobility, convergence and divergence in the shape and evolution of the distribution of GDP per head across Great Britain (GB). Using a distribution dynamics approach, the evidence suggests that there is no pattern of overall convergence and a number of counties are persistently located at the extremes of the distribution. While there is some evidence of a north-south divide, fragmented islands and sub-regions of persistence are located across geographical space. This pattern of persistence and divergence coexists with upwards and downwards intra-distributional mobility, some of which appears to exhibit specific spatial patterns. The evidence is more consistent with approaches emphasising uneven development than theories predicting economic convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports estimates of an econometric model of the determinants of OFCs' broad money holding and M4 lending to OFCs. This is of interest both as providing information about a component of UK money and credit aggregates and because it provides some evidence of the link between financial activity and growth of the real economy. We model the long-run equilibria for money holding and lending to this sector as being driven by GDP, wealth, the return to financial services and various interest spreads. The dynamics of OFCs' money and lending are shown to be interdependent. We then consider the evidence for interactions between OFCs and other sectors. Our results indicate that M4 lending to OFCs is significantly related to aggregate investment in the long run, but is largely unrelated to the spending of households. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on local and regional economic development has focused upon transformations in local governance and institutional capacity. It has been argued that local authorities have ceded power to other actors and institutions involved in economic development and regeneration, and that the success of local and regional economic development is closely related to the strength of ‘institutional capacity’ within an area. In this paper, we examine these claims with reference to the operation of EU Structural Funds in the Humber Sub-region of the UK. Previous research on local governance and institutional capacity has had a limited empirical focus, drawing conclusions from studies of either economically ‘successful’ regions or regions undergoing regulatory and institutional transformation and precluding analysis of the nature and conditions of local governance and institutional capacity in less developed regions. Our case study evidence not only suggests that arguments about the declining influence of the local state are overdrawn, but also indicates a need for more nuanced accounts of the role of institutional capacity in regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reforms instituted by the Broadcasting Act 1990 led to a period of turbulence and upheaval within broadcasting with results that were at best unintended and, at worst, seriously undermined the ideal of public service broadcasting. A Hayekian economic perspective would suggest that the reforms failed because they did not go far enough in the direction of full `marketization'. The paper develops an alternative perspective, based on an adaptation of systems theory within the context of law and economics. This approach offers a broader methodological foundation for the understanding of `economic law' and a different normative perspective on the broadcasting reforms. It is suggested that the difficulty with these reforms was not their failure to go further in the direction of the market, but rather their lack of clarity in articulating a clear alternative to the market as the basis for the organization of television production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If a decent childhood, and a good start to adulthood, depend on a secure -- and financially sound -- family life, then very many children in Britain are in serious difficulties. This major theme is presented in the context of a review of social and economic developments affecting all families with children. The paper also briefly discusses issues concerning the rights and responsibilities of families, at a time when these issues are coming to the fore in British politics, with interest in the concept of 'active citizenship' and the responsible community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article paper is concerned with the similarity of the growth performance of the British economy during the nineteen-twenties and nineteen-thirties and with the usefulness of the "new-old" industry dichotomy in illuminating the trends of the inter-war period. The inter-war years emerge as a period of growth almost as rapid as any of comparable length in British measured history. The exact rating of the performance naturally varies slightly with the growth criterion adopted and the termini used for the other periods; the simplest way to establish the validity of the conclusion and at the same time leave it open to the reader's judgment is to draw in the inter-war trends on the Matthews graph. The similarity of the growth performance in the nineteen-twenties and nineteen-thirties is largely maintained even when activity is divided into Goods production and Service production. Services get their unity partly from their physical intangibility as final products, partly from supposed differences in income demand elasticities or productivity improvement possibilities, partly, and increasingly, from the statistical difficulties of arriving at satisfactory real output series.

Late Victorian Britain was very important in the development of British dominance in light consumer goods industries, such as fermented liquors and spirits; detergents and perfumery; bicycles and other carriages; paper, stationery, and bookbinding; and games of all kinds and sports goods. Firms developed technology-based innovations and marketing-based innovations, creating abnormal peaks of trademark registrations in certain industries. This article investigates those peaks and shows that factors usually pointed out as explaining British economic decline in heavy industries did not impact on the development of light consumer goods industries, and on the contrary encouraged their fast growth during this period. Trademark registrations are shown to provide new insights into the debate on British relative decline, when combined with other industry and firm-level data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY One of the major challenges of empirical tax research is the identification and calculation of appropriate tax data. While there is consensus that average marginal tax rates are most suitable for studying the effects of tax policy on economic growth, because of data limitations the calculation of marginal tax rates has been limited to the USA and the UK. This paper provides calculations of average marginal tax rates for the four Scandinavian countries using the methodologies of Seater (1982, 1985) and Barro and Sahasakul (1983, 1986). Then, by pooling the newly calculated tax rates for the Scandinavian countries with the data for the USA and the UK, we investigate the effects of tax policy shocks on the per capita GDP growth rate. Our results suggest that an increase in average marginal tax rates has a negative impact on economic growth. Employing additive mixed panel models with penalized splines as estimation approach, we show that changes in tax rates have nonlinear effects. Increasing average marginal tax rates turn out to be the most distorting at relatively moderate tax rates. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the contribution of foreign-owned plants and firms to aggregate total factor productivity ( TFP) growth in Britain for 1997-2008 using data from the Annual Respondents' Database. The contribution of different sub-groups is further decomposed to show the role of continuing plants vis-à-vis reallocations in output shares. TFP is calculated using system GMM estimation. Taking into account the smaller initial size of the foreign-owned sector in 1997, foreign-owned plants contributed relatively more to aggregate productivity growth than UK-owned plants over the period. This strong performance is mostly the result of reallocations of output shares towards high productivity continuing plants and the opening of high productivity plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past decade, much attention has been paid to the migration-development nexus, both in academia and in the global development community. This has created what we argue in this paper can be characterized as an 'international buzz' around the issue. In this paper, we explore how two donor countries, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, have approached the nexus in their policies and practices in recent years. We examine in what ways it has been feasible to work with migration-development links, taking into account various interests and the national political climates regarding development aid and immigration policies. Important themes of the nexus, which are discussed in detail going through the policies, are remittances, engagement with migrant associations, and temporary migration schemes and programmes addressing the so-called 'brain drain' problem. We argue that the two countries represent two different trends among donors: the one does not directly link migration management with migration and development policies, as these are conceived within the national donor agencies; while the other appears to be more focused on providing better migration management through development cooperation. In the conclusion, we argue that the consensus-orientated simplicity of the buzz surrounding migration and development can be said to have had a somewhat restricting effect on the policies, in the sense that it seems to have discouraged conflicting parts of the migration-development nexus from being taken up in the national contexts. Based on our analysis of the two countries' policies, we discuss possible implications for the future, reflecting on the tendency of buzzwords to dip in and out of fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT There is a lack of evidence on regulatory effectiveness available to support policy makers with the selection of appropriate instruments to deliver better environmental regulation. We identify the types of evidence required to enable regulatory reform, characterize evidence gaps, and explore how these may be filled through future research. A typology of regulatory instruments is presented, and evidence of what has worked when and why is examined, drawing on international experience and recent cases from the United Kingdom (UK). Evidence of the capabilities of good environmental regulators for regulatory effectiveness is lacking, and it is proposed that ethnographic research that captures the nuances of regulatory practice will prove necessary to address this. This paper is of value to policy makers and regulators around the world considering the selection and deployment of the full range of environmental regulatory instruments to respond to environmental risks and in support of economic growth. It can inform the selection of suitable approaches and the design of institutions capable of delivering them. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the change in individual earnings has occurred at the top. This paper provides new evidence about the earnings distribution in the UK. The evidence is new in that it provides detail about what has happened within the top 10%, covering groups such as the top 1% and the top 0.5%. The aim is to set the recent rise in top earnings in historical perspective, and to make international comparisons. The evidence is new in that it covers the whole of the postwar period, allowing a contrast to be drawn with the 'golden age' of the 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines major privately owned British railway companies before the First World War. Quantitative evidence is presented on return on capital employed (ROCE), total factor productivity (TFP) growth, cost inefficiency, and speed of passenger services. There were discrepancies in performance across companies but ROCE and TFP typically fell during our period. Cost inefficiency rose before 1900 but then was brought under control as a profits collapse loomed. Without the discipline of either strong competition or effective regulation, managerial failure was common. This sector is an important qualification to the conventional wisdom that late Victorian Britain did not fail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Levels of consumer borrowing and debt in the UK and globally continue to rise. Credit makes a vital contribution to the success of the UK economy by driving economic activity and allowing consumers flexibility in how they choose to access the marketplace and manage their finances. Although most consumers manage their borrowing effectively, for a minority, the ease of access to credit results in overindebtedness. As a consequence, the need for money advice is prevalent. In the UK in recent years, services have been developed to assist consumers in financial difficulty. In Scotland, additional funding has been made available to enable further service developments in local government or voluntary sector provision. This paper reviews the literature on consumer overindebtedness, the development of money advice services and discusses the quality of these services in Scotland. It is likely to be of interest in other countries where consumer overindebtedness is rising and where money advice services are being developed to assist those experiencing problems. The review found that the rising levels of overindebtedness justify the case for developing money advice services but that there are many quality issues which require to be managed. Implications for the money advice profession were identified together with suggestions for the development of services in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper discusses the degree to which recent trends in UK policy-making amount to a paradigm shift towards the prescriptions of ecological modernization (EM) theory. First, in keeping with EM's ‘win–win’ philosophy, recent political speeches and policy documents on the environment have expressed the idea that there is no conflict between environmental protection and economic growth. Second, policies have attempted to encourage the invention and diffusion of clean technologies. Third, policy-makers have explored innovative market-based policy approaches to tackle environmental problems. These three trends suggest UK policy-makers' predilection towards EM as a policy strategy. However, there has arguably been less success in terms of a fourth key characteristic of ‘ecologically modernized’ states, that of environmental policy integration. The paper concludes that New Labour's failure at ‘greening government’, combined with its economistic and technocratic policy focus, places the UK at the weak end of Christoff's (1996) weak–strong continuum of ecological modernization. As such, environmental imperatives continue to remain ideologically and politically peripheral to conventional economic goals. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the pattern of educational homogamy in Ireland and Britain. Using contemporary data on recent marriages from the early 1970s through to the mid-1990s, we show that these two countries share a broadly similar pattern of educational homogamy, which is quasi-symmetric in character, with no tendency for women to marry up over and above that which can be attributed to the gender difference in educational attainment. In the 1970s, the strength of homogamy was much weaker in Ireland than in Britain. But we discern a clear inter-country difference in how the net strength of homogamy has changed over time. While it has declined in Britain since the 1970s, in Ireland the strength of homogamy has first increased and then levelled off. Our findings are inconsistent with the inverted U-shaped relationship between economic development and homogamy reported by Smits, Ultee and Lammers (1998) - an argument premised on secular change in the criteria of spouse selection. Instead, our results are better understood in terms of Mare's (1991) life course argument that homogamy is inversely related to the time-gap between school departure and first marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the characteristics of 354 directors of Britain's largest companies. Three sections of independent variables were analysed: those relating to the economic environ; those relating to the domestic environ—family background and educational experiences; those relating to self-concept. Directors were categorized according to the economic performance of their industries—GOGOs (industries in growth); YOYOs (industries in turbulence); and DODOs (industries in decline). Several differences emerged between the characteristics of directors and the economic success of their industries for which they were strategically influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines an evaluation of the policies of technology strategies and local economic development in a new paradigm. It explores a paradigm shift in technology strategies which took place in local government during the 1980s and early 1990s and develops a new ‘model’. Set within the practical perspective to role changes, Manchester City Council's experience is used to examine how this paradigm shift has occurred in practice, reflecting developing ‘enabling’ and ‘partnership’ roles in local government. The ways in which private sector best practice technology strategies can be adapted to a local economic scenario are identified, alongside barriers to their effective implementation. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT(**): Utilities in the UK have undergone dramatic reform in the past fifteen years. This paper assesses the outcome by reviewing previously published work and introducing some new evidence, and assesses the UK Government's 1998 proposed reforms. We outline the impact of change of ownership, re-regulation and introducing competition on efficiency, investment, quality of service, prices and equity. We conclude that these reforms can yield benefits if they are undertaken within a clear framework of wider social and environmental benefits. Initial regulation in the UK has not always satisfied these criteria, and we welcome the government's proposed reforms, with some caveats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]