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Do patents help or hinder innovation?
Innovation matters because there are limits to simply copying or imitating what rival firms have managed to achieve. Do patents help or hinder innovation?
Vertical restraint and monopoly power
Vertical restraints involve exclusive deals between businesses. To what extent do they break the norms of market competition and lead to higher monopoly profits and a loss of consumer welfare? or...
A Short Primer on the Chinese Economy
Here is a very useful twenty minute primer lecture from Chatham House on the Chinese economy. Since undertaking economic reform in 1978, China has experienced the fastest sustained expansion by a...
Defending Globalisation - Special Report from the Economist
One of those must read enrichment articles for students interested in globalisation and its discontents. Naturally the Economist favours a world with fewer tariff and non-tariff barriers but there...
Quantitative Easing - BBC Briefing Room
A good resource for students and teachers. In this episode of the BBC radio 4 series, The Briefing Room (broadcast in September 2015), David Aaronovitch explores how QE works and examines the...
Behavioral Economics of Pro-Social Plastic Bag Tax
Which works best, the carrot or the stick? In this short interview one of our favourite behavioural economists Joe Gladstone, Assistant Professor at University College London, discusses the plastic...
Is the world suffering a curse of cash?
Harvard economist Ken Rogoff has a new book out called The Curse of Cash. In his view, the world is awash with cash and it’s making us poorer and less safe. Would we be better off in a world...
What does Brexit mean? A new short film
"Brexit means Brexit", but what does this mean? Our friends at Econ Films have interviewed over a dozen economists from a range of fields, and made this quick video explaining the biggest issues...
Britain's Government Debt - Who is Buying It?
This is a superbly clear short video from the Financial Times on how the UK government must compete on then global market for investors prepared to buy new issues of gilts (government bonds).
Globalisation and the Elephant Chart
The FT’s Chris Giles reports on a study by the Resolution Foundation that shows that globalisation does not appear to have hurt the lower middle classes in wealthy countries
China and the New Industrial Revolution
This is a hugely important and timely paper on the fast-changing Chinese economy which is perfect for second year Economics students with a real interest in the Chinese transition debate. There is...
The Chasm in Youth Unemployment Rates in Europe
This remarkably pertinent and thoughtful article from the Guardian contrasts two regions of one single market - Calabria (Italy) and Bavaria (Germany) which have vastly different rates of youth...
Why Chinese cities will drive the next phase of their growth
The economics of urbanisation, agglomeration economies and other network effects are explored in this article which argues that Chinese cities with a critical mass of middle-income consumers will...
Martin Wolf on threats to globalisation
Martin Wolf talks here about some of the themes in a major article he has written for the Financial Times on de-globalisation.
Beyond GDP? Welfare across Countries and Time
Two economists at Stanford University in the USA have published a new paper in the American Economic Review surveying an alternative to GDP per capita as a benchmark for economic welfare.
Harnessing FDI in Africa
Professor John Sutton from the London School of Economics discusses how African countries can attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and why it's crucial for creating jobs. Professor Sutton has...
Stiglitz on Seven Reforms to Save the Euro
In his new book on the structural problems undermining the European single currency project, US economist and Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz argues that a number of reforms are needed in order...
Can Africa sustain progress in cutting extreme poverty?
The global macroeconomic headwinds have moved against many sub Saharan African commodity exporters in the last few years as the terms of trade have deteriorated following a fall in world prices....
New evidence on financial cycles
Financial cycles are long – on average twice the length of business cycles. At the same time, there is substantial heterogeneity of national cycles across G-7 countries, ranging from very similar...
During the 1980s, US wage inequality increased sharply while college education expanded strikingly. Are these two historical episodes unrelated? A new study by Theodore Koutmeridis, presented at...