One view of Active Labour Market Programmes (ALMPs) is that they are 'most needed in slack labour markets, where more unemployed workers require help finding jobs. But ALMPs might be less effective in such labour markets because there are fewer vacancies with which programme participants can...

We show how to obtain the exact power envelope of tests for a unit root against trend-stationary alternatives, under normality. This is in contrast to the asymptotic power envelope derived by Elliott, Rothenberg and Stock (1996), and is used to indicate the lack of power of unit root tests in...

The paper examines the time-series evidence relating to participation rates in further education in England and Wales, and uses cointegration analysis to identify a long-run statistical relationship in the data consistent with an augmented human-capital model. The recent rapid growth of...

A two-country differentiated duopoly model is set out in which economic integration increases firms' incentives to invest in R&D, purely through the effect of increased intensity of competition between firms. The model is extended to incorporate knowledge spillovers, which, if related to the...

This paper investigates the effect of exchange rate volatility on US-UK bilateral trade flows. As part of econometric problems arising from a generated variable, we consider a special case when an ARCH type auxiliary model is used to measure uncertainty in the exchange rate and discuss a...

Unemployment benefits often reduce incentives to search for a job. Policymakers have responded to this behaviour by setting minimum job search requirements, by monitoring to check that unemployment benefit recipients are engaged in the appropriate level of job search activity, and by imposing...

The emerging literature studying the association between exposure to ambient air pollution and Parkinson's Disease (PD) so far draws mixed conclusions. This study provides new evidence on this issue using data from a large and nationally representative cohort tracked over an extended period. We...