This paper considers aspects of the evolution of ownership and control in global industries from 1960. The existing literature usually uses the largest firms in industrialized countries, to provide generalizations about national systems of corporate governance. In practice, this characterization...

Modern economic growth – the simultaneous increase in population and average incomes – has been capitalism’s greatest achievement. This growth first became apparent in Britain in the nineteenth century and then spread to continental Europe (and the United States). The...

Where do we stand, five years on from the start of the crisis, on progress towards banking reform? Major advances have been made, but a lot of unfinished business remains, notably on structural reform of banks. Following a stock-take of current reform initiatives, the paper reviews some...

This paper uses demographic data drawn from Wrigley et al.s (1997) family reconstitutions of 26 English parishes to adjust Allen’s (2001) real wages to the changing demography of early moden England.  Using parity progression ratios (a fertility measure) and age specific mortality for...

This paper provides a historical look at how the multilateral trading system has coped with the challenge of shocks and shifts.  By shocks we mean sudden jolts to the world economy in the form of financial crises and deep recessions, or wars and political conflicts.  By shifts we mean...

British regions display persistent differences in both earnings and unemployment rates. A number of studies have found that in general, regions that have high unemployment tend to have low wages. This runs contrary to a compensating differentials argument that high wages should compensate for...

This study employs the pseudo-panel approach to estimate returns to education among income earners in Sri Lanka.  Pseudo-panel data are constructed from nine repreated cross-sections of Sri Lanka’s Labor Force Survey data from 1997-2008 for workers born during 1953-1974.  The results...

The paper presents trade policy as in line with that of other continental European powers, with a move to moderate levels of tariff protection for politically sensitive sectors such as steel and textiles and clothing, but also in agriculture, with levels of protection falling slightly before the...

In 1909 the United Kingdom Government introduced “super-taxâ€, which was an additional income tax levied on top incomes. This provided information on the distribution of total incomes that had not previously been available on a regular basis, since under the ordinary income tax, the...

The literature on carbon leakage has not yet benefitted from many of the insights of the ‘New Economic Geography’ (NEG).  Most studies assume both an absence of agglomeration forces and that factors do not move inter-regionally.  This paper develops a 2-region NEG model with...