Peer support workers - people with their own lived experience of mental illness - provide mutually supportive relationships in secondary mental health services. Increasing numbers are being employed, both in this country and elsewhere. But good quality evidence on the effectiveness of this form...

Unrealistic optimism is a well documented phenomenon. This paper argues that it is important in many economic contexts. Focusing on start-up finance for businesses, optimism may be responsible for or consistent with features such as credit rationing or redlining that are normally taken as...

Making an impact: reply to Overman Graham Haughton, Iain Deas, Stephen Hincks What ‘should’ urban policy do? A further response to Graham Haughton, Iain Deas, and Stephen Hincks Henry Overman

We present a model of the maturity of a bank’s uninsured debt. The bank borrows funds and chooses afterwards the riskiness of its assets. This moral hazard problem leads to an excessive level of risk. Short-term debt may have a disciplining effect on the bank’s risk-shifting incentives, but...

The experience from the global financial crisis has raised serious concerns about the accuracy of standard risk measures as tools for the quantification of extreme downward risk. A key reason for this is that risk measures are subject to model risk due, e.g., to specification and estimation...

Classical dimensional analysis in its original form starts by expressing the units for derived quantities, such as force, in terms of power products of basic units etc. This suggests the use of toric ideal theory from algebraic geometry. Within this the Graver basis provides a unique primitive...

In this paper, we extend the literature on crash prediction models in three main respects. First, we relate explicitly crash prediction measures and asset pricing models. Second, we present a simple, effective statistical significance test for crash prediction models. Finally, we propose a...

This new SSATP discussion paper reviews the experience of an apparently successful corridor to help understand optimal mix and trade-offs in reviving historical trade route. The Maputo Corridor, which had fallen in disuse during the troubled period in Mozambique, is widely regarded as one the...

We live in an urban age. Over half the world’s population now lives in urban areas, while the urban population is expected to reach 60% by 2030. At the same time, the importance of cities for national economic growth and climate change continues to increase. Three groups of cities will be...

This paper explains the nonneutrality of money from two assumptions: (1) consumers dislike paying prices that exceed some fair markup on firms’ marginal costs; and (2) consumers under infer marginal costs from available information. After an increase in money supply, consumers underappreciate...