Housing transactions and macroeconomic fluctuations: a case study of England and Wales

This paper focuses on the drivers for transactions of residential properties using England and Wales as a case study. We present a non-technical discussion of a theoretical framework that rationalizes the positive correlation of income, housing prices and housing transactions over the business cycle. We then extend the theoretical framework to explain how the credit market liberalization of the early 1980s, demographic changes and construction activity have affected the trend in housing transactions and contributed to making the 1980s a period of exceptionally high transaction levels in England and Wales. We present evidence in support of the view that housing demand fluctuations have been the key driver of housing transactions, in particular, changes in housing demand from first-time buyers.     

Migration within England and Wales and the Housing Market

Economic conditions exert a strong influence on regional migration. On the one hand, strong labour market conditions, as exemplified by low unemployment rates and high earnings, draw migrants into regions. On the other hand, strong housing market conditions can prevent movement since commuting may often be an alternative to migration. This can be thought of as giving rise to a migration equilibrium where high house prices choke off migration caused by strong labour market conditions. Expected capital gains in housing, however, can offset high levels of house prices, an effect ignored in previous literature. Migration can also be influenced more directly by the availability of housing relative to population without this being mediated through prices. This paper, by Gavin Cameron, John Muellbauer and Anthony Murphy, presents evidence on inter‐regional net and gross migration between the regions of England and Wales that is broadly in accord with these expectations.     

Management Selection In Local Government: A Survey of Practice In England and Wales

Richard Williams, who is a Lecturer in the Department of Occupational Psychology at Birkbeck College, reports on the findings of a large-scale postal questionnaire survey on management selection practices in local government in England and Wales. He compares the results with those of surveys in the private sector and discusses the similarities and differences.     

城市水土流失及其防治对策

本文阐述了城市水土流失的概念 ,论述了城市水土流失的现状及特点 ;分析了城市水土流失的成因及其对城市排水和生态环境造成的危害 ,并提出了城市水土流失的防治对策。     

On the incentives to experiment in federations

Conventional wisdom has it that policy innovation is better promoted in a federal rather than in a unitary system. Recent research, however, has provided theoretical evidence to the contrary: a multi-jurisdictional system is characterized—due to the existence of a horizontal information externality—by under-provision of policy innovation. This paper presents a simple model that introduces political competition for federal office and emphasizes that such competition plays an important role in shaping the incentives for experimentation. For, in this case, political actors use the innovative policies to signal ability to the electorate. This effect may offset the effect that arises from the incentive to free ride, and so a federal system may generate more innovation than a unitary one.     

Accounting for change in public sector industrial relations: the erosion of national bargaining in further education in England and Wales

The recent transformation of industrial relations in further education in England and Wales is examined, in particular the role of the national ‘Silver Book’ dispute over lecturers’ conditions of service in causing the erosion of national bargaining in the sector. The experience of further education points to the limits of the strategic choice approach as a device for explaining change in public sector industrial relations and to the importance of supplementing it with a perspective that emphasises the role of power.     

Feedback and incentives: Experimental evidence

This paper experimentally investigates the impact of different pay schemes and relative performance feedback policies on employee effort. We explore three feedback rules: no feedback on relative performance, feedback given halfway through the production period, and continuously updated feedback. We use two pay schemes, a piece rate and a tournament. We find that overall feedback does not improve performance. In contrast to the piece-rate pay scheme there is some evidence of positive peer effects in tournaments since the underdogs almost never quit the competition even when lagging significantly behind, and front runners do not slack off. But in both pay schemes relative performance feedback reduces the quality of the low performers' work; we refer to this as a “negative quality peer effect”.     

Water losses and hydrographical regions influence on the cost structure of the Portuguese water industry

Despite the growing research about water utilities, some questions still remain to be solved on the supply side, which are frequently absent from empirical studies based on the estimation of cost functions. This paper aims to fill to some extent this gap in the literature by focusing the consequences of water losses reduction and the management of water resources based on their availability at an integrated river basin level. Major findings derived from the estimation of a multiproduct cost function suggest advantages from reducing water losses, given that an adjusted measure of economies of scope, adapting the fact that water lost cannot be sold, reveals that there are small diseconomies of scope. In addition, generally the variables related to the hydrographical regions used have significant effects on water costs. Since the outcomes also reveal the existence of economies of scale, more concentration in the Portuguese water industry at the retail level would be beneficial.     

Continuity and convergence: reduction of water pollution in the Norwegian paper industry1

This article investigates the reduction of water pollution at four Norwegian paper mills from the early 1970s until 1997. Especially during the 1990s water pollution from the mills has converged at a relatively low level. This is due to changes in the production processes, implementation of a common environmental strategy and investment in research and development. Over the years environmental improvements have become an integrated part of the technological trajectory in this industry. A common understanding of the problems and possible solutions between government and industry is one reason why we can talk about a greener technological trajectory. One reason for this common understanding is that the regulation of environmental problems in the paper industry has been based on the principles in Norwegian industrial policy. Integration of these principles into a site‐specific environmental policy meant that questions concerning the regional economy were judged against local water pollution problems. This means that the regulation of the paper industry has to be seen in both a historical, geographical and institutional context. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.     

Reviewing Bank of England Independence: The Report of the Bank of England Commission

In this article, Geoffrey Williams outlines the main findings and recommendations of the independent Bank of England Commission set up by the Conservative Party to review the performance of the United Kingdom's monetary policy framework. Its final report published earlier this month, recommended that operational independence of the Bank of England should be retained but that important improvements can be made to how policy is conducted. These include even greater transparency in policy decisions, changing the inflation target and creating a new Parliamentary Committee and possibly a new Council of Economic Advisers to provide for the UK the clearest possible democratic and professional scrutiny of economic policy.     

The art of saying thank you: A case study on the bushfires in New South Wales,Australia

This paper looks at the response from charitable organisations to donations sent after the bushfires in New South Wales. Thank you letters from the various charities are given in full and their contents analysed.     

城市设计纳入控规管控的路径探索——以宁波市控规实践为例

当前,城市设计作为非法定规划,其在城市空间塑造上有独特的优势[1],可弥补控规编制过程中对三维空间管控的不足,城市设计纳入控规是实现控规精细化管控的必然途径.在构建国土空间规划体系的大背景下,针对宁波城市设计纳入控规的困境,借鉴国内先行城市的经验,提出了优化技术手段,明确分区、分类、分级管控,完善技术规范等建议,将城市设计纳入控规管控体系中实现法定化,指导后续城市发展建设.     

Degrees of tax indexation and nominal interest rates: Effects of inflation on incentives to save and invest

This paper examines the effects of inflation expectations on nominal interest rates, and incentives to save and invest under partial and complete tax indexation schemes. One would expect that a partially indexed structure would be better than a non-indexed system. However, this is not the case—it reduces the adverse effects of inflation on the incentives to save, but accentuates them on the incentives to invest. Moreover, a change from a non-indexed tax structure to a fully-indexed structure will, ceteris paribus, lead to lower equilibrium interest rates, whereas a switch to a partially indexed system will imply higher rates.

Collateral,loan guarantees,and the lenders’ incentives to resolve financial distress

This paper proposes that the timing for when collateral is pledged will affect the lenders’ incentives to resolve financial distress. It demonstrates that, if the amount of collateral pledged in a loan contract exceeds a critical value, the borrower's project may be inefficiently liquidated once he becomes financially distressed. It also shows that a fairly priced loan guarantee provided by a third party can partially alleviate this inefficient liquidation problem. This paper predicts that riskier borrowers will pledge more collateral, which is consistent with the empirical findings of Berger and Udell [Berger, A. N., & Udell, G. F. (1990). Collateral, loan quality, and bank risk. Journal of Monetary Economics, 25, 21–42] and Leeth and Scott [Leeth, J. D., & Scott, J. A. (1989). The incidence of secured debt: evidence from the small business community. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 24, 379–394].     

泰德：中国监管体系让我想起了美国的监管制度

很多外国公司认为,中国政府对待他们的态度和对待外国投资者态度一样,变得越来越不友好。美国报纸报道,美国公司最近越发关注中国法律的不平等性。     

衡钢水系统降硬节水实施可行性研究

针对衡钢各分厂循环水硬度较高和工业新水用水量较大的问题,文章通过清洁生产系统分析方法查找问题产生的原因,并提出解决思路和具体措施。当该项目实施完成后,该厂用水消耗达到钢铁企业国内基本清洁生产水平,将取得明显的环境效益和经济效益。     

Injecting incentives into the solution of social problems: Social Policy Bonds

There seems little chance of achieving many social objectives, given that the ways in which they are being pursued fail to harness self-interest. A way forward is to create a new financial instrument - Social Policy Bonds - which would be auctioned by government. The bonds would be tradable and would be redeemed only when a specified social objective had been achieved.     

Nepotism,incentives and the academic success of college students

This study investigates the role of parent-owned businesses on children's college success and post-college aspirations by using a unique data set from a private university in Turkey. The data set matches college students' administrative records with survey responses. The presence of self-employed parents and family businesses has a strong negative association with college success even after accounting for observed ability, parental background, and various individual characteristics. An explanation for the lower GPAs of the children of self-employed parents is that in the presence of parent-owned businesses students have a larger set of post-graduation options and are more likely to plan on becoming self-employed due to intergenerational transfer of self-employment. Hence, these students may not exert as much effort in acquiring the task-specific career-oriented human capital taught in college. In line with expectations, we find that the children of self-employed parents are more likely to have entrepreneurial intent and are less likely to plan to attend graduate school.     

Wage incentives and wage rigidity: A representative view from within

A recent literature has used surveys of those who set wages to learn about the nature of wage incentives and the sources of wage rigidity. Methodologically, we overcome many of the objections that have been raised against this work. Substantively, we find that: (i) the reasons for real wage rigidity differ significantly between large and small firms, and between the high- and low-end of the labor market; (ii) efficiency wage mechanisms reinforce rigidities due to worker bargaining power; (iii) money illusion is a widespread phenomenon across all segments of the labor market; (iv) unions reinforce nominal wage rigidities due to external pay comparisons; (v) there appears to be gender differences in pay bargaining and work morale.