Changing bankruptcy law has given firms time to adapt and recover
Bankruptcies are costly, but economists worry about keeping doomed firms alive. Simeon Djankov (LSE) argues that restructuring bankruptcy laws has...
Opinion Pieces
Gendered laws curb Olympic success
Legal gender equality is key for female participation in the labour market. The association between women’s legal empowerment and success in sports is...
Why we don’t write more papers on political finance
Despite the commonly held views of economists on regulatory capture, our profession has been much more hesitant in recognising similar conflicts of...
Rebooting UK financial regulation for the post-Brexit world
Recognising the critical role that financial markets will play in the success of the UK’s post-Brexit economy, the Treasury is now engaged in a review...
Epidemic exposure, fintech adoption, and the digital divide
Although epidemics are frequently cited as inducing changes in economic behaviour and accelerating technological and behavioural trends, there may be...
Reducing the compliance costs of regulation
In much of the world, property sales are highly regulated and expensive. Using World Bank data, this column shows that while regulators and...
CEPS/ECMI Policy Brief – Why finalizing Basel III is good for the European banking sector
Basel III is an internationally agreed set of measures to strengthen the regulation, supervision and risk management of banks. Finalising the 2017...
Measuring human capital: Learning matters more than schooling
Human capital is a critical component of economic development. But the links between growth and human capital – when measured by years of schooling –...
SUERF Policy Brief – The way forward for EU-wide stress tests
EU-wide stress tests have constituted a very useful supervisory tool for increasing the resilience of the EU banking sector. This policy brief claims...
US business dynamism rises
Steep falls in entrepreneurial activity were recorded in early 2020 across G7 economies. In the US, however, the creation of US startups shot up by 24...
As COVID rages, bankruptcy cases fall
Bankruptcies have fallen sharply in OECD economies because of the array of COVID-related support available to businesses, as well as imposed moratoria...
Moral hazard, the fear of the markets, and how central banks responded to Covid-19
While the direct economic consequences of Covid-19 have been significant, the impact on the financial markets has been more nuanced. This column uses...
Vaccine challenges
Last week brought welcome news about the apparent effectiveness of a potential Covid-19 vaccine. While the challenges of manufacturing and...
Financial policymaking after crises: Public versus private interest
Financial crises invariably lead governments to intervene in one way or another, whether to ease the damage to middle-class voters, to respond to the...
Making furlough portable would encourage people to move into new jobs
Furlough is here to stay – in the UK, at least until March. The author argues that making part of furlough income portable would encourage people to...
How we learned to stop counting cases and worry about network effects instead
The commuter hub was key to the spread of COVID-19 in London. The authors of the article estimate it contributed to over 42% of all London cases. When...
