Blog
2015
Making sense of fiscal devolution in public-sector service delivery
Kevin Muldoon-Smith & Paul Greenhalgh - 22 December 2015Local authorities will be expected to fend for themselves within a new model of civic financialisation and entrepreneurialism
Cannabis in the USA Part II: … losing the (drug) war?
Matt Bishop - 17 December 2015Reforms represent just one battle in a bigger war that is far from over
Social exclusion and labour rights in the banlieues of Paris
Heather Connolly - 16 December 2015Trade unions can support the integration of migrants and minorities in France and must do so more actively in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks
Cannabis in the USA Part I: winning the battle…
Matt Bishop - 15 December 2015Ambitious reforms to cannabis policy in the US are long overdue, with cracks finally appearing in the edifice of the failed ‘War on Drugs’
Berry’s ‘disoriented left’ and the possibilities of an alternative
Dan Silver - 10 December 2015Connecting abstract ideas about political economy with people’s everyday lives is what politics in the UK should now be about
Bad things can still happen to ‘good pupils’ in the Eurozone
Neil Dooley - 09 December 2015Portugal’s aspirant ‘good behaviour’ has contributed not only to its recent political crisis, but also its longstanding economic woes
‘Old’ leftism, made new?
Stephanie L. Mudge - 08 December 2015An important part of the ‘Millennial’ appeal of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Bernie Sanders in the US lies in the economic insecurity of younger generations
Will devolution bring an economic and democratic dividend?
Dan Bailey & Matt Wood - 03 December 2015Our briefing for the New Economics Foundation (NEF) supports the existing literature in suggesting that such a relationship cannot be taken for granted
Back to a Trade Union Bill in the United Kingdom
Jason Heyes - 02 December 2015The new majority Conservative government seems to be seeking to complete some of its unfinished business from the 1980s
The rise and fall of the World Bank’s global pension model
Martin Heneghan - 01 December 2015The global economic crisis has prompted the rapid demise of a treasured neoliberal pet project
SPERI spotlight on the UN climate summit V
Martin Craig - 30 November 2015From the politics of climate summitry to the political economy of climate-change mitigation
SPERI spotlight on the UN climate summit IV
Greg Fry - 26 November 2015Climate diplomacy in the Pacific region
SPERI spotlight on the UN climate summit III
Matthew Patersen - 25 November 2015Beyond ‘Deadline Multilateralism’
Who governs local economies?
Tom Hunt - 24 November 2015Cities like Sheffield need more skilled jobs, but delivering them has to be both a national and a local priority
TPP time in America
David Coates - 23 November 2015President Obama may view this as his legacy, but it may well not be something of which he will long be proud
SPERI spotlight on the UN climate summit II
Sian Sullivan - 19 November 2015On climate change ontologies and the spirit(s) of oil
SPERI spotlight on the UN climate summit I
Hayley Stevenson - 17 November 2015Democratising decarbonisation after the COP
What next for Labour’s ABC tendency
Tony Payne - 29 September 2015The party desperately needs to go back and come fully to terms with what went right and what went wrong during the Blair/Brown era
The self-protection of European society (inside and outside the EU)
Owen Parker - 24 September 2015Growing political turmoil in Greece, Spain and Turkey could be a precursor to a Polanyian ‘great transformation’ away from neoliberalism
Innovation, research and the UK’s productivity crisis
Richard Jones - 23 September 2015Continuing on our current path of stagnating productivity and stagnating innovation isn’t inevitable: it’s a political choice
The Scottish Indyref, one year on
Arianna Giovannini - 22 September 2015Devolution in England ignores the key lessons from Scotland’s referendum
Political party conferences: A look ahead
Michael Kenny, Tim Bale & Andrew Gamble - 17 September 2015As the party conferences get underway this weekend three experienced analysts share their thoughts on what we might expect to hear at the Lib Dem, Labour and Conservative conferences, and the challenges facing each party.
Paul Romer on mathiness and orthodox economics methodology
Matthew Watson - 16 September 2015Recent criticisms of the mathiness of many economists has raised the question within the blogosphere of whether a fundamental fault-line has now punctured economics orthodoxy
You wanted it, you got it
Craig Berry - 14 September 2015New Labour offered change for two decades, without ever really meaning it. Jeremy Corbyn is the near-inevitable consequence
Wellbeing and happiness
Ian Bache - 10 September 2015These two concepts are different: conflating them can undermine the potential for progressive change
Getting ready for Donald Trump
David Coates - 09 September 2015It is time to begin worrying about his misguided, superficial and bombastic approach to US problems and politics
The political economy of ‘good parenting’
Daniela Tepe-Belfrage, Alex Nunn & Shirin Rai - 08 September 2015‘Good parenting’ is grounded in a white middle-class ideal of what the family is and thus shifts responsibility for nurturing from society to individuals, mostly women
The political difficulties of ‘Corbynomics’
Andrew Baker - 03 September 2015The problems are not really the economics at all, but much more the politics
The real political economy of Ireland
Neil Dooley - 02 September 2015Contrary to official EU claims, Ireland tells a cautionary tale, undeserving of its current poster-child status
Austerity rests on a thesis the government doesn’t believe in
Tom Hunt & Craig Berry - 01 September 2015Concentration of infrastructure investment in areas with high levels of business activity suggests the government is unconcerned by ‘crowding out’
Citizenship in a financialised society
Craig Berry - 28 August 2015The Conservative government’s promotion of financialisation is transforming citizenship in the UK
Variations in austerity-based reform
Thomas Hastings - 26 August 2015PIIGS and GIPSIs may appear to face common problems, but we should always respect the uniqueness of each country’s particular crisis
Brazil’s ‘neodevelopmentalism’: autopsy and adjustment
Giselle Datz - 19 August 2015The problems the Brazilian economy now faces reveal that ‘hybrid’ development models are no panacea for sustained growth
Child poverty and the unravelling of New Labour’s ‘hybrid’ political economy
Scott Lavery - 12 August 2015Cameron claims to lead a ‘One Nation’ government, but pursues a ‘two nations’ governing strategy
Independence by increments
Paul Sutton - 05 August 2015The SNP still pushes ‘full fiscal autonomy’ even though this will make Scotland worse off financially
A terminal crisis of Anglo-America?
Jeremy Green - 30 July 2015In the wake of the global financial crisis new strains have emerged within the US-UK ‘Special Relationship’
Transport investment and the North’s development dilemmas
Tom Hunt & Craig Berry - 28 July 2015The gap between rhetoric and reality with regard to transport investment in the North of England encapsulates all the problems of Northern economic development