Working to Rule: The Damaging Economics of UK Employment Regulation
Working to Rule: The Damaging Economics of UK Employment Regulation

Author: J. R. Shackleton

Publisher: London Publishing Partnership

Published: 2017-05-19

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 0255367449

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Employment regulation has been growing rapidly. This has not exclusively, or even mainly, come from the European Union. Recent UK governments have added such significant new measures as the National Living Wage, workplace pensions and the Apprenticeship Levy. The costs of such regulation are frequently assumed – by both advocates and opponents – to fall on business profits. This isn’t so, except in the very short run. They are instead transferred in part to consumers, but mainly to employees themselves. Mandated benefits – longer holidays or extended maternity leave – mean reduced pay growth and fewer job opportunities. Anti-discrimination laws lead to fewer openings for disadvantaged groups, while employment protection legislation worsens job prospects for the young. Excessive regulation acts as a barrier to entry, shielding incumbents and deterring the foundation of new enterprises. Attempts to restrict new types of employment in the ‘gig’ economy are counterproductive, serving ‘insiders’ at the expense of ‘outsiders’. This book combines a history of employment laws with detailed analysis of the troublesome effects of various interventions. The author argues for a fundamental rethink. Some basic labour market regulation may still be necessary, but far less than we currently have.

Working to Rule
Working to Rule

Author: J. R. Shackleton

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780255367431

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Employment law has been growing rapidly. This has not exclusively or even mainly come from the European Union. Recent UK governments have added such significant new measures as the National Living Wage, workplace pensions and the Apprenticeship Levy. The costs of such regulation are frequently assumed - by both advocates and opponents - to fall on business profits. This isn't so, except in the very short run. They are instead transferred in part to consumers, but mainly to employees themselves. Mandated benefits - longer holidays or extended maternity leave, mean reduced pay growth and fewer job opportunities. Anti-discrimination laws lead to fewer openings for disadvantaged groups, while employment protection legislation worsens job prospects for the young. Excessive regulation acts as a barrier to entry, shielding incumbents and deterring the foundation of new enterprises. Attempts to restrict new types of employment in the 'gig' economy are counterproductive, serving 'insiders' at the expense of 'outsiders'. This book combines a history of employment laws with analysis of the troublesome effects of various interventions. The author argues for a fundamental rethink. Some basic labour market regulation may still be necessary, but far less than we currently have.

Against the Grain: Insights from an Economic Contrarian
Against the Grain: Insights from an Economic Contrarian

Author: Paul Ormerod

Publisher: London Publishing Partnership

Published: 2018-04-24

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0255367562

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Economists and economics have been harshly criticised recently. This book accepts many of the criticisms of conventional theory but argues that the fundamental insights of economics are capable of reinterpretation and reinvention to deal with a host of contemporary concerns – social networks, globalisation, pay inequality, climate change, automation and the growth of ‘nudge’ policy amongst many others. The author uses his weekly column in the London business newspaper City A.M. to explain new developments in economic thinking and empirical research to a general audience. This book reproduces many of his most provocative columns with accompanying commentary and full references. The author’s witty and informed analysis of events provides an ideal introduction to important ideas for anybody interested in how the modern economy works.

Getting the Measure of Money: A Critical Assessment of UK Monetary Indicators
Getting the Measure of Money: A Critical Assessment of UK Monetary Indicators

Author: Anthony J. Evans

Publisher: London Publishing Partnership

Published: 2018-12-06

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0255367686

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How much money is circulating in the United Kingdom? The question sounds simple. In fact, it is notoriously difficult to answer, because what counts as money is not a straightforward matter. A variety of measures have been advanced, and they tell different stories about the changing supply of money in an economy. These differences are of more than merely academic interest, because measures of the money supply are inputs to the decisions of central banks. Wrong answers can lead to wrong actions, with potentially devastating economic effects. This book examines the measure of money and, in that light, the actions of the Bank of England in in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath. It is essential reading for anyone interested in money, measures of its quantity, and the relationship between the money supply and the economic cycle.

The Sharing Economy: Its Pitfalls and Promises
The Sharing Economy: Its Pitfalls and Promises

Author: Michael C. Munger

Publisher: Do Sustainability

Published: 2021-08-12

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 0255367929

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Transactions have always taken place. For hundreds of years that ‘place’ was a market or, more recently, a shopping mall. But in the past two decades these physical locations have increasingly been replaced by their virtual counterparts – online platforms. Here, author Michael C. Munger demonstrates how these platforms act as matchmakers or middlemen, a role traders have adopted since the very first exchanges thousands of years ago. The difference today is that the matchmakers often play no direct part in buying or selling anything – they just help buyers and sellers find each other. Their major contribution has been to reduce the costs of organising and completing purchases, rentals or exchanges. The Sharing Economy: Its Pitfalls and Promises contends that the key role of online platforms is to create reductions in transaction costs and it highlights the importance of three ‘Ts’ - triangulation, transfer and trust – in bringing down those costs.

Raising the Roof: How to Solve the United Kingdom's Housing Crisis
Raising the Roof: How to Solve the United Kingdom's Housing Crisis

Author: Jacob Rees-Mogg

Publisher: London Publishing Partnership

Published: 2019-10-10

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 025536783X

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Raising the Roof addresses one of the key issues of our era – the UK’s housing crisis. Housing costs in the United Kingdom are among the highest on the planet, with London virtually the most expensive major city in the world for renting or buying a home. At the core of this is one of the most centralised planning systems in the democratic world – a system that plainly doesn’t work. A system that has resulted in too few houses, which are too small, which people do not like and which are in the wrong places, a system that stifles movement and breeds Nimbyism. The IEA’s 2018 Richard Koch Breakthrough Prize, with a first prize of £50,000, sought free-market solutions to this complex and divisive problem. Here, Breakthrough Prize judge Jacob Rees-Mogg and IEA Senior Research Analyst Radomir Tylecote critique a complex system of planning and taxation that has signally failed to provide homes, preserve an attractive environment and enhance our cities. They then draw from the winning entries to the Breakthrough Prize, and previous IEA research, to put forward a series of radical and innovative measures – from releasing vast swathes of government-owned land to relaxing the suffocating grip of the green belt. Together with cutting and devolving tax, and reforms to allow cities to both densify and beautify, this would create many more homes and help restore property-owning democracy in the UK.

School Choice around the World
School Choice around the World

Author: Christopher J. Counihan

Publisher: London Publishing Partnership

Published: 2019-06-06

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 0255367805

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This volume of essays examines the empirical evidence on school choice in different countries across Europe, North America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It demonstrates the advantages which choice offers in different institutional contexts, whether it be Free Schools in the UK, voucher systems in Sweden or private-proprietor schools for low-income families in Liberia. Everywhere experience suggests that parents are ‘active choosers’: they make rational and considered decisions, drawing on available evidence and responding to incentives which vary from context to context. Government educators frequently downplay the importance of choice and try to constrain the options parents have. But they face increasing resistance: the evidence is that informed parents drive improvements in school quality. Where state education in some developing countries is particularly bad, private bottom-up provision is preferred even though it costs parents money which they can ill-afford. This book is both a collection of inspiring case studies and a call to action.

Education, War and Peace: The Surprising Success of Private Schools in War-Torn Countries
Education, War and Peace: The Surprising Success of Private Schools in War-Torn Countries

Author: James Tooley

Publisher: London Publishing Partnership

Published: 2017-09-21

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 0255367473

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The authors of Education, War & Peace travelled to Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Sudan to conduct research on education in these conflict-affected countries. They uncovered an inspiring story of entrepreneurs stepping into the breach and providing low-cost private schooling to large numbers of children in areas where government was not working well and basic infrastructure had been destroyed. For-profit schools also expanded quickly to soak up educational demand once the conflicts were over. The fees were affordable to families on the poverty line and the children did better academically than those in government schools. Yet international agencies continue to promote government-run schools, even though state education has been a major source of both conflict and corruption in these countries. This groundbreaking study advocates a different approach. Low-cost private schools should be welcomed by policymakers as a means of providing high quality educational opportunities for all.

The Henry Fords of Healthcare: ...Lessons the West Can Learn from the East
The Henry Fords of Healthcare: ...Lessons the West Can Learn from the East

Author: Nima Sanandaji

Publisher: London Publishing Partnership

Published: 2020-02-27

Total Pages: 103

ISBN-13: 0255367899

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How can health services in the UK and Europe be improved? And can costs be reduced at the same time? Over the years, many ideas have been put forward – from increased spending on preventive healthcare to the better use of technology to reduce bureaucracy and ‘pay for performance’ schemes. But author Nima Sanandaji says this is merely tinkering at the margins. What’s needed, he argues, is a completely new approach – one which embraces disruptive innovations from a new breed of entrepreneurs. Allowing true entrepreneurialism in healthcare might be considered extreme in a Western setting – but he points to a spectacular wave of success in the East to support his case. In India, Thailand, China and the Middle East, entrepreneurs have drawn inspiration from the motor industry to streamline procedures and create economies of scale. In areas such as heart surgery, they’ve dramatically driven down costs – and dramatically improved outcomes. So much so that the new market economies of the East are now, he contends, many steps of ahead of the West. In The Henry Fords of Healthcare Sanandaji outlines the lessons the West can now learn from the East, making a radical, compelling and controversial contribution to the debate on our own ailing health systems.

Financial Stability without Central Banks
Financial Stability without Central Banks

Author: George Selgin

Publisher: London Publishing Partnership

Published: 2018-01-04

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13: 0255367538

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George Selgin is one of the world's foremost monetary historians. In this book, based on the 2016 Hayek Memorial Lecture, he shows how a system of private banks without a central bank can bring about financial stability through self-regulation. If one bank stretches credit too far, it will be reined in by the others before the system as a whole gets out of control. The banks have a strong incentive to ensure an orderly resolution if a particular bank is facing insolvency or illiquidity. Selgin draws on evidence from the era of 'free banking' in Scotland and Canada. These arrangements enjoyed greater financial stability, with fewer banking crises, than the English system with its central bank and the US model with its faulty government regulation. The creation of the Federal Reserve appears to have increased the frequency of financial crises. The book also includes commentaries by Kevin Dowd and Mathieu Bédard. Dowd asks whether free-banking systems should be underpinned by a gold standard, which he regards as a tried-and-tested institution at the heart of their success. Bédard challenges the assumption that the banking sector is inherently unstable and therefore requires state intervention. He argues that increases in government control have made the banking system more prone to crisis.