Accidental Economist

bye bye (f*ck off) LONDON!

2008-01-07T05:31:00.000-08:00

Well, its come to this - 10 months after the birth of my first child, we're getting the f*ck out of London. Which is a shame, but mostly as the reasons for wanting to stay are a bit of a sad reflection on my life.

Reasons to stay:

laziness - we live in West London, and everything is 10 minutes walk away
jobs - we'll always get jobs here
house - we have a nice house, and its gone up in value a lot
pretentious sh*t - hell, I like nice coffees, organic food shops and obscure stuff

BUT! there's always a silver lining - Reasons to move

laziness - we're moving to central Cambridge - everything's 20 minutes walk away
jobs - Since I'll be working in Cambridge, I'll be able to work and have a semblance of normal life, and get out of the Londoner work ethos of panicking headless chickens. Chill the f*ck out Londoners. If you face adversity - have a laugh about it, get on with the job, get it done, but don't flap all the time about every little thing.
commuting - I'll be biking for 50 mins a day. In considerably less traffic. I'll save 1h 10 mins I would normally spend on the tube. Save it for tine with my son, or even some selfish hobby or interest of my own. Oh, and more time with the wife.
its not London! less dodgy people, less dirt and rubbish, less noise (no sirens all hours of the day and night), more green space, nicer friendlier people

I guess I'll miss the buzz of London, but at this time in my life I have neither the time or opportunity to enjoy it. For the next 10 years its time for the kids, and trying to get rid of as many hassles of urban living as possible, whilst maximising the benefits.

The Oscars - the departed!?

2007-02-28T06:39:00.000-08:00

the Departed - best film - no way!?

Marti deserves and Oscar, but not for this film. Admittedly, I've not seen ANY of the others on the shortlist but!

Mou gaan dou the original Hong Kong 2002 flick "Infernal Affairs" which The Departed is based on is far far superior as a movie! excellent, as is Infernal Affairs II. Infernal Affairs III sucked though.

And I thought The Last King of Scotland was a great Hollywood Movie - not a classic, but for an accessible blockbuster style movie it was great.

What does the Academy know, eh!?

Expanding global economy offers opportunities for growth, wealth and development shock

2006-12-20T07:17:00.000-08:00

I'm not normally one of the bloggers who simply shove other people's media pieces or reports at you, preferring to rely on original content or comment (hence the miserly level of posting).. but!

Dunno if you saw these articles in the FT today. They flip a few of the anti-globalisation and protectionist scaremongers' ideas on the head.

"western Europe, North America and Japan will this year still account for about three-quarters of world manufacturing output" http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4a5dc5c6-8942-11db-a876-0000779e2340.html

Based on a World Bank report “Global income has doubled since 1980, 450m have been lifted out of extreme poverty since 1990 and life expectancy in developing countries is now 65 on average.” http://www.ft.com/cms/s/eb0f4072-8f8b-11db-9ba3-0000779e2340.html

Well what a shock, eh - so globalisation, expanding global output and demand offers opportunities for western enterprises, generates wealth for developing countries and their residents. Well I never.

Global Competitiveness Index 2006

2006-09-27T03:48:00.000-07:00

Well - its out here

am guessing that its indicators of competitiveness, rather than actual economic performance. This tends to favour nations with significant presence of liquidity in financial markets, stable institutions, stable macroeconomies, innovation, education etc etc

Tends to be the most wealthiest nations. But, doesn't mean to say those outside the top 10 are complete basket cases, or could take on the top 10 countries anyway. Studies like this sometimes present a bit of a monotheistic view of the factors needed for economic growth and development.

There seems to be a lot of reflection here in the transparency index too - most of these top 10 placeces are also the least corrupt countries in the world.

According to this work - stable government, stable macroeconomy, stable institutions, a decent legal system tends to improve competitiveness amongst other things.

My bugbear with all of this stuff is that it tends to ignore the influence of the demand side in actual economic performance. You can have great institutions, but you can always be undercut by competitors.

Should we axe the SBS?!

2006-09-26T02:05:00.000-07:00

There's been a few preemptive news stories in last week's press about axing the SBS - claiming to report on the forthcoming announcement by Alastair Darling to trim down the SBS and devolve more enterprise support activities to the regions.

The times reports it here and is pretty scathing, calling for the SBS's abolition. The Times mentions that the British Chamber of Commerce said that the SBS had failed - which I can't find reference to. The BCC website refers to members feedback on the DTI which is positive and also points to high member buy-in to the mission of the DTI, but that's it.

The CBI's view of the SBS is fairly well balanced and valid although I have a few quibbles - CBI is mentioning/calling for the following:

- The CBI believes far more attention should be paid to boosting the growth of small firms - perhaps the most important driver of wider economic productivity and growth - as well as promoting start-ups

- SBS to have more power in Whitehall, not less - a lot of this relates to making government regulations more friendly to business, less bureaucratic etc, and to continue impact assessments on business of new legislation.

- DFES should ensure skills and education more tailored to what businesses want (been trying to get his for 20 years or more!?)

- SBS/DTI should work to simplify tax system for small business

- UKTI focuses too much on very small businesses - refocus on medium sized businesses

- Govt should reduce administrative burden

And what is my view? I hear the very few of you ask

The evidence is there to suggest that small businesses and new businesses generate a lot of new employment and innovation in the economy. Its economically and politically expedient of the government to act in this area. However, the SBS has always been a bit of a fudge. They have got some things right, especially things like research, and getting down to the main priorities for encouraging enterprise start up and growth, but they are a bit too remote from the real world of entrepreneurship. Should stuff be devolved to RDAs? in my view, RDAs aren't really fit for purpose either, so maybe not - it depends on the RDAs really. I think if devolve to RDAs, you need to build a community of practice, expertise and business advisor development at the national level - this is exactly what the SBS should be doing - being more of an enabler and resource to drive the agenda forward. As it stands, its too much like a ministry.

Not quite ready yet

2006-09-25T05:55:00.000-07:00

Well as one gets older one gets more cautious! so I'll leave it for a bit before sticking my name on the blog.

I'm just in this new job, so will see the lay of the land before. There's no escape from controversy in economic development! well not really!

Did anyone who reads this go to IEDC conference in NYC? if so let me know how it was. I went to last year's conference in Chicago and it was a blast.

I am currently looking into economic performance and growth, and trying to get behind the academic stuff that's published, usually by geographers, that somewhat misrepresents economics. Its funny because I did both economics and geography at University. But the academic stuff on regions and cities isn't as good as I'd hoped. I keep going back to OECD stuff, Krugman, and Porter for inspiration. too much academic debate is preoccupied with supply side of economic performance, not enough about demand side. e.g. lagging regions for me are so much about insufficient demand-side activities (e.g. the businesses that employ people). Too much on skills provision - which in itself is not the answer. comments and thoughts welcome - share your insights
Ah well back to the reading.

Doing economic research: What do you want statistics and research to tell you?

2006-09-22T07:24:00.000-07:00

INTRODUCTION
The most fundamental question you need to ask yourself before thinking about, planning, or embarking on undertaking or contracting research is – what do you want to know and why?
This sounds a dumb question – but – a lot of folks don’t ask this. They just collect information for the sake of it or do what they have always done, analyse the same statistics in the same old way. Or perhaps people try and collect every available fact or capture all available data no matter how relevant. Statistics and research can tell you a great deal about your locality or region. There is a lot of information available these days, especially with the increase in availability of online data sources and research. However, one of the biggest mistakes to make is to rush out and gather as much information as possible, as you will soon be overwhelmed. Its not good to be ‘data driven’ in this way. It is much better to be needs, or demand driven. Gathering and interpreting data and information can take a lot of time and resources. Quite often, research or strategy department budgets are small. Therefore you need to ask some basic questions at the beginning.
RESEARCH MUST BE DEMAND- OR NEEDS- DRIVEN
Take a tip from a professional, experienced researcher and analyst – take some time to build a sound reason and rationale for a piece of work. Talk to people – especially the ones who are looking for intelligence or analysis to help them make a decision. Try and understand the context and needs from other people’s points of view. Remember – if you don’t supply them with intelligence or analysis that they can use, your work (and you) will not be valued.
Your needs: be clear about
– The research question – what do you want to find out?
– What’s it for? What use will be made of the answer?
– Who is it for? Is it for a specific group of people?
The ultimate value of research is to help people make better-informed decisions. Sometimes its hard to determine exactly what those needs are if other people are involved. Often they don’t know about research in a particular field to be able to articulate exactly what they want.
For example, a colleague might ask you to implement a ‘survey on business survival rates’. However, what they really want is to learn more about what they read in the paper this morning about their local area having much higher rates of business closure than the national average. They don’t know much about research or how its done but they assume most of it is concerned with performing surveys. So this leads them to ask you for one. Rather than doing exactly what you are asked or told to do its worth going back to this colleague and asking exactly what they want to know and why they want to know it, and also what kind of decision or actions will rest on the outcome of this research. If there is no decision or money resting on the research, then you have to ask yourself if it is a priority. Perhaps it could be a theme of your next annual report on your local economy, or perhaps you could dig around existing data and studies to get the answers rather than commission an expensive survey.
DATA IS RAW, INFORMATION IS COOKED, INTELLIGENCE IS FOUR COURSE MEAL
The analagy is crude, but its true that data is raw information, and to be more meaningful it needs to be prepared and processed and ‘cooked’. However, you need to go one step further – to get intelligence out of the information – you need to analyse it. If you have cooked ingredients, you need to assemble and combine them into somehing palatable and digestable. It’s the same with information – you need to combine and analyse it so it tells you something that is digestible and meaningful. The food analogy is useful though – for example, you sometimes don’t need to cook a four course meal when a snack will do! Or maybe you have been forced on a diet because of government budgetary cuts. I digress.
Back to reality now – I tend to think of the following steps as cooked, raw, cooked and a four-course meal:
• Raw: the basic data that is generated by surveys of companies, individuals or is collected by government agencies and the like. At this stage, information is collected systematically (I hope – more about that in Chapter X) and quality checked/controlled (bad data or mistakes are rooted out).
• Cooked: the basic data has been quality checked and approved and collated systematically – now information is generated in the form of tables and charts. Things like crosstabulation and statistical tests or calculations can be performed. Quite often we use standard definitions for measuring phenomenon such as ‘unemployment’, ‘employment’, or ‘qualification levels’. The data is compiled according to these standard definitions. There may or may not be some descriptive information about the data.
• A four course meal: the tables are analysed to find out what they mean! This is a bit more complex than it sounds, but if we were looking at tables and charts of information concerning our local economy we might be looking at issues such as – how different is our economic structure in terms of industries to the UK average structure? or how high is unemployment here compared to the national average? We might find that high unemployment exists alongside high levels of job vacancies – we might ask what that means, and look at other data tables (such as migration statistics) to find out. Much analysis is about ‘triangulation’ – which is basically the cross-examination of different sets of information to ascertain a confident picture of what is occurring in the economy. Much of analysis is about gathering a set of incomplete pieces of information about an economy and seeing if any of these pieces fit together to give a picture of what is occurring. Or its like uncovering various clues about a crime. Some clues are circumstantial, some are red herrings, but some might fit together quite logically.
Of course there are some consultancies out there who could offer you a bit of fast food! But beware, too much fast food doesn’t do you good in the long run!
I have seen far too many descriptive reports incorrectly described as an ‘analysis’. For me, an analysis asks what the data means and describes the strength or association of causal factors. Merely saying that X is higher than Y doesn’t cut it as analysis for me.

some service resumed

2006-09-21T01:35:00.000-07:00

Well I am back, due to popular demand. Well I found someone had left a few comments and so felt duty bound to start writing stuff again (Thanks Neil Craig!).

Actually I found there wasn't much I could write about because I was working in a Regional Development Agency and in a more senior role than when I started the blog so found little time, and it was all a bit daft that I couldn't write what I really really thought.

Now I have left the RDA and am in a new job as an economist, still concerned with regional, local and urban economic development, and I will have loads to blog about. As well as being able to reveal who I am. Not that I am famous or anything.

RDAs - the insiders view

So what did I think of England's RDAs? well I could really go to town on criticising the one I was in but I will begin a lengthy session of blogs with my immediate observations:

- they get far too many tasks and have far too wide remit
- they cash they have can't fulfil their remit
- the political expectations and pressures far outweigh the realistic prospects
- having said that RDAs aren't as dynamic or creative as they have the potential to be
- to many have become public service providers rather than catalysts for change
- too many private sector staff parachuted in with no idea of how to work in government. RDAs are creatures of government first and foremost, and they must get up to speed with best practice quickly. No time for someone to learn the job from scratch
- too many initiatives are political pet projects, and have tenuous links at best to economic development

I have loads more. I once wrote a ph.d on economic development agencies, so you could say I can talk about it with a fair bit of knowledge. I will publish stacks more on this don't worry (as if!)...

The future of RDAs (city regions)?

2006-07-12T01:57:00.000-07:00

I am wondering if RDAs have a future? what leads me to think that their future is less than secure is:

- the increasing discussions about city-regions from central government and the likes of the IPPR
- allied with some talk of local government being the most appropriate level of delivery for regeneration/economic development
- so we might see a combination of local government reform with more responsibilities
- this leaves RDAs in a bit of a precarious posision!
- plus there is the next round of the Comprehensive Spending Review, and the need for RDAs to make a 'zero based' budget grab - i.e. prove your worth in the past and, more importantly, in the future
- its difficult for many RDAs to prove their worth - they simply have not done enough of a job of monitoring and evaluation

I think that there's several pertinent points about city regions and regen/ED though:

- local authorities as they stand are very diverse and there are significant differences in track records and capacity to deliver. Some are really great at economic development, some are really dire and endlessly reinvent the wheel of poor schemes
- there'll need to be some amalgamation of local authorities at city regions - voters don't want more tiers of regional or local government - witness the rejection of the North East assembly. One canny Geordie reckoned they would not vote for a new set of paid elected members and officers, if they weren't going to disband another level somewhere - i.e. reform rather than additional tiers is the key for voters
- its a hard political act to engage in wholesale reform of local government
- city region mayors may be the answer but they still have to be approved and voted in - and local government somewhere else must give up some power
- What's gonna happen to non-city regions? they may be a bit disenfranchised, to put it mildly. Expecting more country folks in wellies marching down the Mall in the next few years.... we may have to reinstate hunting to keep them happy.

As ever - random thoughts that no-one ever reads!....

Clusters in economic development - twaddle or useful?

2006-07-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

Ok Ok I am rehashing a previous post I made on another blog BUT!

I recently heard someone talking about 'local clusters' - as if they operate at a neighbourhood level. Get this people - clusters (where they properly exist, and aren't just the wishful thinking of a public official) don't operate on the basis of tiny geographies. They operate on the scale of regions, often nations, often areas that go beyond national boundaries. So there.

I used to work at Scottish Enterprise, and serviced a lot of teams there as a private consultant in the late 1990s. I wasn't impressed with their clusters approach. What they did:

- identified some Scottish clusters
- spent ages (and big consultancy $$$s) mapping the clusters, mapping weaknesses etc
- spent ages meeting and connecting folks in the cluster together
- did a few specific interventions
- identified some cluster gaps as R&D, invented public sector research labs to specifically service the cluster

What was achieved? after investing in cluster teams and a huge research effort (in my opinion, the research was very patchy - good for some cluster teams, bad in others) - not a lot I reckon. This is because I think the effort and approach was misplaced.

I'd like to express some of my own theories about clusters:

#1 they are no respector of government or administrative boundaries. They operate across all artificial and formal boundaries. Especially in open markets.
#2 very few (none!) examples of successful, self-contained, highly localised clusters
#3 very few clusters created out of thin air
#4 very few clusters created in less than 10 years (take note RDAs!)
#5 must have some kind of comparative advantage for cluster presence (take note again RDAs!)

OK, ok they are engines of growth in certain parts of the world, and Porter's analysis of competitiveness is compelling. But as an economic development tool I think its not been well applied, at all.

Its big use is in understanding the economy and your locality's place in it. If this leads to some intelligence interventions, then that might be a good thing. If it tells you that you are one the outer spoke of a cluster, a branch plant zone etc, that's useful. For example - it can be a great way of looking at the skills needs of your regional economy.

But that kind of analysis is very sophisticated indeed. How many RDAs do you know that intelligently create and target interventions? hardly any I'd say. The clusters approach is way too complex and sophisticated for the average RDA and RDA staff member I'd say. That's why, if you are SE, you spend £5 million on Porter's consultancy company (Monitor) to come and tell you about clusters.... heehee.

Anyhow, just a thought. I have to say that I am both sceptical and open minded about clusters, but they are not the panacea for everyone. And if I hear anyone say the "Anytown XXXX cluster" again, I will probably develop a nervous tic.

My big message - you can't have a highly localised cluster. They aren't valid. Don't try and think you can create one out of thin air. However if you have localised industry specialisms - you might want to think about how they fit into and relate to a wider industry cluster, and there might be some ways of capturing additional economic activities for your region.

Planning and prioritising research – the criteria

2006-06-01T08:03:00.000-07:00

RELEVANCE AND ADDED VALUE

What is the fundamental question, or set of questions that need answered
• Your needs: Be clear about The four W’s
– why the research is being done?
– what’s if for?
– who is it for?
– (to) what use will it be put?
If you cannot answer all of these questions – then you should not proceed.
• Whether you can get analysis or outputs from existing information sources already, and to what extent
• The scale and importance of this work – the more at stake, the harder you need to work to ensure quality
Does the research add value to the business of your organisation?
• Will it be used to inform a decision?
• Will it be used to inform service or project design?
• Will it be used to find out more about a client group?
Has the research been done before?
• It is fundamental that any research project scopes out what research has already been done in an area or issue, that may provide a solution to the research need?
• Does the proposed research duplicate existing work?
• Or does it complement or add to existing work?
• Is there any review of existing work as part of the planning?
What is at stake?
• What is the type of decision or reputational risk that is dependent on the research outcome – the more significant the decision or higher the reputational risk – the more you should be scrutinisng quality and robustness
Who is the audience
• This is critical to understand
• Its not just doing the research – the findings need to be communicated in such a way as to be useful and relevant to the audience
• Many research projects fall at this hurdle – excellent work, but which no-one reads, or there is no presentation or press release of findings to advertise that the work has been done

PLANNING FOR QUALITY

What is quality research?
Basically, a good piece of research is something that meets a defined information or intelligence need, and effectively addresses specific questions or issues about the economy and aspects of our work. A quality piece of research is:
• Robust
• Objective
• Reports and analyses what evidence can confidently tell us – and is clear in what it can and cannot authoritatively tell us
• Well written, structured and is accessible for the intended audience
• Above all – is transparent, in that any analytical conclusions or findings are consistent with the evidence base
Does your research proposal have quality planned-in?
• How will you deliver or ensure quality?
• Have you considered who the final audience is?
• How will you ensure it is objective?
• Are you prepared to publicly release the research? Would it stand up to public scrutiny?
If you are not a research specialist – have you consulted one within your organisation?
• Be an informed consumer – speak to experts within your organisation. Policy and strategy staff specialise in conducting and commissioning research – it is their job to advise and support you

HOW TO DO THE RESEARCH, PRIMARY OR SECONDARY RESEARCH?

How to do the research
• Do you have a view on the most effective method(s) of research?
• Have you initially described how the research could be conducted?
• What research methods will you deploy?
Secondary research is analysis of existing reports and research findings:
• If there has been much research conducted before in your topic or area – it pays to conduct a literature or research review before going on to propose new primary research
• Much can be gained by exploring an issue first via secondary research – it helps focus subsequent research efforts
Primary research is collection and analysis of original data – e.g. surveys, focus groups, interviews, financial data:
• It is only necessary where:
– Existing research does not fulfil your needs
– Existing surveys and data sources (and there are a lot) do not fulfil your needs
• It is expensive
• If it is of significant scale, it might need management or steering group appoval or something like that
• There are substantial quality implications – any planning for such work needs the expert input of a statistician, research specialist or an economist

WHO WILL DO THE RESEARCH?

Internally
• Have you secured the necessary staff resource and expertise? You will need some input from research specialists
Externally
• Have you identified consultancy expertise?
• Have you designed a brief/specification?
• Have you thought about procurement routes?

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

• As mentioned already – identify the audience
• Ensure that there are mechanisms to deliver the main findings of research
• As part of project planning – design a comms strategy

California Uber Alles

2006-05-11T03:38:00.000-07:00

Today I am reminiscing about my experiences working in economic development in Scotland and my roles there as a private consultant, and in working for a very well known Economic Development Agency which is now hitting the skids because its overspent its budget, overcommitted this year's budget and is having a lot of wrist slapping going on...

I remember the time with the folks in Strategy at SE were smitten by the 'Californian' economic model and all sorts of bloody nonsense came out of it...

- the regular trips of SE executives to such places as San Jose, etc. I ruminated on this when I was conducting workshops for them as a consultant in places like Kilmarnock and Cumbernauld etc. San Jose is a bit different to the realities of the Scottish economy!
- the sheer nonsense of the language they picked up from Californian based consultants - just going on about all sorts of crap really. Such as 'empowered networks'
- The Strategic Futures Team - billed as "evangelisers, futurists and practitioners". Well, I could label them all as nut jobs really.
- e.g. from the SE website "Between 1996 and 1999 the Strategic Futures Team within Scottish Enterprise – a young and enthusiastic team of about 10 people – acted as fellow evangelisers, futurists and practitioners. It enjoyed the freedom to think differently, to challenge long-held assumptions, to introduce new ideas to the organisation and to develop new tools and techniques to support this activity. This was an immensely exciting time when new insights were made and new networks of like-minded staff became established. Over time, the sphere of influence extended across the organisation’s 2000 or so employees and beyond to public and private sector organisations throughout Scotland." ha ha ha. What bullsh*t.
- they had the temerity to then become Richard Florida converts and then they replaced the annoying stuff about California with annoying stuff about "Creative Class" etc.

- "Two particular learning journeys were organised by Scottish Enterprise during the late 1990s. One of these involved a group of 10 business leaders from the Forth Valley area who were taken to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1998 to learn about the emergence of the ‘new economy’. They were introduced to some remarkable individuals and organisations in the Bay Area and experienced at first hand different and often radical approaches to such issues as economic inclusion, leadership and organisational development."

The moral of the story for me was that they were looking for easy answers. And they found some, but with no real insights. They came back with evangelising slogans. As an ex-boss of mine used to say - if I want religion I'll go down the church. I.e. it doesn't belong in economics. Rather than get down to the hard work of analysing the Scottish economy and its relationship to the rest of the world, and analysing the underlying reasons for regional competitiveness and performance in places like California (at that time) they just looked at vague notions and sexy ideas. Which ultimately were proved wrong.

The Californian economy - recent serious problems.

Richard Florida - widely debunked, he even debunked himself recently.

Lastly - working in Scottish Enterprise a few years ago we were affected by power outages due to building work going on. I suggested that "yeh does that mean we are starting the be more like California - with regular power outages!?!".

worklessness in London

2006-03-14T09:51:00.000-08:00

There's a big fuss about this at the moment. The main points from the Labour Force Survey (May 2005)...

Economic inactivity is much higher in London
Jobless students account for a lot of the inactive
Non-students who want to work - rate the same as UK average
Non-students who don't want to work - rate is lower than UK average

For me - the rate of worklessness for those who want to work (but are not officially ILO unemployed) is the same as the UK average - on aggregate, it perhaps wouldn't merit the huge fuss. But - there are concentrations of worklessness amongst certain geographical areas and ethnic groups.

My major issue is that - the incidence and cause of worklessnesss needs to be looked at in depth, and whether it is a problem, or specifically where it is a problem is at issue - oh, and then what you can do about it, if anything. I'd rather economics took more of a lead than politics in this case.

Of those not in employment of working age…
LONDON No. : 1,478,000
LONDON % of all working age: 31%
UK No. :9,316,000
UK % of all working age: 26%
London comparison to UK average: higher

Of those not in employment of working age… & are students
LONDON No. :394,000
LONDON % of all workless: 27%
UK No. : 1,957,000
UK % of all workless: 21%
London Comparison to UK average: higher

Of those not in employment of working age… & are not students, would like a job (are ILO unemployed; inactive and seeking or are not seeking but would like to work)
LONDON No. :490,000
LONDON % of all workless: 33%
UK No. : 2,983,000
UK % of all workless: 32%
London Comparison to UK average: same

Of those not in employment of working age… & are not students, don't want to work (not seeking, and don't want to work)
LONDON No. :593,000
LONDON % of all workless: 40%
UK No. : 4,377,000
UK % of all workless: 47%
London Comparison to UK average: lower

Immigration Bingo

2006-03-08T10:40:00.000-08:00

So Clarke has finally brought up his plans for points 'n' quotas for immigration. I am largely unsurprised. Many nations - Australia, NZ, Canada, have implmented such a system for many years.

Will it work? the thing is, working in labour market economics in the past, it is impossible to set meaningful detailed quotas for skills. You rely on the market for demand and supply. Will the new system let the market work better? doesn't look like it.

And the new system will be subject to just as much fraud too. So potential applicants will find it difficult to buy the right papers to forge, say their date of birth and qualifications? or bribe an ex colleague in the old personnel dept to inflate earnings to meet the points quota?

I think that the simplest and fairest a system can be the better. Will the points quotas do this?

One thing I migh agree on is that there's the whole EU's labour supply out there up for grabs. However sometimes immigrants from the Indian subcontinent speak the English language better than others from EU countries.

One fear is that this will make it harder for companies to get the people they need.

Another thought is - yes, another big change to the immigration system - just how many can you make in 5 years, without causing severe disruption. I pity the IND staff who have just got their heads around the latest changes that were begun in 2003.

skills on their own are not the only answer

2006-03-07T03:02:00.000-08:00

The Centre for Enterprise has launched a series of 'conversations' on topical issues related to economic development - they are asking for responses and comments a bit like a blog. They did a particularly good piece on skills I thought, and I have repeated my response below in a nice blue colour owing to vanity.

The Centre for Enterprise also have a new beta model for blogging and discussion, of which I have been invited to contribute in its development stage. Once its public I will post a link.

Firstly - I welcome this paper, which clearly illustrate the points that Skills are not the only answer, but are part of the answer, and a smaller part than popular opinion (and Govt Policy) would seem to merit.I have always thought several points are worth making about this agenda:

1) SKILLS UTILISATION is a key concept here - you could supply skills and qualifications to an employer and individual worker, but will they be fully deployed in the workplace? without associated investment in capital, or competitivness strategies, etc we could be investing in skills formation that is not utilised thereby creating a large deadweight expenditure. This captures a lot of your argument nicely - i.e. are we over investing in skills or investing in the wrong skills, or do we need some critical things to happen before its worth investing more in skills?

2) EXHORTING EMPLOYERS IS NOT THE ANSWER - the recent paper by Warwick University for Futureskills Scotland tells us this. And we know that businesses don't really pay much attention to government. We need to incentivise productivity improvements. This can include making it easier for a well performing business to take over an underperforming one, as well as the usual fiscal incentives.

3) THE ANSWERS MUST START WITH THE EMPLOYERS THEMSELVES - employers drive productivity gains - this should be the starting point - i.e. skills demand. In the past the starting point has always been skills supply - i.e. the institutions and the vested interests. This always creeps in - witness how quickly it creeped into the SSDA justifying itself as being the answer to the UK's productivity problem.

4) THE PUBLIC SECTOR CAN ASSIST IN PRODUCTIVY GAINS - our public sector could work better and achieve productivity gains too. Also - infrastructure etcetera.Lastly - I think the government can incentivise competitiveness and productivity gain, but is not very good at delivering it themselves through advice and services etc, unless it is basic infrastructure or research spend. The government should refocus on achieving a business environment and incentivised behaviour to enable productivity gain.

Comments from Ewart Keep are also pretty incisive: "I particularly enjoyed the way the author(s)show how those writing policy documents slide neatly from one small, often carefully qualified piece of evidence/research to a huge, unqualified and sometimes unwarranted conclusion and/or policy prescription. This is evidence based policy making where evidence based means you extract some isolated killer facts from the research and deploy them to support conclusions and policies that are already determined."

The overall message is that skills are not isolated from being a political football with selectivity in facts and messages from politicians and public agencies, and that we have been in a situation for quite a while of the "tail wagging the dog" in skills.

BAD PRACTICE: THE DATA DRIVEN ORGANISATION

2006-03-02T03:16:00.000-08:00

BAD PRACTICE: THE DATA DRIVEN ORGANISATION

An economic development agency can’t understand why drop-out rates for its training programmes for unemployed young people are so high. So they commission a survey to find out, spending £100,000 on consultants to survey training programme participants and drop outs, conduct focus groups and research with a final report.BUT!A little bit of intelligence work on the local and national economy suggests that at the present time, more and more young people are staying in formal education, and the labour market offers fairly good job opportunities and prospects for young people, whether unemployed or just leaving school. Anecdotal feedback from training providers tells the agency that the entrants into the training programmes are people who cannot continue in education or cannot access jobs – they are the least qualified, and least employable young people. The training programmes were originally designed to cope with the average unemployed young person 20 years ago, and not aimed at those who have more acute problems in attaining qualifications and accessing work. Therefore the training programme does not meet the needs of the client group today, as it did 20 years ago. The issue is that the labour market has changed, while the training programme has stayed the same. Spending a few days finding this out is cheaper and provides more insight than commissioning a £100,000 research project.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY

The moral is that gathering intelligence on its own doesn’t provide you with answers. You must go one step further and ask what intelligence is telling you about your activities, the market and environment that you operate in. Initially, its best to analyse information already at hand to see if it answers your questions than to go and collect more and more data.

THE ANALYSTS EXPERIENCE – COMMON ISSUES AND PROBLEMS WITH SURVEYS

This analyst gets angry!I have lost count the number of times that I, or a colleague, have been administering and delivering a survey for a range of economic development organisations and they have asked for a bigger sample for their local area – AND – they have not been able to justify or give any rationale for the survey boost! Say the survey boost costs £100,000 and there is no reason for it – what’s the point? Then the local agencies tell us that its not accurate enough for local purposes - we ask ‘for what local purposes?’ – too often they couldn’t come up with any answer.

But – before we get too bolshy – people often have great difficulty expressing their needs and why they want things. A good analyst gets to the bottom of this need, if there is one. A good analyst asks the questions ‘what do you want the extra sample boost for?’ – as it tells them where the client or partner is coming from. And then the answer may not lie in a sample boost at all.

Unsubtle differences of Socialism, Marxism, Communism (Soviet Union)

2006-02-06T06:52:00.000-08:00

Lots of comments on tim's blog and stumbling and mumbling's various posts that equate socialism with the Soviet Union.

Well they are not one and the same really. The Soviets had their very own interpretation. Ideologically it was Leninist-Marxism, with a particular variant being the dictatorship of the proletariat and a centrally planned state. They were rather big on that.

The central difference I can see on simple plain terms is that the Soviets model idealised the state role in that it would always act in the interests of the worker/proletariat. When in fact it turned into a partly self-serving elite.

And I wouldn't always say that socialism equates to Marxism either. Marx build on lots of other ideas and events, especially from England - the levellers, cooperative movements, chartists, etc.

I would really encourage some folks to read Marx's biography by Francis Wheen. Its illuminating. And also there are many objective history books about the Soviet Union - the stuff about the early days are interesting.

The worst thing you could do intellectually is not read about something because its against your values. If you really think that way, you should still know your enemy. The merits and impacts of socialism in reality are variable, but the idea still cuts it a lot with the masses and in terms of popular movements. Its still a powerful message - one that could, again, be expressed through armed insurrection in certain parts of the world. Property rights as a principle can always remain, but who holds the rights can always be changed with the help of a warm gun, and popular support.

PS I have been deriving some very interesting insights from some biographies of Wehrmacht (German) soldiers who served on the Eastern Front and grew to respect Russians/Soviets. Worth a read.

PPS I might do a future article on what the positive legacies of communism were. There are definitely some. Universal education and health care is a place to start.

Does anybody out there evaluate, any more!?

2006-02-03T05:02:00.000-08:00

Does anyone evaluate their economic development programmes in England? Its something we used to do a hell of a lot in Scotland, and they were often quite serious and decent quality pieces of work.

Where I am working now in England does not seem to bother... and now Central government comes along and says - "show us your evalations!" and despite knowing that we are supposed to do this, we haven't been!!! oops.

And then there's the quality of evaluations. Some folks seem to think that they are reviews of success, doing a few focus groups and case studies. But oh no, they forgot to do it properly and their is no robust client survey, assessment of additionality, displacement, deadweight, gross impacts... and no estimation of the net impacts.

Funnily - people here think its impossible to do all this - well its not, its quite easy, and there's a whole bunch of consultants out there who are really good at this stuff - it used to be their bread and butter.

Now I think that this is down to the lack of a large, embedded base of economic development professionals in England. We do get private sector folks coming here - and I will be frank - they are good at some things, but quite woeful at others. They are particularly guilty of not making the effort to truly understand what economic development and regeneration is all about. And so they rush around suggesting actions which us public sector ED stakhanovites mutter "oh no you can't do that" - can't in the sense of its not legally permissable or conventionally appropriate. This is usually based on the fact that its been tried before and didn't work, or someone got into a lot of hot water on it. Anyhow there's quite a few people around where I work like this who are on the brink of really p*ssing me off.

Oh and a warning to all those with Objective 2/ESF projects out there - you are supposed to do an evaluation at the end! as a condition of the funding! and its also beneficial if you do a mid-term evaluation too. If you don't, hey, your in a bit of trouble because you will have budgeted for it.

DJ's where's the talent?

2006-01-30T13:22:00.000-08:00

I have asked myself this for a long time - what's the point in DJ's or becoming an amateur DJ?

In my day an amateur dj was someone who wanted to earn a few extra quid putting on tracks down the village hall disco for someone's 13th birthday etc. How did it turn into a hobby? how come, when you can buy CD changers, or now have ipods with a selection of music on, even pre-programmable tracks. I can't understand it. Its not like the average DJ will take requests. They hide in the corner of a bar it seems to me, and play their CDs or vinyl or whatever.

OK there may be some skill in choosing music for the ambience of the bar, but I used to work in a bar and this was always carefully done by the brewery! who used to send a set of CDs to play religiously until it drove the staff mad.

To my DJs are like being subjected to some geek's record collection, and I may not disagree with it. I might concede that some 'artists' are very good and remixing and creating music by recycling other people's music, but this seems to be rare in the pub scene - its just geeks hiding in corners putting on obscure tracks - no-one really gives a f*ck about them or their music, they just seem to be into their own groove.

My question is this - why don't the p*ss off and do it in their own bedroom like most aspiring musicians do for a few years? eh?

But! I can see the point in DJs in nightclubs, and people who dig that can go to listen. But why do I have to listen to someone in a bar who seems to be merely putting music on with little interaction. Seems bizarre.

I recently did some sound engineering at a do where there were bands and DJs, and the DJs didn't seem to have a clue about sound. I was pretty clueless myself, but they seemed perplexed when I said that they should get off stage, get to the middle of the hall and have a listen. They seemed glued to their decks, in their own little world. The folks at the event didn't care, they just wanted to dance, and they would have danced to anything.

Personally - when I see the DJ in the bar I think of Bukowski's poem about the piano player.

Revising business support in London

2006-01-30T01:46:00.000-08:00

It seems that they are revising how they support businesses in London. "The Business Support Review" was launched by London Development Agency last week.

I think the jist of it is to tailor support more to London's needs, as it has previously been designed by central government that is not always appropriate.

See more here on documents and how to submit your views:

http://www.lda.gov.uk/businesssupportreview

Economic Development in NYC

2006-01-13T03:55:00.000-08:00

A good article on New York from the Center for an Urban Future here

"The mayor deserves the most credit for recognizing that the old way the city handled economic development no longer makes sense in today's ultracompetitive economic landscape, and for quickly implementing a new, more growthoriented strategy."

I was in NY last year discussing economic development, and things are definitely changed there with Bloomberg. Its interesting that they don't embark on major tax incentives for businesses like other local governments - they told me that they just couldn't afford it and it was pretty pointless in the megabucks real estate world of NYC. They are focusing on small businesses.

How to commission research

2006-01-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

A wee pdf on some tips 'n' hints on commissioning consultants to do economic research authored by your good angry man here:

http://www.geocities.com/angry_economist/How_to_commission_research.pdf

Some guidance on using economic forecasts...

2006-01-04T02:14:00.000-08:00

I am trying to develop some 'golden rules' for using economic forecasts in local and regional economic development and analysis.... ok I published this 7 months ago on http://econdevuk.blogspot.com but...!

Looking into the future - the golden rules:

Forecasts should be used as part of a process of trying to understand the future – they provide only a partial insight into the economy
Any judgements about the future are not facts waiting to happen – there is a chance that they won’t come true
Any judgements about the future are based on current information – and this information can be out of date, inaccurate or wrong
The forecasts you use should be based on the most accurate (thanks dearieme) and up-to-date information available
It is strongly recommended that forecasts do not lead policy response
For any forecast it is correct to focus on broad movements and changes rather than on precise numbers
The user should recognise that all projections are subject to error
Forecasts cannot predict shocks or sudden events
Forecasts should be read with a critical eye – they are usually based on modelling techniques and can overlook the specific uniqueness of local characteristics
Finally, forecasts should never be used as the sole input into planning or decision-making

Who is the bigger fool!? I would say that the bigger fool is the person who places forecasts as the most influential factor in their decision making. The lesser fool is the person who provides the forecasts and pretends that they can either accurately predict the future or can predict it more accurately than anyone else.

Explaining poor UK productivity performance and some potential remedies

2006-01-03T09:15:00.000-08:00

The question! - I was asked to write an 'essay' on this as part of a job interview process, which I subsequently pulled out of [I was promoted with current employer instead :-)]

My written response as follows - a halfway competent overview of productivity and possible policy responses etc (really just a lit review)

1. Numerous studies suggest that the UK lags behind other advanced economies in terms of productivity (measured as output per hour worked). Why is this? What policies would you advocate to improve the situation?

What is productivity?
In economics, productivity describes the amount of output created (in terms of goods produced or services rendered) per unit of input used. Inputs can include labour and capital. By measuring productivity, it is possible to understand how well an economy can use the resources it has available to produce a certain level of output.
The amount of output that people can create in work is termed labour productivity. The amount of output that machinery and equipment can create is termed capital productivity. Both labour and capital productivity do not operate in isolation. For example, a piece of equipment can increase the level of output that a worker can produce, thus influencing labour productivity. Alternatively, a complex piece of technical equipment needs a skilled person to operate it. So both labour and capital productivity are interrelated. When we consider their productivity in combination, we call this total factor productivity.
Increasing levels of productivity in a nation will lead to more outputs for the same levels of input, or the same levels of output with reduced inputs. So, productivity is considered as important in terms of the economic development, performance and growth of nations, localities or industrial sectors. Thus, productivity growth is of critical importance. High levels of productivity growth result in larger real changes in profits and wages in the long run. The total amount of economic output (often measured as Gross Domestic Product) will increase substantially from a small increase in productivity. For example, GDP would double in 25 years if productivity rose by 3 per cent per year.

Why is productivity of concern to UK policy-makers?
UK productivity has been lagging behind other advanced industrialised nations
It has been recognised over the past two decades, that UK productivity levels have lagged behind our major competitors or other industrialised nations, and that the rate of growth in UK productivity levels has also been lower than many other nations, especially the USA.
This is a significant problem. As discussed, higher productivity levels in the UK would enhance the growth prospects for the national economy in the long term. Achieving higher levels of economic growth is also more dependent on productivity gains in the UK, because the proportion of working age population in employment is already quite high. There is less scope to expand economic output significantly with current domestic labour availability.

Evidence tell us that the UK’s productivity performance has been lagging
The UK’s workers, as a whole, produce less per hour than many other industrialised nations
In 2001, out of the 30 OECD nations, the UK ranked 15th in terms of output per hour worked – behind other OECD nations such as France, Germany and the USA. A comparatively high employment rate, rather than higher productivity levels, sustains the UK’s level of economic output and growth.

UK growth rates in labour productivity have consistently lagged behind other industrialised nations. Since the early 1970s, average annual labour productivity growth has consistently lagged behind France, Germany and the USA.

UK businesses and organisations invest less in equipment, machinery, infrastructure and buildings compared to many other advanced industrialised nations. The amount of capital (equipment, premises, machinery) used per hour worked in the UK is lower than France, Germany and the USA. For example, UK capital use per hour worked is 50 per cent less than the ratio in Germany.

Workforce skills leads to lower productivity, but so does low skills utilisation. Compared to some other economies, such as Germany and Scandinavian countries, the UK has a large proportion of low- or un-skilled employees, and a lower proportion of employees with intermediate skills. This leads to lower labour productivity on aggregate, and explains a number of sectoral concentrations of low productivity (Futureskills Scotland, 2005).
Evidence indicates that there may be a lack of demand for skills and skills utilisation in the UK economy. Findings from national employer skills surveys (such as Futureskills Scotland, 2002 and 2004; and Learning and Skills Council, 2003) suggest that in the UK economy, problems of a lack of skilled workers to fill vacancies, and a lack of skills in employees in work, are both modest. This suggests that, on aggregate, neither the quantity of demand nor the quality of demand is stretching the UK labour pool unduly.

Innovation does not occur as much as in other advanced industrialised nations
Innovation and technical progress provide new ways of working and sources of efficiency gains. These enable workers to increase their productivity. The UK has also lagged behind other nations in terms of investment in research and development (R&D) and innovation:
According to Abramovsky et al (2004):

In 2002, 2.2 per cent of the UK’s national output was invested in R&D. This is less than the USA (2.7 per cent) and Germany (2.5 per cent).
In the 1980s, the UK’s share of national output spent on R&D was static. Business investment in R&D increased, whilst government investment in R&D decreased. Other G5 nations increased their share of national output spent on R&D.
In the 1990s, the UK’s share of national output spent on R&D declined. This decline was largely due to a decrease in business expenditure on R&D.

Productivity performance is not uniform across sectors. Research by Griffith et al (2003) on comparing the USA and UK’s productivity performance by industrial sector is revealing:

Low productivity across all sectors accounts for most of the UK-USA productivity gap
There is considerable variation in productivity between different industries. Over half the productivity gap with the USA is from three industry groups: wholesale and retail; financial intermediation; and machinery and equipment
The UK has increased employment in the lower productivity sectors of hotels and restaurants and wholesale and retail.

Productivity performance is highly variable between individual businesses. Barnes and Haskel (2000) found that within industries, there can be individual businesses with productivity levels that are comparable with the best levels found anywhere else in the world. However, behind the leading firms, there is a “long tail” of firms that are much less productive.

What might the UK government do to improve UK productivity performance?

Selecting and advocating policies

There are a significant number of potential policy options, some of which are described below and are short-listed as policies that the author would advocate in the first instance.
Particular policies are advocated over others for the following reasons:

Where they can positively influence business performance. Productivity is related to overall business performance. Evidence shows that to achieve significant productivity gains, businesses and organisations have to improve many factors at once such as skills, technology, capital investment, business planning, product quality and management for example. A classic example is that investing in IT equipment without investing in staff skills to operate it would not be effective in increasing productivity. This is a challenge for government in prescribing policy.

Policy options with higher efficiency, effectiveness and net positive impacts. Not all policy options are equal in cost, effectiveness or impacts. Policy options must be evaluated and prioritised according to:

Their efficiency - the impact they will make versus their cost
Their ability to work with the market – helping the market work better for the desired outcome
Potential for lower levels of displacement – they will have less potential to distorting markets negatively than other options

Demand side solutions are needed. Supplying factors of production and government expenditure aren’t enough, on their own to stimulate productivity gains in the UK economy. The demand side must be addressed. Incentives and conditions must be provided to stimulate businesses and organisations to utilise factors of production better to stimulate productivity. To address productivity, enterprises must have a real demand more highly skilled workers, more productive technology, and must seek to be more competitive in markets. This essentially involves attempting to influence and incentivise the organisational and managerial decision making behaviour of businesses and institutions.

Policy recommendations

Enhance capital availability for investment in equipment, land and premises. The UK has a history of low capital investment amongst businesses in the past 30 years. There is some evidence to suggest that some businesses invest at sub optimal levels. Labour and Total Factor Productivity might be increased if businesses can realise their optimum investment requirements.

Recommended policies:

Ensuring macroeconomic stability - to keep the costs of capital and levels of perceived risk at reasonable levels so as not to disincentivise the demand for, and supply of, capital.
Addressing market failures in financial markets for businesses by incentivising market provision, or giving better market information and guidance to increase transaction levels.
Other policy options
Addressing market failures in financial markets for businesses by providing public loan funds or loan guarantees.

Increasing capital investment. There are certain types of capital expenditure, such as IT expenditure, which have significant impacts on productivity and also require upgraded skills for operation.

Recommended policies:

Promotion and marketing of benefits of greater investment in IT and other technologies to businesses
Fiscal incentives to investment in more advanced technology and capital equipment
Public investment in capital and infrastructure.
Regulation of credit to finance capital equipment to ensure market rates of interest are applied

Other policy options

Grants to businesses for IT, technology and capital equipment
Price controls on IT, technology and capital equipment

Ensuring competitive markets. Evidence demonstrates that rates of innovation and productivity growth are higher in competitive markets, where there are many actors in each sector and market places.

Recommended policies

Regulatory government activities: to limit monopoly behaviour and to ensure market competition; reduction of information asymmetries in markets.
Controlling the regulatory burden on markets: so that market entry and transactions are not disincentivised.
Privatisations of state enterprises: creating more competitive markets, breaking public monopolies
Promotion of entrepreneurship and business start ups: to increase market entrants and competition in markets

Better understand the problem and potential solutions. The need to improve research and understanding on productivity, the UK economy and comparator economies cannot be understated. It is very challenging to disentangle the multiple causal factors involved in determining productivity performance. Although the UK experiences from generally lower productivity throughout most sections of the economy, certain sectors and activities have a more negative influence than others on productivity levels and growth.

Recommended policies:

Better use of existing research funding to inform the productivity question

Other policy options

Promoting collective public, private and university coordination and actions
Increase levels of in-government research
Establish internationally collaborative research

Increasing research, development and innovation expenditure and activity. Higher levels of innovation and the development of more sophisticated and efficient modes of production and service delivery will enhance productivity.

Recommended policies:

Establish and regulate property rights to research and innovations. The government can establish a legal framework to protect the ownership of research and innovations through systems such as patenting or copyright. This means that individuals and companies developing new innovations and research can be satisfied that they have the sole rights to exploit these commercially.
Incentivise the commercial consideration of research, development and innovation in business management and planning so to integrate these processes in the normal course of running a business.
Increase and incentivise research and innovation activity and expenditure in businesses. Various mechanisms include grants, tax credits, tax relief, subsidised consultancy, specific loan funds with favourable terms.

Other policy options:

Fund research: the government can fund research that has commercial applicability. The research can be undertaken by research institutes or private companies
Increase commercialisation of research: so that research performed in government institutions or higher education institutions is applied to commercial situations for commercial benefit and exploitation
Promotion of enterprise creation and development to increase the entry of new business models, technologies, innovations, services and products.

Increasing employer’s use and development of skills. There is much evidence to suggest that the level of demand for skilled employees is low in UK businesses and workplaces.

Recommended policies

Ensure labour market flexibility and mobility so that employers can access the skills they need
Make education and skills providers tailor provision more closely to employers, and involve employers in designing provision

Other policy options:

Assist businesses to be more effective human resource managers and planners
Assist businesses to engage in more skills development and use

Increasing skill levels of the workforce. Several policy options exist to increase the overall levels of skill available in the workforce.

Recommended policies:

Public provision of education and skills: through schools, colleges and universities
Immigration – policies to encourage the immigration of workers to provide higher levels of skill in the labour market, or to fill vacancies that require skills that cannot be sourced in the domestic labour market

Other policy options

Funding of skills development in the workplace: through grants, incentives and regulations for employer based skills development
Incentives to employers to train: fiscal or tax incentives, grants, funds.

Remove capacity constraints to businesses and increase returns to scale. It may be the case in some businesses or industries that there are certain barriers to them achieving the most efficient returns to scale from business operations.

Recommended policies

Revise planning legislation to allow for better returns to scale in industries that can achieve higher productivity, or significantly lag in productivity

Encourage coordinated solutions to productivity enhancement. Actions to address the ‘long tail’ of low productivity businesses within certain industries.

Recommended policies:

Ensure there are no significant barriers to business acquisition – i.e. so high productivity businesses can buy and improve low productivity ones
Ensure competitive labour market that enables worker mobility

Other policy options:

Encourage greater transfer of technology, know-how and productivity enhancing techniques and practices
Encourage greater collaboration between businesses
Institutionalise productivity related development – for example, establishing centres of excellence linked to industry and university specialisms

Import businesses with high productivity levels. It is an option to seek to attract new foreign corporate investment and activity from corporations which have high levels of productivity, so as capture their high productivity in the domestic economy, as well as the potential for spillovers and transfer of technology and skills to domestic enterprises.

Recommended policie:

Marketing and incentives for foreign direct investment

Enhancing public sector productivity. Public spending and employment accounts for a large proportion of the UK economy.

Recommended policies:

Establishing new business models
Organisational restructuring
Service level agreement contracts with productivity clauses
Contracting out delivery to more efficient service providers

References

Abramovsky L, Harrison R, Simpson H (2004) Increasing Innovative Activity in the UK? Where Now For Government Support For Innovation and Technology Transfer?, IFS: London.

Barnes M, Haskel J (2000) Productivity in the 1990s: Evidence from British Plants.

Competition Commission (2000) Supermarkets: A report on the supply of groceries from multiple stores in the United Kingdom

Futureskills Scotland (2002) Skills in Scotland: results from the Scottish Employer Skills Survey 2002, Futureskills Scotland: Glasgow.

Futureskills Scotland (2004) Skills in Scotland: results from the Scottish Employer Skills Survey 2003, Futureskills Scotland: Glasgow.

Futureskills Scotland (2005) International Comparisons of Labour Market and Skills Performance, Futureskills Scotland: Glasgow.

Griffith R and Harrison R (2002) Understanding the UK’s Poor Technological Performance, IFS: London.

Griffith R, Harrison R, Haskel J, and Sako M (2003) The UK Productivity Gap & The Importance Of The Services Sectors, AIM: London.

HM Treasury (2001) Productivity in the UK: The Evidence and the Government’s Approach, London.

HM Treasury (2004) Benchmarking UK Productivity Performance, London.

Learning and Skills Council (2003) National Employers Skill Survey 2003, LSC: Coventry.

Skiczylas L and Tissot B (2005) Revisiting recent productivity developments across OECD countries, Bank for International Settlements: Basel.

Gender and career choice

2005-12-30T06:20:00.000-08:00

Tim Worstall has been posting a few bits and bobs about gender and pay.

In my mind the key task is to analyse occupations, gender and pay and to see if pay differentials can be explained by the type of work or the human capital brought into the workplace. If a bloke and a woman do exactly the same job and outputs in the workplace but are paid differently then there's discrimination.

But as a former labour market economist, I don't see gender pay differences in occupations and automatically scream about equality outrages. There might be some very good reasons for differences, such as productivity for one.

Also - it reminded me of something - and that's subject choice at school by gender. There are quite apparent links between subject choice and gender. Look at these two pdfs:

A level entries by subject and gender
GCSE attempts by subject and gender - i.e. those who sat GCSEs (didn't necessarily pass them) - this is as close to 'subject choice' as I could get.

What does this mean? well it means that the die is cast along gender lines for quite a few of our young people at a fairly young age. Interesting I thought.

SNOW! National Crisis!

2005-12-28T04:42:00.000-08:00

It always makes me laugh heartily when it snows in Britain. Its a crisis of gargantuan proportions, or so the TV news would have it. The 24 hour news have a field day. Its like the Blitz all over again, the collective bedding down in village community centres, the distress of seeing abandoned vehicles, no-one to care for them!

I laughed at the coverage from Kent's M20 yesterday as the reporter wittered on about the huge problem of snow, when we could see, behind him about an inch of soft wet snow on a railing! FFS!

What a load of bloody stupid nonsense. We can all see from the weather forecast that its going to snow, and well, what's the big deal anyhow?

In countries where snow is present most of the winter, they just get on with it. OK, they stick their winter tyres on which helps them drive in wintry conditions. But they also have mobile phones etc to ask for help. And they wear warm coats, always having hats scarves and gloves etc. Although some don't bother. Basically they just get on with it really - without a daft fuss like what we Britons do.

I've been to Kazakhstan in winter and seen them scoot about on ice all day in ladas, and then also ski every year in Austria, and well, normality is in abundance with snow cover for 4-5 months.

combining two blogs

2005-12-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

This new blog combines two blogs I already infrequently post to,

a typepad blog: http://twaddle.blogs.com

a blogger blog: http://econdevuk.blogspot.com

I couldn't see much point in continuing with two blogs on the odd occasion when I can combine personal and work type stuff in the one blog.

I have had the accidental economist url (http://www.accidentaleconomist.net) for a while now, I liked the title and its a play on words on the 'accidental theorist' of Krugman. I am a bit of an accidental economist, even though I studied and work in economics for a living, I can't

My identity - those who know me, know who I am. But I am a bit loathed to come out because I have a career to maintain. Not that I'd ever compromise myself or my employer in that way. This blog is not based on my working life but rather the field of my interest amongst other things. But nonetheless there's a chance the blog and job might conflict at some point.