EU Structural Funds: Do They Lead to More Growth
Thursday 6 December 2012 08:00 to 09:30, Chatham House, London

Sascha Becker, Professor of Economics, Warwick University; Deputy Director, Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy C
Chair: André Astrow, Senior Consultant, International Economics, Chatham House

A return to growth is urgently needed in the UK. Recovery from severe recessions was achieved in the 1930s and the 1980s in the presence of fiscal consolidation. This column, by Professor Nicholas Crafts for VoxEU, examines the lessons from those experiences for today’s policymakers.

"Forget the absurd “growth versus austerity” debate, the only way to heal the economy is to fix the banks."
Liam Halligan draws on Nicholas Crafts' recent lecture for the Royal Economics Society

Returning to Growth: Lessons from History was given by Professor Nick Crafts on Wednesday 17th October at the Bloomsbury Theatre, UCL, London.

Research by Professor Andrew Oswald and colleagues in economics and public health have found that mental well-being appears to rise with the number of daily portions of fruit and vegetables people consume.

The report has attracted worldwide attention and can be found in the Daily Mail, news.com.au and the Times of India to name but a few.

Read the full press release here

Leading economist Professor Sharun Mukand, from the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, presented a policy paper this week at Chatham House in London.

In an interview in the New York Times, Dr Anandi Mani discusses the impact of higher political representation of women on gender-based crime in India. Read the interview in the New York Times here.

The paper, The Power of Political Voice: Women's Political Represnetation and Crime in India can be viewed here.

New research by CAGE Research Associate, Kimberley Shark suggests the more friends we have on facebook, the less likely we are likely to share information about charitable causes. Read more about Prof Scharf's research here.

A study by Eugenio Proto, CAGE Research Associate along with Gianluca Grimalda and Anirban Ka, looks at decision-making and how it was influenced by people’s perceptions of fairness.

Read the official press release here.

Download the Working Paper here

Nicholas Crafts joins a panel of leading Economists on the BBC Radio 4 programme, Stephanomics, to discuss what will pull Britain out of recession and restore the economy to growth.

Nick joins leading economists Kate Barker and Dieter Helm in a discussion with the BBC's Economics Editor Stephanie Flanders on what will pull Britain out of recession and restore the economy to growth. In the 1930s, after the Great Depression, Britain got growth first through a housing boom in the private sector and then through a world war. Eighty years later, what is going to do the trick this time?

Click here to listen to the programme

Euro Zone Nations Wrestle With a 'Trilemma', New York Times, July 6 2012
Stephen Castle quotes Prof. Nick Crafts

Linda Yueh hosts "Economic Edge" with Bank of England Director of Markets Paul Fisher, Nick Crafts, Professor at Warwick University and Tim Leunig, Reader at the London School of Economics

Daniel Ben-Ami explores Nick Crafts recent research findings for FundWeb

Nicholas Crafts discusses ideas generated by the recent CAGE-Chatham House policy briefing paper Saving the Eurozone: Is a ‘Real’ Marshall Plan the Answer for the Economist Free Exchange Blog

At the end of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee week, The BBC World Service take the British festivities as an excuse to reflect on six decades of change in the world of business. With historical context set out by Nicholas Crafts, the programme explores two big themes: globalisation - the opportunities and the dangers - and the shift of the centre of economic gravity in the world from West to East, the rise of China.

The Guardian highlights Professor Kimberley Scharf’s blog on proposed cap on tax relief for charitable contributions as one of the most useful and interesting links for the voluntary sector on the web. In her blog, Capping tax relief? Say what!?, Prof. Scharf offers her views on the government’s proposal to impose a cap on tax relief for charitable contributions.

Kimberley Scharf, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick and Research Associate at CAGE. is an expert on the economics of the third sector. Read her blog

The Guardian discusses work by CAGE Research Associate, Dr Eugenio Proto on how personality traits affect the way we feel about our income in terms of levels of life satisfaction.

In the recent working paper: Life Satisfaction, Household Income and Personality Traits (CWP 86/2012) Proto explores evidence suggesting that highly neurotic people on healthy salaries are more likely to view pay rises as a failure.

Click here for the official press release

The latest edition of the CAGE Newsletter highlighing current research, information on recent events and projects, and also includes spotlights on visitors to CAGE .

Writing in the Financial Times, CAGE Research Associate and Warwick Economics Professor Marcus Miller along with Professor Robert Skidelsky analyse the eurozone crisis through the lens of history and the philosophy of John Maynard Keynes. Recalling that deflation and the Great Depression brought Hitler to power in 1933, they argue that Germany has forgotten vital historical lessons with contemporary relevance in the unfolding crisis. As Keynes observed in 1923, "The absolutists of contract are the real parents of revolution."

In the 1930s Great Depression Britain grew strongly despite significant cuts in the government’s deficit, short-term interest rates which were already very low, and the international economy in disarray. That is exactly what policymakers need to achieve today. In a new Centre Forum report Professor Nicholas Crafts demonstrates what the government did then – and what we can learn from history.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi survived sex scandals and legal cases but not the threat from the bond market. The hope now is that a new government led by Mario Monti can achieve fiscal consolidation and improve Italy’s productivity.

New work by CAGE researchers Stephen Broadberry and Nicholas Crafts examines Italy’s record in economic growth and productivity performance since World War II. Their research suggests that the Berlusconi era was indeed a serious failure but also that Monti faces huge challenges in improving matters.

Anandi Mani’s recent research is discussed in The Times of India

An increase in female representation in local politics has caused a significant rise in documented crimes against women in India, new research has found. A new study by Anandi Mani at CAGE, Lakshmi Iyer at Harvard Business School, and Prachi Mishri and Petia Topalova from IMF, argue that the increase is down to greater reporting of crimes against women, rather than greater incidence of crimes against them.

Could religion be playing a part in the relative success of Europe's economies? Professor Sascha Becker investigates

An interview with Professor Richard Easterlin with Olaf Storbeck, for Economics Intelligence.

CAGE welcomed Professor Easterlin who delivered the keynote address as part of the public lecture Modern Society and the Economics of Happiness

Olaf Storbeck is the International Economics Correspondent with Handelsblatt, Germany’s business and financial daily.

The number of wars have steadily increased for more than a century fed by economic prosperity and a growing number of borders, researchers claim. The Daily Mail draws on research from CAGE Associates who have found that the numbers of wars between states increased steadily from 1870 to 2001 by two per cent a year on average.

We may think the world enjoyed periods of relative freedom from war between the Cold War and 9/11 but new research by Professor Mark Harrison and Professor Nikolaus Wolf from Humboldt University, shows that the number of conflicts between pairs of states rose steadily from 6 per year on average between 1870 and 1913 to 17 per year in the period of the two World Wars, 31 per year in the Cold War, and 36 per year in the 1990s. Harrison states:

"The number of conflicts has been rising on a stable trend. Because of two world wars, the pattern is obviously disturbed between 1914 and 1945 but remarkably, after 1945 the frequency of wars resumed its upward course on pretty much the same path as before 1913...More pairs of countries have clashed because there have been more pairs. This is not reassuring: it shows that there is a close connection between wars and the creation of states and new borders. Besides, no matter how you divide it, we have only one planet. Our planet has already seen two world wars. As that experience suggests, you can never be quite sure what little conflicts will not suddenly snowball into much wider, more deadly struggles”

Research led by Professor Sharun Mukand and Professor Ethan Kaplan has found that not only did the events of 9/11 produce an immediate shift in favour of the Republican party among new young US voters but that shift persisted into later years. The research shows that party strategists should focus on winning over voters when they are young.

West Bengal's per capita income is below the national figure and over the last decade its growth rate has slipped below the national level. The state's public finances are in a dismal state as evidenced by its high stock of public debt, a substantial revenue deficit, low tax to state GDP ratio and low capita development expenditure.

Sayantan Ghosal's Global Eye article in The Economic Times - Kolkata Edition considers various possibilities how these economic traps can be broken.

Jill Insley, a journalist for The Guardian draws on Professor Stephen Broadberry's research detailed in CAGE Working Paper British Economic Growth: 1270 - 1870 (Ref: CWP 35/2010)