This paper is concerned with the influence of agglomeration economies on economic outcomes across British regions. The concentration of economic activity in one place can foster economic performance due to the reduction in transportation costs, the ready availability of customers and suppliers,...

Pressure on public finances has increased scrutiny of public support for innovation. We examine two particular issues. First, there have been many recent calls for the (relatively new) UK R&D subsidy to be extended to other "research" activities, such as software. Second, argument still rages...

This Paper investigates how the legal framework not only affects the amount of external financing available, but also firms’ resource allocation among different types of assets. Using a simple model, we show that in a weaker legal environment a firm will get less financing, and thus invest...

This paper looks at the channels through which intangible assets affect productivity. The econometric analysis exploits a new dataset on intangible investment (INTAN-Invest) in conjunction with EUKLEMS productivity estimates for 10 EU member states from 1998 to 2007. We find that (a) the...

We attempt to replicate for the UK the Corrado, Hulten and Sichel (2005, 2006) work on spending on intangible assets in the US. Their work suggests private sector expenditure (investment) on intangibles is about 13% (11%) of US GDP 1998-2000, with intangible investment about equal to tangible...

We use several data sets to consider the effect of teaching practices on student beliefs, as well as on organization of firms and institutions. In cross-country data, we show that teaching practices (such as copying from the board versus working on projects together) are strongly related to...

This paper examines how networks of professional contacts contribute to the development of the careers of executives of European and US companies. We build a dynamic model of career progression in which career moves both depend upon existing networks and contribute to the development of future...

This paper examines the job finding methods of different ethnic groups in the UK. The theoretical framework shows that less-assimilated ethnic unemployed workers are more likely to use their friends and family as their main method of search but they have less chance of finding a job using this...

This paper investigates the determinants of group membership, and in particular the effect of income inequality on individual incentives to join economic groups. Drawing on a simple model, we show that an increase in inequality has an ambiguous effect and that the type of access rule (open...