[...]The loss of manufacturing jobs has created a widespreadsense that manufacturing in New York City has nofuture, that the decline is unstoppable and “largely inevitableand foreordained” (Fitch 1993, p. 107). Even theoptimistic report of the Commission on the Year 2000,New York Ascendant,...

This paper is a revised version of an Economic History thesis submitted to the London School of Economics in September 2000.The main text assumes analytical rather than chronological form, and, to avoid breaking the flow of the argument, it refers to persons, Labour Party structures and...

We present evidence on social incentives in the workplace, namely on whether workers’ behavioris affected by the presence of those they are socially tied to, even in settings where thereare no externalities among workers due to either the production technology or the compensationscheme in...

We present evidence on the effect of social connections between workers and managerson productivity in the workplace. To evaluate whether the existence of social connections isbeneficial to the firm’s overall performance, we explore how the effects of social connectionsvary with the strength...

Deindustrialisation: Although Belfast’s industrial base had experienced decline since the 1930s, the indus-trial crisis reached its peak in the late 1970s/early 1980s with all the traditional industrial sectors affected (e.g. shipbuilding, engineering, linen-production). Due to the accelerated...

The majority of disabled people experience the onset of their health problem or impairment inadulthood. According to a survey carried out in the mid-1990s, 11 per cent of disabled adultsof working age were born with a health problem or impairment, 12 per cent became disabledduring childhood, and...

Welfare to work policy is central to British reforms of itswelfare state and social security system. We are not alonein our desire to assist unemployed and other claimants tofind and retain work. It is therefore important to be able tolook to other countries and consider lessons that could...

We present a dynamic framework for the interaction between borrowing (liquidity) constraints and deviationsof actual hours from desired hours, both measured by discrete-valued indicators, and estimate it as a systemof dynamic binary and ordered probit models with panel data from the Panel Study...

UK government policy encourages mothers of young children in low-income families to enter or return to work, via tax credit subsidies and support for childcare. Maternal employment is seen a central plank in the campaign against child poverty, both because it raises income immediately and...

We pursue an economic approach to analysing poverty. This requires a focus onthe variables that individuals can influence, such as forming or dissolving aunion or having children. We argue that this indirect approach to modellingpoverty is the right way to bring economic tools to bear on the...