The privatisation policy pursued in the UK by Mrs Thatcher's government (1979-1990) and subsequently by Mr Major's government (1990-1997) was the largest experiment in public divestitures among capitalist economies. It had a deep impact on economic policy-making world wide, and was vastly...

Valuing a change in the risk of death is a key input into the calculation of the benefits of environmental policies that save lives. Typically such risks are monetized using the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL). Because the majority of the lives saved by environmental policies are those of...

The benefits of climate policy normally consist exclusively of the reduced impacts of climate change, i.e., the policy's primary aim. Our analysis of benefits of climate policy suggests, however, that researchers and policymakers should also take account of ancillary benefits, e.g., in the shape...

This paper analyses the effects on consumers' welfare of the privatisation policy carried out in the UK since 1979. The approach we follow sees the privatisation of a State owned enterprise within the broader framework of the "policy reform" theory (Drèze and Stern, 1990). By adopting this...

This paper offers a review and discussion of the evidence concerning the underpricing and long run performance of British PIPOs (Privatisation Initial Public Offerings) between 1977-1996, i.e. from the first privatisation under a Labour Government (British Petroleum), until the last ones by a...

The paper provides an overview of the financial history of the chemical industry since its inception in the latter half of the nineteenth century in four major countries: Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States. The chemical industry is particularly intriguing from the point of view of...

The Environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure foresees that the information on the environmental effects of a specific activity is used to support the decision on whether to give a project consent, and has the ability to ensure no more than that the decision taken is an informed one. As...

The first striking feature is that ownership of the average UK company is diffuse: a coalition of at least eight shareholders is required to reach an absolute majority of voting rights. Even though the average firm has a dispersed ownership, the reader should bear in mind that there are about...

Implementation of policies aimed at reducing atmospheric emissions has drawn attention to the need to integrate policies aimed at protection of the environment into other policy areas such as energy. In this paper we are concerned with the interaction of environmental policies aimed at reducing...

Excessive speed is a major contributory factor in a large proportion of deaths and serious injuries on British roads. One approach to tackling the speeding problem is the use of traffic calming measures as a means of enforcing speed restrictions along roads running through populated areas. But...