Private equity and venture capital are, by their very nature, long-term investments. As such, it takes years for investors to see the finalised return on their commitments. In light of this, measures of interim fund performance are largely dependent on fund managers' valuations of...

While profit maximisation is clearly defined in theoretical models, in practice producers selling their goods and services can find it hard to measure the price sensitivity of customer demand. While marketing departments often rely on aggregated data to analyse the interlinkages between selling...

Given the marked heterogeneity that exists in terms of the realised returns that investors see from venture capital, it is difficult to know which factors can set individual investments and venture capitalists apart from their peers. This article uses a small sample of investments from BVCA...

Private equity is still a relatively young asset class, with some unique characteristics. One feature is the very irregular timing of cash flows, and a consequence of this is that private equity relies on measures of returns that are not standard in other asset classes. As such, new investors...

Policy interest rates do not have to be short. The means by which monetary authorities influence prices and quantities can differ, but the obstacles to altering one rather than the other are not insuperable. Inflation is sluggish, and expectations of future interest rates — long and short,...

Central banks around the world have moved to cut interest rates to record lows, with many in advanced economies going further and embracing full quantitative easing - creating new money to inject into the economy. This paper examines why quantitative easing has been necessary, and whether it is...

We are now seven months into the Bank of England's unprecedented experiment with quantitative easing (QE). This paper sets out the transmission mechanism of QE, and examines what impact it has had on the UK economy so far

This paper examines the changing composition of OECD economies, between large sectors such as manufacturing and services. It presents several stylised facts on how these changes relate to inflation, labour productivity and real wage growth. First, manufacturing has fallen and services have...

This paper examines the behaviour of supermarket prices in the United Kingdom, using weekly scanner data supplied by Nielsen. A number of stylised facts about pricing behaviour are uncovered. First, prices change very frequently in supermarkets, with 40% of prices changing each week, and even...

This paper examines the behaviour of individual producer prices in the United Kingdom, and uncovers a number of stylised facts about pricing behaviour. First, on average 26% of producer prices change each month, although there is considerable heterogeneity between sectors and price changes occur...