opaque transparency September 22, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : governance , add a commentVia the Guardian, here’s what governmental transparency (and better regulation) looks like:
Police forces with some of the worst records of targeting black people have decided to stop recording the ethnicity of the people their officers stop and ask to account for their movements, the Guardian has learned.
Five out of the 10 forces most likely to use stop-and-account powers disproportionately against black people – West Midlands, Avon and Somerset, Thames Valley, Sussex and Hertfordshire – have halted recording the race of people they have stopped. They have used a government change in the rules introduced in March, which was aimed at cutting bureaucracy.
eu financial markets competition: uk treasury takes on ecb September 15, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : markets , add a commentNewspapers are reporting the UK’s Treasury plans to fight a European Central Bank plan to require clearing of some financial products in the eurozone, threatening UK based clearers. Here’s some relevant language from the ECB’s document:
Given its mandate to promote the “smooth operation of payment systemsâ€, the Eurosystem has major concerns with regard to the development of major euro financial market infrastructures that are located outside of the euro area, since this could potentially place in question the Eurosystem’s control over the euro.
As a matter of principle, infrastructures that settle euro-denominated payment transactions should settle these transactions in central bank money and be legally incorporated in the euro area with full managerial and operational control and responsibility over all core functions for processing euro denominated transactions, exercised from within the euro area. This is reflected in the policy fundamentals issued by the Eurosystem on the location and operation of infrastructures that settle euro-denominated payment transactions.
international literacy day September 8, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : life , add a commentOn this international literacy day UNESCO focuses on the links between literacy and peace.
underinvestment in girls September 1, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : gender , 1 comment so farJad Chaaban & Wendy Cunningham, Measuring the Economic Gain of Investing in Girls : the Girl Effect Dividend, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper (August 2011):
Although girls are approximately half the youth population in developing countries, they contribute less than their potential to the economy. The objective of this paper is to quantify the opportunity cost of girls’ exclusion from productive employment with the hope that stark figures will lead policymakers to reconsider the current underinvestment in girls. The paper explores the linkages between investing in girls and potential increases in national income by examining three widely prevalent aspects of adolescent girls’ lives: early school dropout, teenage pregnancy and joblessness. The countries included in the analysis are: Bangladesh, Brazil, Burundi, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Paraguay, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. The authors use secondary data to allow for some comparability across countries. They find that investing in girls so that they would complete the next level of education would lead to lifetime earnings of today’s cohort of girls that is equivalent to up to 68 percent of annual gross domestic product. When adjusting for ability bias and labor demand elasticities, this figure falls to 54 percent, or 1.5 percent per year. Closing the inactivity rate between girls and boys would increase gross domestic product by up to 5.4 percent, but when accounting for students, male-female wage gaps and labor demand elasticities, the joblessness gap between girls and their male counterparts yields an increase in gross domestic product of up to 1.2 percent in a single year. The cost of adolescent pregnancy as a share of gross domestic could be as high as 30 percent or as low as 1 percent over a girl’s lifetime, depending on the assumptions used to calculate the losses.
blog effects August 31, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : technologies , add a commentDavid McKenzie & Berk Özler, The Impact of Economics Blogs, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper (August 2011):
There is a proliferation of economics blogs, with increasing numbers of economists attracting large numbers of readers, yet little is known about the impact of this new medium. Using a variety of experimental and non-experimental techniques, this study quantifies some of their effects. First, links from blogs cause a striking increase in the number of abstract views and downloads of economics papers. Second, blogging raises the profile of the blogger (and his or her institution) and boosts their reputation above economists with similar publication records. Finally, a blog can transform attitudes about some of the topics it covers.
co-operative financial regulation ? August 30, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : financial regulation , add a commentThe Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in Luxembourg has announced that it has declined to recognise ARM Asset Backed Securities S.A. as a regulated securitisation undertaking under the Luxembourg law on securitisation (the assets backing the securities are life insurance policies taken out by US seniors.) The UK’s FSA and the Central Bank of Ireland say they are working with the CSSF. The CSSF states:
The CSSF considers that this Decision, as from the notification thereof to ARM (which has occurred today), entails a suspension of any payment by ARM and prohibition for ARM, under penalty of voidance, to take any measures other than protective measures, unless otherwise authorized by the CSSF acting as supervisory commissioner (“commissaire de surveillanceâ€).
If unchallenged, the Decision will become final one month after its notification. Once the Decision is final, the district court dealing with commercial matters shall, as a consequence thereof, be requested to pronounce the dissolution and order the liquidation of ARM.
more broken britain August 16, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : britishness , add a commentThis makes me feel quite ill.
broken britain? August 15, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : britishness , add a commentHere’s some good evidence for the idea that Britain is in fact broken. Iain Duncan Smith (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) suggests that people convicted of rioting but not imprisoned should be deprived of benefits:
“We already accept that if people who are receiving benefits do not, are not prepared to seek work, take the work that’s available to them, we take the benefit off them. And if you go to prison we take your benefit off you.
“So what we’re looking at is, for criminal charges, should we take the benefit? And the answer is yes.”
eu tobacco consultation July 27, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : consultation , add a commentThe Commission announced that it received more than 85,000 responses to its consultation on revising the tobacco products directive carried out late in 2010. In some ways it seems to have been an extremely successful consultation. The response was significant, and 96% of the responses were from citizens. But almost two thirds of the responses came from two Member States, Italy and Poland, and the Commission suggests the Italian response was a reaction to a citizen mobilization campaign which generated a significant number of standard comments. The Commission is not making the full set of responses available online:
Given the high number of contributions, it is not considered to be useful to release an online database of individual submissions.
This exercise raises other questions about whether consultations like this one really serve a useful purpose. The Commission writes:
It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the outcome of the public consultation procedure. In general, opinions varied significantly between and also within categories of respondents. Arguments provided by respondents in the ‘free text’ sections of the consultation present a variety of different justifications for policy action.
knowledge July 20, 2011
Posted by Bradley in : truth , add a commentVia the Guardian, Cameron spinning on Wallis:
On claims that Wallis provided Coulson with some informal advice on a voluntary basis before the election, Cameron said: “To the best of my knowledge I didn’t know anything about this until Sunday night.” He later added that he did not know Wallis had been contracted to work for Scotland Yard.
Surely this should be “as far as I remember” (I don’t recall) rather than “[t]o the best of my knowledge”? Either way it looks a bit slippery.
Is Vince Cable feeling vindicated now? The Evening Standard suggests he is.