This webinar aims to equip participants with a nuanced understanding of inclusion in higher education by bringing evidence focused on structural flexibility, assessment design, and targeted admissions...

Immigration affects places and people in different ways. Evidence from a natural experiment in Germany in the early 1990s shows that regional employment may fall while most workers keep their jobs. Ad...

The discipline of economics lags behind other social sciences in its engagement with issues of racial and ethnic inequality. Strengthening the scientific foundation of race-related research is essenti...

Even good used cars sell at a discount because buyers can’t tell them apart from bad ones – so-called lemons. Nevertheless, many people still sell good cars – but the lemons penalty reduces car turnov...

The job security implicit in employment contracts is not just about goodwill: it depends both on whether strong performance or misconduct is easier to observe and on how incentives are structured to s...

The gap between interest rates earned on savings and paid for borrowing varies with the state of the economy. Research reveals the contrasting consequences for households depending on their place in t...

Banks and other financial institutions are not simply battling for market share. Rather, they collaborate to exploit loopholes in regulation on key issues like capital requirements, which compel banks...

The Phillips curve underpinning monetary policy doesn’t capture the full complexity of the links between labour markets and inflation. The concept of the job ladder and the dynamics of job-to-job swit...

Policy-makers need to know that the research evidence on which their decisions are based is reliable. A powerful new testing method can assess the strengths and weaknesses of instruments used to analy...

Economists in business, policy and academia are deploying artificial intelligence across a wide range of cognitive tasks. The most important employability skill in this age of AI is not a single fixed...

In the wake of soaring prices in 2022, people’s long-term expectations for future inflation rose sharply. This jump was mostly caused by the sheer size of the surprise, not by a belief that rising pri...

The balance sheets of firms matter for the transmission of monetary policy to inflation and real economic activity. Both deposit rates on corporate deposits and the interaction between debt and liquid...

Being able to know what’s happening in the economy in something close to real time is of great value to policy-makers, business leaders, journalists and households. A new ‘nowcasting’ tool developed h...

When a computer model can decide someone’s future, that individual deserves to be judged on their own merits, not just by how they compare to a majority group of which they might not be part. A new an...

Decisions we make today – including on health – are influenced by our expectations. New research shows how a change in Chile’s pension system altered men’s lifestyle choices: those whose expected weal...

Multinational companies are at the heart of both the fragmentation of production and the internationalisation of innovation. Evidence from Germany shows that larger MNCs file more patents of higher qu...

Over the past 20 years, productivity growth has been lacklustre in most advanced economies. But standard measures ignore the progress that some economies have made in terms of lowering emissions of ca...

Training local volunteers and medicine shopkeepers can help to reduce the risk of mortality from malaria in lower-income countries. Investment in hospitals naturally remains vital, but boosting capaci...

Training local volunteers and medicine shopkeepers can help to reduce the risk of mortality from malaria in lower-income countries. Investment in hospitals naturally remains vital, but boosting capaci...

Economic shocks create different effects across firms and sectors. A financial crisis, for example, affects firms differently from an inflation spike, a supply chain disruption or a trade dispute. Und...

Evidence from Italian businesses whose revenues collapsed during lockdown illustrates how the mafia operates as a predatory lender of last resort, stepping in when a firm’s financial foundations begin...

The inflation of 2021-23 has reignited debate among economists about the impact of labour market tightness on inflationary pressures – a connection long known as the Phillips curve. New research warns...

UCL Policy Lab and UCL Economics welcomed Torsten Bell MP to UCL this April to launch the Annual Lecture in Economic Policy.

Breathing smoke from wildfires doesn’t just send people to hospital: it leaves lasting scars on human development. Public health responses should focus on the most vulnerable, including pregnant women...

Public opinion is constantly shaped by competing stories about what drives social and economic outcomes. Economic theory provides a systematic way to think about how false narratives – about, say, the...

The social and emotional skills that help us to manage stress, work with others and navigate challenges are as important as cognitive abilities in influencing later life outcomes. New research reveals...

BBC analysis shows the number of health visitors in England has almost halved in the last 10 years.

Modern consumers are used to a flood of options whenever they are shopping for something. Whether it’s car insurance or fizzy drinks, there are endless brands from which to choose. But many brands are...

How important are the ups and downs of the economy for individual families? Personal setbacks have more permanent effects on households’ lifetime earnings than a general economic downturn. But macroec...

How important are the ups and downs of the economy for individual families? Personal setbacks have more permanent effects on households’ lifetime earnings than a general economic downturn. But macroec...

Half a century ago, economic research in the top journals took a turn towards issues of community, place, family, religion and identity. This was associated with novel empirical methods including expe...

Deposit insurance prevents bank runs by assuring depositors that their money is safe. At the same time, it can weaken bank discipline. While some argue that expanding insurance makes banks lend more aggressively, this is not always the case. The impact depends on how banks fund their lending.

While the rules controlling them are mostly domestic, banks are largely international. This creates risks as countries compete for financial institutions’ business by weakening regulations – or go the...