Thursday 26th February 2009: Recession: Health and Happiness

Recession: Health and Happiness

Speakers:

• Lord Professor Richard Layard of the Centre for Economic Performance, LSE
• Professor Mel Bartley of UCL's Department of Public Health
• Professor Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics at Warwick University

Chaired by economist and journalist Evan Davies of the BBC.

The event will take place on 26th February from 6.00 to 8.00pm at Sixty One, Whitehall, Westminster, London, SW1A 2ET and will be followed by a drinks reception.

This event is free and open to the public.

Recession: Health and Happiness is part of the a series of talks organised by the ESRC regarding the social issues that will arise as a consequence of the global economic crisis:

Money May Not Buy Happiness But Neither Does Poverty
In the past 50 years individual levels of wealth have increased by but so have crime, deprivation, depression and addictions to alcohol and drugs. Most of us believe that more money will make us happier; however, as societies become richer, does that wealth positively impact on our happiness?

The ‘Recession: health and happiness' event on 26th February, may well provide a surprising answer. Lord Professor Richard Layard who has spent years researching the impact of wealth on wellbeing will argue the answer is ‘not necessarily'.

Professor Layard's view is that the ultimate aim of public policy is to make people happier, so he will be addressing issues such the impact of 'welfare to work' programmes, and will feature the evidence looking at how positive experiences can help prevent the most negative effects of unemployment. He will be speaking at the first of three events organised by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of the Festival of Social Science.

Chaired by economist and journalist, Evan Davies, of BBC Radio Four's Today programme and Dragons Den, attendees will also hear from Professor Mel Bartley of UCL's Department of Public Health, whose work has included research on health inequalities.

At the outside of the present recession, 16% of working age men were already permanently sick, in contrast to 1980 when it was 8%, so Professor Bartley will discuss the how the effects of the recession vary widely between socio-demographic groups and considers evidence that the health effects seem to be worse for younger people. Professor Bartley's research shows that stability in work impacts positively on health and well being.

Also speaking at the event will be Professor Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics at Warwick University, who recently reviewed the evidence on the main influences on the psychological wellbeing of individuals and nations, and discusses to what extent economic growth improves psychological wellbeing or happiness.

The event will provide an opportunity to participate in the discussion regarding the social issues that will arise in the coming months as a consequence of the global economic crisis.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:
ESRC Press Office:
Kelly Barnett Tel: 01793 413032 / 07826874166, email: kelly.barnett@esrc.ac.uk
Danielle Moore Tel: 01793 413122, email: danielle.moore@esrc.ac.uk

The other two events in the series will be:

• Global poverty and recession on 19th March 2009 at One Great George Street, Westminster - and -
• Recession and the green economy on 22nd April 2009, venue to be confirmed.

25 February 2009 - Berlin Lunchtime Meeting - Carbon taxes: Good for the Planet, not bad for Economy

INVITATION - Berlin Lunchtime Meeting

on Wednesday, 25 February 2009, 12 to 2pm

Carbon taxes: Good for the Planet, not bad for Economy

DIW Berlin, Mohrenstr. 58, 10117 Berlin
Main Conference Room, Second Floor

SPEAKER: Dr. Ralf Martin, London School of Economics
COMMENT: PD Dr. Siegfried Gelbhaar, Universität Trier
CHAIR: Prof. Dr. Claudia Kemfert, DIW Berlin

In a recent study supported by the Anglo-German Foundation, researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) show that carbon taxes can reduce pollution without harming the economy.

In 2001 the U.K. government introduced a tax on various energy fuels for industry - the Climate Change Levy (CCL). A research team from the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the LSE, led by Ralf Martin, has conducted an in depth evaluation of the effect of this policy on individual firms using a representative sample of the UK economy which includes detailed data on more than 10.000 enterprises.

They found that the Climate Change Levy – which on average corresponds to a £20 carbon tax per ton – has had a strong impact on power usage by companies and reduced electricity consumption for the average manufacturing firm by 10 to 20 percent. The economists also examined whether the levy had had any adverse impacts on economic performance of companies in areas such as employment or productivity. They did not find any evidence for this.

Ralf Martin summarises the outcome of the research as "good for the planet and not bad for the economy". He goes even further, suggesting that an increase in carbon taxes and a simultaneous reduction of taxes on wages and employment could be the ideal policy measure in the current crisis, as it would secure existing jobs without leading to more government borrowing.

Registration is required. Please send an email to:
events@diw.de. We look forward to your participation.

Venue: Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
Main Conference Room, 2nd floor, Mohrenstr. 58, 10117 Berlin
Map: http://www.diw.de/deutsch/kontakt/anreise/29024.html


Ralf Martin is a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Performance and the Grantham Institute for the Study of Climate Change at the London School of Economics. He studies business behaviour and performance. Currently, his main research interest is the determinants of business sector greenhouse gas emissions and the impact and design of climate change policies for business.

For press inquiries please contact:
Winfried Konrad Media Relations
Deutsch-Britische Stiftung, Anna-Louisa-Karsch-Str. 2, 10178 Berlin
Telephone: +49 (0)30 2063 4985
Email: wk@agf.org.uk

For information on the Anglo-German Foundation please contact:
Annette Birkholz Head Communications
Deutsch-Britische Stiftung, Anna-Louisa-Karsch-Straße 2, 10178 Berlin
Telephone: +49 (0)30 2063 4985
Email: ab@agf.org.uk


Please note:
The Anglo-German Foundation supported Ralf Martin’s research based on its initiative 'creating sustainable growth in europe (csge)'. For more information please see http://www.agf.org.uk/

CEP Carbon offsetting survey

Researchers from the Centre for Economic Performance and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at the LSE are conducting an online survey to investigate attitudes towards carbon offsetting.

To participate in the survey please go to
http://innovation.carbonoffsetsurvey.org.uk/.

The survey also has a home on Facebook. Join here.

IZA Prize in Labor Economics 2008 awarded to Richard Layard and Stephen Nickell

The IZA Prize in Labor Economics 2008 goes to the outstanding European labor economists Richard Layard and Stephen Nickell for their path-breaking work on the relationship between labor market institutions and unemployment.

Their research provided a theoretical and empirical framework for the analysis of equilibrium unemployment and the impact of labor market institutions on economic performance.

Shaping the views of scholars and policymakers on how to address unemployment, the contributions of Layard and Nickell have served to illuminate the policy discourse in Europe and increased academics' understanding of the nature and causes of involuntary joblessness.

For more information about the prize and about Richard Layard and Steve Nickell's work please see

Award Statement of the IZA Prize Committee

Press Statement of the IZA Prize Committee

CEP Conference: The Emergence of China and India in the Global Economy

Date: Thursday 3rd July - Saturday 5th July 2008

This three day conference debated all aspects of the impact of the emerging economic powers on Europe and the US and the changes within India and China itself.

A highlight of the conference was a policy panel consisting of:

Martin Wolf of the Financial Times
Alan Winters, former head of World Bank Research
Athar Hussain of LSE’s Asia Observatory
Peter Schott, Professor at Yale.

John Van Reenen, Director of CEP chaired a lively discussion. He kicked off by asking three questions about lessons for growth, the effect of globalisation on inequality and the death of the political coalition for Globalisation.

Download Policy Panel Questions (PDF)
Listen to Policy Panel audio file (WAV)

The panelists focused on the fact that the lessons to be learned from China's and India's development may be limited for other countries. A key factor was ceratinly an emphasis on exports, a degree of opening up of markets to imports and some liberalisation of the economy. But China has embarked on a more classical development path through manufacturinge exports, whereas India's growth has been startlingly service-driven: a very new mode of development.

There was a dispute over the role of trade in driving inequality in the rich countries. Martin Wolf argued for technology having the major role whereas the other panelists saw a greater role of trade. Van Reenen's paper actually showed that the two were inter-related: trade with China appeared to have stimulated faster technical progress in the West.

Although the panel agreed that the prospects for the Doha round were grim, Martin Wolf pointed to the fact that globalisation had created footlose multinationals with much less vested interest in protectionism in any one country. This by itself undermined one of the key lobbies against trade - vested domestic business interests.

For full details on the conference, including the programme and conference papers, please visit the event webpage at http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/events/event.asp?id=50

Shelling renewable energy

Shell, the oil company, announced today that it wants to sell its share in the ambitious London Array off-shore wind farm project. So far not much about the reasons for this are known publicly.

What is very clear however is the glaring gap in UK renewable energy policy between ambition and reality. Despite having one Europe's best locations for wind and ocean power the only statistic the UK is leading in this area is the difference between the government's target and actual renewable generation capacity (Figure 1).

So what is the problem with Britain's renewable support policy? Government ministers were quick to point out that the London Array project is receiving unprecedented amounts of government support in terms of investment subsidies and streamlined planning procedures. Renewable support policy is a jungle with governments everywhere employing a confusing mix of instruments to support it. A measure that is conspicuously absent (indeed expressively disliked by the government) from the current and planned UK policy mix are feed in tariffs, however.

Feed in tariffs seem like a neat instrument in theory. The government fixes a price markup on the current market price of renewable energy that has to be paid for by providers of dirty conventional energy. This is neat because it leaves to the market to decide which technologies and locations make economic sense. Effectively they are a tax on providers of dirty energy whose revenue is used to subsidise clean energy providers. Unlike other environmental taxes they are by design free of the suspicion to be just another excuse for the government to take more money from us as the government is not getting involved in the financial transfers. More than other policy instruments, feed in tariffs avoid uncertainty over future revenues for potential investors. This should particularly encourage entry of smaller investors (such as micro generators) and investors new to the energy market (such as farmers with land in windy areas) who have no vested interests and market power in conventional energy markets and technologies.

But who cares about theory? Does it work in practice? Figures 2 and 3 are intriguing. Figure 2 shows the share of wind energy and (new) renewables (wind, ocean and solar) in electricity generation across various OECD countries with some form of nationwide feed in tariff system. We see that not all countries with feed in tariffs have necessarily high levels of electricity generation from renewables.

However, no country that doesn’t have feed-in tariffs has a high share of renewables. This simple look at the figures would thus suggest that feed in tariffs are a necessary but not sufficient condition for the take up of renewable electricity generation.

Call for Papers: The Emergence of China and India in the Global Economy (Deadline for submission: 30 March 2008)

The Emergence of China and India in the Global Economy

4th-6th July 2008

Venue: Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics

Conference Sponsored by

• Centre for Economic Performance (CEP)
  
• Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
  
• Centre for Economic Studies (CESifo)
  

Organizers
Stephen Redding, John Van Reenen and John Whalley

Keynote Speakers
Chang-Tai Hsieh (Berkeley)
Peter Schott (Yale)

Papers are invited for a 3-day conference on the emergence of China and India in the Global Economy, to be held at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics on 4th-6th July 2008. The general themes of the conference are the causes and consequences of the acceleration of economic development in China and India in recent decades, including the implications for other developing and developed countries around the world.

Topics of particular interest include: trade and financial liberalization, growth and inequality; structural change and economic development; institutions and economic performance; enterprise reform; international trade, foreign direct investment and outsourcing; intellectual property rights; trade and innovation; and the restructuring of production in developed countries.

One session will be specifically dedicated to Young Researchers (who received their Phd no more than 8 years ago).

Deadline for Paper Submission: 30th March 2008

Please submit papers electronically as pdf files to Jo Cantlay (j.m.cantlay@lse.ac.uk), indicating China-India Conference in the subject line of the e-mail.

All accommodation for accepted speakers will be covered by the conference and limited funds are available for travel. Please indicate with your submission whether you wish to apply for these funds.