idiosyncratic variation of treasury bill yields i document a dramatic increase in the importance of two types of variation in treasury bill yields beginning in the early 1980s the first is idiosyncratic variation in individual short maturity less than three months bill yields the second is a common component in treasury bill yields that is not shared by yields on other instruments such as short maturity privately issued instruments or longer maturity treasury notes and bonds some evidence suggests the first type reflects increased market segmentation these results have important implications for the calibration and testing of no arbitrage term structure models and interpreting tests of the expectations hypothesis united states treasury bill yields play a central role in economists efforts to understand the behavior of financial markets the focus on treasury bills is driven by the belief that bill yields can be viewed as benchmarks from which yields on other debt instruments are derived for example in no arbitrage models of the default free term structure the stochastic properties of the hypothetical instantaneous interest rate determine bond prices researchers often construct and evaluate these models using short maturity bill yields as proxies for instantaneous interest rates similarly bill yields are frequently used to test the expectations hypothesis of the term structure 2 economists standard pricing models for default risky securities also view treasury yields as building blocks in such models yields on default risky securities depend at least in part on the yields of default free securities and the underlying stochastic default process therefore yields on treasury bills have been used in studies of the effects of monetary policy on the business cycle not because bills are intrinsically critical to the economy but because

monetary policy signaling and movements in the term structure of interest rates this paper examines how various monetary policy signals such as repo rate changes inflation reports speeches and minutes from monetary policy meetings affect the term structure of interest rates we find that unexpected movements in the short end of the yield curve are mainly driven by unexpected changes in the repo rate however published inflation reports and speeches also have some impact on short rates speeches are found to be a more important determinant for the longer end of the term structure our conclusion is that central bank communication is an essential part of the conduct of monetary policy

problems of urban decline and growth in eec countries or measuring degrees of elephantness the purpose of this paper is to draw together several strands of literature concerned with the measurement of spatial economic and social differences and then suggest an alternative approach we then apply that approach to classifying the problems of 103 of the largest metropolitan regions in the eec countries in the process this allows us to conceptualise and attempt to quantify urban decline in europe and simultaneously discover the extent to which urban problems in europe are still associated with growth although it is hoped that the paper is infused with some theoretical and analytical insight it is primarily empirical in scope it draws on a small part of a much wider project some of the analytical support particularly the arguments and evidence that support the use of functional urban regions furs as units of analysis and all of the analytical and policy implications are reported on elsewhere 1

time series dynamics of us state unemployment rates this paper examines the time series properties of state and national unemployment rates based upon unit root variance ratio and cointegration tests as well as granger causality and error correction model results several important conclusions can be made first forecasting models that include only levels of unemployment rates may produce spurious regression results second in the vast majority of cases there is no long run co movement between the aggregate us unemployment rate and individual state unemployment rates third models that are specified in first differences generally yield reliable insights into state national unemployment relationships

the regional financial sector a scottish case study dow s c 1992 the regional financial sector a scottish case study reg studies 26 619 631 the regional finance literature suggests that financial market segmentation may affect regional economic activity but that the uk financial sector is sufficiently integrated to rule out this effect this paper attempts to broaden the scope of the debate by considering the credit creating behaviour of the banking sector together with the interdependent financial behaviour of all other sectors in a region it is concluded that financial behaviour in this broad sense affects regional activity even in an integrated national financial market in particular financial integration may adversely affect the allocation of new credit to a peripheral region the argument is assessed by considering the scottish case dow s c 1992 le secteur financier regional cas d etude de l ecosse reg studies 26 619 631 la documentation relative au secteur financier regional laisse supposer que la segmentation du marche finan

grim down south the determinants of unemployment increases in british cities in the 2008 2009 recession lee n grim down south the determinants of unemployment increases in british cities in the 2008 2009 recession regional studies this paper investigates the impact of the 2008 2009 recession on unemployment in the sixty largest cities in great britain the key determinant of changes in unemployment was the skills of the population with highly skilled cities experiencing smaller increases cities with employment in financial services or manufacturing sectors experienced larger increases in unemployment whether a city has a specialized or a diverse economy appears less important than the industries in which the city is specialized the results highlight a problem as the largest unemployment increases were in cities seen as having least potential for future growth

transitory shock or structural shift the impact of the early 1980s recession on british regional unemployment this paper examines the impact of the early 1980s recession on regional unemployment in britain more specifically it seeks to evaluate the hypothesis that this recessionary shock was so severe that it caused an upward structural shift in the underlying mean unemployment rates of the regions this proposition is analysed using dickey fuller tests for difference versus trend stationarity and the augmented structural shift and trend break time series models developed by perron the results suggest that the apparent stochastic non stationarity in regional unemployment over the period 1965 95 is in fact due to an upward structural shift in regional mean unemployment rates in 1980 furthermore the nature of this shift appears to have differed as between the northern and southern regions of the country

the new pattern of regional unemployment causes and policy significance in common with most oecd countries unemployment in britain has differed significantly between regions but the persistence of relative regional unemployment rates in britain has been until recently particularly striking however during the i990 93 recession the relative regional unemployment pattern changed significantly for the first time in seventy years our primary purpose here is to understand these recent changes and to examine what might be learned about the contribution of economic policies to the amelioration of both regional unemployment rate differentials and the amplitude of regional unemployment cycles finally we ask whether there are any policy lessons to be drawn from the recent cycles in regional unemployment patterns which might provide insight into the amplitude of macro economic cycles

why has u s inflation become harder to forecast we examine whether the u s rate of price inflation has become harder to forecast and to the extent that it has what changes in the inflation process have made it so the main finding is that the univariate inflation process is well described by an unobserved component trend cycle model with stochastic volatility or equivalently an integrated moving average process with time varying parameters this model explains a variety of recent univariate inflation forecasting puzzles and begins to explain some multivariate inflation forecasting puzzles as well

china s official rates and bond yields abstract recent research shows that bond yields are influenced by monetary policy decisions to learn how this works in a bond market that differs significantly from those in the us and europe we model chinese bond yields using the one year deposit interest rate as a state variable we also include the spread between the one year market interest rate and the one year deposit interest rate as another factor the model is developed in an affine framework and closed form solutions are obtained we then test the model empirically with a markov chain monte carlo simulation procedure the results show that the new model that incorporates the official rate in china characterizes the changing shape of the yield curve well

area policy impacts a multiplier analysis of gear this paper attempts to quantify the employment and income effects of the glasgow eastern area renewal gear programme on its target area this is done using an augmented keynesian multiplier approach the multiplier model is adjusted to take into account the particular characteristics of the injection and the fact that the target area is small and well integrated within a large conurbation the results are disaggregated so that the impact of each element of the programme is separately identified and the overall results are subject to sensitivity analysis although the estimated increases in employment and income are large in absolute terms they are small relative to the decline that immediately preceded the introduction of the gear programme

extracting inflation expectations and inflation risk premia from the term structure a joint model of the uk nominal and real yield curves abstract this paper analyses the uk interest rate term structure over the period since october 1992 when the united kingdom adopted an explicit inflation target using an affine term structure model estimated using both government bond yields and survey data the model imposes no arbitrage restrictions across nominal and real yields which enables interest rates to be decomposed into expected real policy rates expected inflation real term premia and inflation risk premia the model is used to shed light on major developments over the period including the impact of bank of england independence and the low real bond yield conundrum

technology and regional policy a case study of northern ireland the importance of technical change through the innovative activity of industry has received a lot of attention in the regional economic literature regional policy has now begun to reflect the changing emphasis in the recent literature and especially the key role of inventive activity in achieving long run self sustaining regional growth this paper concentrates on research activities in terms of inventive inputs r d and innovative outputs especially patented innovations in general the results suggest that there is a low level of technological activity in northern ireland especially in industries that are characterized as being technologically advanced this is partly because external ownership reduces r d activity which in turn reduces innovation outputs but there is also a problem in that companies in northern ireland are relatively unsuccessful at producing new products and processes of the type and quality required in the market place the availability of government sponsored r d grants s

social skills from mass higher education rethinking the company based initial training paradigm ulis is an essay in the literal sense that it is tentative i wantto argue in it that we need to rethink the relationship in the uk between education initial vocational training and the functioning of labour markets this is because the reality of dra matic recent and on going changes in post 16 education towards sharply increasingpost 16 stay ing on and university participation rates and in skills requirements of companies in the uk towards broad social and organizational skills bears little relation to the focus of labour market policy and of much academic debate on initial training particularly for 16and 17 year old school leavers the basic mistake in uk policy development has been a failure to understand that the uk does not have the underlying socio eco n mic institutions which both germany and japan have and which are needed for an effective system of company based initial training nor for that matter does the us and it is suggested here that we should look closely at america as an economy with similar underlying socio economic institu tions to our own if we are to understand recent changes in uk education and labour maiket pat te ns what the uk has to learn from the us is the

the role of manufacturing in regional growth harris r i d 1987 the role of manufacturing in regional growth reg studies 21 301 312 since a shift in regional policy away from manufacturing to aiding services is being advocated this paper re examines the role of manufacturing in regional growth from both an empirical and theoretical viewpoint first of all it discusses the importance of manufacturing s share of output concluding that in output terms and prior to 1979 manufacturing has not been displaced by services in shares of total output secondly the paper focuses on the theoretical importance of manufacturing to the growth of regional output showing that for most theories demand side growth pole cumulative causation manufacturing is the natural base for growth potential harris r i d 1987 le role des industries de fabrication dans la croissance regionale reg studies 21 301 312 vu que l on propose une reorientation de la politique regionale au depens des industries de fabrication et en faveur du tertiaire cet article

the sensitivity of regional unemployment rates to the national trade cycle forrest d and naisbitt b 1988 the sensitivity of regional unemployment rates to the national trade cycle reg studies 22 149 153 this paper provides recent estimates for the uk of a model of regional unemployment rate variability due to thirlwall the principal findings are that regional industrial structure has continued to play a major role in determining regional unemployment variability and that the pattern of industrial variability appears to have changed little in the post war period however there remains a degree of regional specific variability which warrants further study forrest d et naisbitt b 1988 la sensibilite des taux de chomage regionaux au cycle economique national reg studies 22 149 153 cet article fournit des estimations recentes pour le royaume uni d un modele de la variation du chomage regional d apres thirlwall a partir des resultats principaux il s avere que la structure industrialo regionale ne cesse de jouer un role cle dans la determination de la variation du

state modernization devolution and economic governance an introduction and guide to debate jones m d goodwin m a jones r 2005 state modernization devolution and economic governance an introduction and guide to debate regional studies 39 4 397 403

the size distribution of innovating firms in the uk 1945 1983 a survey of 4 378 significant innovations shows that firms with fewer than 1 000 employees commercialized a much larger share than is indicated by their share of r and d expenditures innovations per employee have been consistently above average in firms with more than 10 000 employees and have become so in firms with fewer than 1 000 intersectoral variation in the size distribution of innovating firms can be explained as a function of r and d based technological opportunities and of technological ease of entry by user firms with principal activities outside the sector copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

why are excess returns on china s treasury bonds so predictable the role of the monetary system abstract it is well documented that the time varying bond excess returns can be explained by predetermined variables such as information in the term structure and macro economic variables recent studies suggest that demand and supply of bonds influence bond excess returns we extend the literature and find that monetary system attributes affect return dynamics in the bond market by introducing a theoretical model to forecast excess returns on treasury bonds in the context of china s unique monetary system this paper attributes the predicted components of bond excess returns mainly to the inflexible term structures of official interest rates set by china s central bank

policy review section in this policy review section gerry stoker of the institute of local government studies presents a critical review of the role of urban development corporations udcs in comparing the experience of the udcs consideration is given to the varying nature of the land and property market in each udc area to the relationship with local authorities and other local bodies and the regeneration strategies pursued by the udcs this is followed by an assessment of the impact of the udcs in economic social and political terms in the second article john britton of the university of toronto examines the theoretical case for interventionist public policies to assist the innovation process in small and medium sized enterprises these arguments are supported by a review of the experience of various national support programmes introduced in the uk in particular the manufacturing advisory service introduced in 1978 and the design advisory service launched in 1982

the semiconductor industry in south east asia organization location and the international division of labour 1 scott a j 1987 the semiconductor industry in south east asia organization location and the international division of labour reg studies 21 143 160 the paper deals with the functional and geographical organization of the semiconductor industry in south east asia the discussion opens with a broad description of the growth of us owned assembly plants in the region this is followed by an account of the current geographical distribution in south east asia of 1 us owned assembly plants 2 locally owned diffusion facilities and 3 locally owned subcontract assembly houses the internal functional characteristics of assembly plants are examined it is then shown that there is an emerging international division of labour in the semiconductor industry within south east asia the growth of localized semiconductor production complexes is analysed the theory of the new international division of labour is briefly reconsidered in the light of all this scott a j 1987 l industrie des semi conducte

the dynamics of regional unemployment in the uk 1974 89 this paper investigates the relationship between regional and national unemployment for the uk for the period 1974 1989 this problem is approached by using the time series methods of cointegration and causality tests the main conclusions are that regional and national unemployment are not as closely related as might have been supposed although any causation may as previously assumed run from the national to the regional level some regions are seen to be changing their position in the hierarchy of relative regional unemployment while most retain their relative status

the cyclical sensitivity of regional unemployment an assessment byers j d 1990 the cyclical sensitivity of regional unemployment an assessment reg studies 24 447 453 the slope coefficient obtained by regressing a regional unemployment rate on the national rate is often interpreted as a measure of the sensitivity of the regional economy to cyclical shocks in the national economy this paper discusses the procedures used to estimate cyclical sensitivity employing recent developments in econometric modelling of time series it is suggested the ols regressions actually reveal the equilibrium relationship between the two rather than the cyclical relationship byers j d 1990 la sensibilite cyclique du chomage regionale une evaluation reg studies 24 447 453 le coefficient de la pente calcule a partir d une regression du taux de chomage regional par rapport au taux national est souvent interprete comme mesure de la sensibilite de l economie regionale aux chocs cycliques dans l economie nationale cet article discute des demarches suivies afin d evaluer la

competition policy in the common market its links with regional policy deacon d 1982 competition policy in the common market its links with regional policy reg studies 16 53 63 this paper examines the possible conflict between competition and regional policy in the common market it suggests that competition policy towards regional aids can have a positive influence on the development of backward regions by limiting aids in less backward regions the community s competition policy towards regional aids is analysed and a comparison of regional problems with budgetary expenditure on regional aid is made the paper concludes that expenditure on regional aids does not always reflect the intensity of regional problems when seen in a community wide extent

the term structure with semi credible targeting the federal reserve sets targets for interest rates which it enforces through direct market intervention these targets are changed periodically in this paper we develop a term structure model in which the short rate is subject to a control which keeps it close to a target which changes from time to time the probability of target changes is not constant in the model but changes as a function of observables the model performs well at explaining the shifts in the yield curve that accompany target changes in u s financial markets the federal reserve bank the fed is a unique player usually we assume that market participants are price takers in financial markets however there is evidence that this is not true of the fed in fact the fed sets targets for short term rates which it attempts to maintain by market intervention injecting or withdrawing funds from the market to keep the rates near their targets targets are changed from time to time and market participants know when such a target change occurs they may in fact have some limited ability to forecast such target changes several recent papers have provided evidence that models which allow the short rate to revert toward a mean which is itself a random process perform

the failure of training in britain analysis and prescription in the last decade education and training et reform has become a major issue in many of the world s industrial powers one theme which runs throughout these reform initiatives is the need to adapt et systems to the changing economic environment these changes include the increasing integration of world markets the shift in mass manufacturing towards newly developed nations and the rapid development of new technologies most notably information technologies education and training are seen to play a crucial role in restoring or maintaining international competitiveness both on the macro level by easing the transition of the workforce into new industries and at the micro level where firms producing high quality specialized goods and services require a well qualified workforce capable of rapid adjustment in the work process and continual product innovation this paper will highlight the need for policy makers and academics to take account of the two way nature of the relationship between et and the economy

regional innovation policies compared regional policy and technology policy increasingly converge into regional innovation policies in the europe of regions the comparison of technology transfer networks in the german regions baden wu

a regional analysis of the distribution of married women s labour force participation rates in the uk molho i i 1983 an analysis of the regional distribution of married women s labour force participation rates in the uk reg studies 17 125 134 a model analysing and conceptually simplifying the possible causes of regional variation in participation rates is constructed and contrasted with previous models of regional participation rates the model is implemented using quarterly data for married women derived from the family expenditure survey 1968 77 the major influences are found to be the unemployment rate of their husbands wage rates family structure and age structure an analysis of the causes of regional convergence in participation rates over time indicated that the trend was due to regional convergence in the unemployment rate of married males and the wage rate of married women

are larger treasury issues more liquid evidence from bill reopenings this paper makes use of a natural experiment of the u s treasury department to examine the relationship between treasury security issue size and liquidity treasury bills that were first issued with 52 weeks to maturity and then reopened at 26 weeks are shown to be more liquid than comparable maturity bills that were first issued with 26 weeks to maturity the relationship is less pronounced when bills are on the run the most recently auctioned bills of a given maturity than when they are off the run and persists when controlling for other factors that affect liquidity the reopened bills are found to have higher yields lower prices than comparable maturity bills showing that the indirect liquidity benefits of reopenings are more than offset by the direct supply costs

urban regeneration and the development industry healey p 1991 urban regeneration and the development industry reg studies 25 97 108 this paper examines a key assumption of urban policy in britain in the 1980s this assumption is that urba

the measurement of capital services in production for uk regions 1968 78 harris r i d 1983 the measurement of capital services in production for uk regions 1968 78 reg studies 17 169 180 the purpose of this study is to obtain meaningful measures of the factor input capital so that estimation of the production function is possible at a regional level firstly gross stock measures are converted into a net stock series and the series obtained are then adjusted for levels of utilization finally some use of the data is made to look at various issues such as which regions have experienced rapid growth in capital stocks the composition of these stocks and changes in the capital labour ratios which have resulted

high technology industry in the bristol sub region the aerospace defence nexus boddy m and lovering j 1986 high technology industry in the bristol sub region the aerospace defence nexus reg studies 20 217 231 this paper presents a detailed study of high technology industry in the bristol region which comprises an important element of the uk s m4 corridor growth area high technology industry in the region is found to be primarily identified with the aerospace industry in terms of both products process and occupational structure aerospace is central to high technology industry as a whole in terms of sub contracting and purchasing and through its domination of the labour market the origins of the electronics based aerospace sector are traced in the development of the aircraft and guided weapons industries as they related to the bristol sub region in the post war period this indicates the key role of defence related production and ministry of defence procurement to the genesis and continuing importance of the advanced technology sector in the sub region demonstratin

taylor rules mccallum rules and the term structure of interest rates abstract recent empirical research shows that a reasonable characterization of federal funds rate targeting behavior is that the change in the target rate depends on the maturity structure of interest rates and exhibits little dependence on lagged target rates see for example cochrane and piazzesi 2002 the fed and interest rates a high frequency identification american economic review 92 90 95 the result echoes the policy rule used by mccallum 1994a monetary policy and the term structure of interest rates nber working paper no 4938 to rationalize the empirical failure of the expectations hypothesis applied to the term structure of interest rates that is rather than forward rates acting as unbiased predictors of future short rates the historical evidence suggests that the correlation between forward rates and future short rates is surprisingly low mccallum showed that a desire by the monetary authority to adjust short rates in response to exogenous shocks to the term premiums imbedded in long rates i e yield curve smoothing along with a desire for smoothing interest rates across time can generate term structures that account for the puzzling regression results of fama and bliss 1987 the information in long maturity forward rates the american economic review 77 680 392 mccallum also clearly pointed out that this reduced form approach to the policy rule although naturally forward looking needed to be studied further in the context of other response functions such as the now standard taylor 1993 discretion versus policy rules in practice carnegie rochester conference series on public policy 39 195 214 rule we explore both the robustness of mccallum s result to endogenous models of the term premium and also its connections to the taylor rule we model the term premium endogenously using two different models in the class of affine term structure models studied in duffie and kan 1996 a yield factor model of interest rates mathematical finance 57 405 443 a stochastic volatility model and a stochastic price of risk model we then solve for equilibrium term structures in environments in which interest rate targeting follows a rule such as the one suggested by mccallum i e the mccallum rule we demonstrate that mccallum s original result generalizes in a natural way to this broader class of models to understand the connection to the taylor rule we then consider two structural macroeconomic models which have reduced forms that correspond to the two affine models and provide a macroeconomic interpretation of abstract state variables as in ang and piazzessi 2003 a no arbitrage vector autoregression of term structure dynamics with macroeconomic and latent variables journal of monetary economics 50 745 787 moreover such structural models allow us to interpret the parameters of the term structure model in terms of the parameters governing preferences technologies and policy rules we show how a monetary policy rule will manifest itself in the equilibrium asset pricing kernel and hence the equilibrium term structure we then show how this policy can be implemented with an interest rate targeting rule this provides us with a set of restrictions under which the taylor and mccallum rules are equivalent in the sense if implementing the same monetary policy we conclude with some numerical examples that explore the quantitative link between these two models of monetary policy

explaining recent trends in new firm formation in the uk some evidence from south hampshire mason c m 1989 explaining recent trends in new firm formation in the uk some evidence from south hampshire reg studies 23 331 346 the paper contributes to the debate on the reasons for the increase in business start ups in the uk since the late 1970s it compares the results of a survey of new manufacturing firms started since 1979 in south hampshire with a previously conducted survey of firms started between 1976 and 1979 the study provides partial support for the recession push explanation the post 1979 cohort contained a higher proportion of firms started by founders who were unemployed redundant although there was no evidence to support other aspects of the recession push explanation the study fails to support structural change explanations in addition there was no evidence that government assistance to small businesses had been a significant factor in the formation of the post 1979 cohort of new businesses mason c m 1989 une explication des tendances recentes en faveur de la creat

job loss and the regional incidence of redundancies in the current recession industrial change is a two sided process it both creates new plants production methods and jobs and displaces others at present in operation but the two sides of this process rarely coincide in time or space and in britain over the past fifteen years or so the develop ment path of the economy has been increasingly dominated by displacement effects whether measured in terms of output exports investment or employment there has been a cumulative weakening of the contribution of manufacturing to the national economy an unprecedented de industrialisation although opinions differ over the precise causes of this persistent industrial decline it is clear that the british economy has become caught in a process of declining external competitiveness which is both a consequence and a cause of a deteriorating economic environment characterised by low profits the holding back of new investment and insufficient job opportunities blackaby 1978 hughes 1981 cambridge economic policy group 1982 it is the absolute decline in industrial employ ment sustained now for some sixteen years and accelerated by the current recession that is one of the worrying features of this deindustrialisation from a peak level in 1966 total industrial employment has declined by over four million of which three million is accounted for by jobs lost in manufacturing during the 1970s there were some increases in service employment especially in the public sector which offset the decline in manufac turing jobs but that offsetting trend came to a halt towards the end of the decade over the period 1966 81 service employment increased by just over one million so that the loss of four million jobs in industry has been primarily reflected not by jobs created else where in the economy but by an increase in the army of unemployed of nearly three million industrial unemployment is now more than ten times what it was in 1966 this decline in the demand for labour has been characterised by a number of cyclical phases over the last decade or so cycles in the rate of capital accumulation appear to have become more marked and to have been accompanied by pronounced swings in the financial balance of a large number of firms and industries much of the labour displacement that has occurred during these crises has been concentrated in a single year within the four or five year cycle as in 1967 1971 1975 and in the current recession in 1980 with out doubt this latest downturn is the most severe of the post war period an economic col lapse that has been sharply intensified by the tory government s pursuance of restrictive monetarist policies to combat inflation and a laissez faire approach to the supply side of

external ownership of industry and government policy some further evidence for northern ireland harris r i d 1990 external ownership of industry and government policy some further evidence for northern ireland reg studies 25 45 62 this paper considers the causes and consequences of external ownership and control of manufacturing in northern ireland the province is an interesting example of a branch plant economy since government regional policy has been particularly responsible for encouraging inward investment the effect of external control on occupational structures inter firm linkages technological development and plant closures is assessed using various and often unique databases the results obtained suggest that high levels of external ownership in northern ireland lead to proportionately more unskilled as opposed to skilled manual workers linkages tend to be truncated leading to generally lower levels of integration into the local economy rd and there appears to have been a higher propensity for closure if the plant w

northern ireland an economy in crisis it is now more than a decade since british troops were sent to northern ireland and the conflict in the province continues with no end in sight a great deal has been written about the economic and political background to this conflict but relatively little about what has actually happened since 1969 whilst a great deal of information is available from official sources and specialist publications there have been few attempts to collate this material and provide a general picture of the situation in northern ireland the present article has been written in an attempt to fill this gap 1 it is mainly concerned with the 1970s but it also briefly considers preceding history for reasons of space and time the article is highly selective and a number of important questions are ignored or touched upon only superficially in particular discussion of politics has been kept to a minimum and the emphasis is mainly upon economic and social questions moreover the article is almost entirely concerned with the situation inside northern ireland itself and whilst there are occasional references to the independent republic in southern ireland there is no attempt to provide a comprehensive picture of ireland as a whole the article is divided into four parts it begins with a short description of how northern ireland was created as a self governing province of the uk it then examines the history of the province up to 1970 and describes the rapid but uneven development of the northern irish economy during the late 1950s and the 1960s next comes the main part of the article which considers in some detail the economic crisis which has beset northern ireland over the past decade and analyses the enormous structural changes which have occurred during this period finally the article concludes with some general observations about future prospects and possibilities

the u s national innovation system origins and prospects for change in recent years the concept of national innovation systems has attained considerable currency and interest although a precise definition of a national innovation system is difficult analyses of the japanese and u s national innovation systems have implicitly defined them as the array of public and private institutions and organizations within an economy that fund and perform rd nelson 1993 interest in national innovation systems stems in part from a growing acknowledgment of the contributions to national economic welfare of superior performance in the commercialization and adoption of new technologies this awareness in turn has been heightened by the innovative and economic strength of postwar japan

the anatomy of job creation nations regions and cities in the 1960s and 1970s hall p 1987 the anatomy of job creation nations regions and cities in the 1960s and 1970s reg studies 21 95 106 oecd data for four industrial countries great britain federal germany usa and japan demonstrate a clear shift from manufacturing to service employment most marked in the usa there are sharp differences in the degree to which these countries have compensated for manufacturing job losses by gains in the services within the uk there are also marked differences in these replacement ratios both between regions and between major cities hall p 1987 anatomie de la creation d emplois reegions et cites dans les annees soixante et soixante dix reg studies 21 95 106 les donnees de l ocde pour quatre pays industrialises la grande bretagne la republique federale allemande les usa et le japon montrent un changement manifeste de l emploi dans la fabrication a l emploi dans les services cette tendance etant particulierement accentuee aux usa il y a des differences tres nettes dan

the growth and geographical anatomy of venture capitalism in the united kingdom martin r l 1989 the growth and geographical anatomy of venture capitalism in the united kingdom reg studies 23 389 403 the 1980s have seen the emergence and rapid growth of venture capitalism in the uk this paper examines this growth both in terms of the spatial organization of the venture capital industry and the regional distribution of venture capital investment the picture that emerges is of an industry which is over centralized in the london area and which in the course of its recent development has tended to concentrate investment in the already more prosperous southeastern and adjacent parts of the country while local venture capital markets are beginning to become established in northern britain it will be some time before the existing regional imbalance is likely to be redressed martin r l 1989 la croissance et la distribution geographique du capital risque au royaume uni reg studies 23 389 403 les annees 1980 ont temoigne de la naissance et de l essor du capital risque au

relocation relocation relocation assessing the case for public sector dispersal marshall j n bradley d hodgson c alderman n and richardson r 2005 relocation relocation relocation assessing the case for public sector dispersal regional studies 39 767 787 the paper assesses the case for public sector relocation from capital cities using evidence from britain the senior echelons of the british civil service are disproportionately concentrated in london significant reductions in operating costs can be achieved by relocating civil service functions from the capital and these financial savings have been used to justify programmes of dispersal however the paper stresses the strong regional case for relocation relocation contributes directly through employment creation to more balanced regional economic development and simultaneously reduces overheating close to the capital and the under utilization of infrastructure and human resources in other regions the relocation of more senior jobs in the civil service from london strengthens the service base within problem reg

the economic benefits of the channel tunnel the channel tunnel john kay alan manning and stefan szymanski the channel tunnel connecting the uk to france is due to open in may 1993 this paper analyses both the social and private profitability of the tunnel project we do this by modelling the competitive process in the cross channel market and assessing the impact of the tunnel on prices and demand we find that the characteristics of the tunnel enormous capacity and very low marginal costs will have the effect of driving down prices and hence providing a huge social benefit we find that the private profitability is less clear cut and although positive is quite sensitive to changes in the strength of competition and demand this analysis can be used to explain the fact that although the channel tunnel is widely perceived as a beneficial infrastructure project it proved extremely difficult to raise finance for the venture

contrasting experience of recession and spatial restructuring british shipbuilders plessey and metal box peck f w and townsend a r 1984 contrasting experience of recession and spatial re structuring british shipbuilders plessey and metal box reg studies 18 319 338 trends in aggregate economic indicators in the recent recession conceal marked variations in the experience of different industrial corporations within the meso economic sector in the uk this paper demonstrates such variations by comparing the nature of employment decline in three major uk corporations british shipbuilders plessey and metal box despite similar employment profiles since 1977 these three corporations have experienced very different trends in output productivity and profitability suggesting that their respective job losses have occurred for different reasons the origins of these job losses are examined in detail concentrating in particular on the regional incidence of major redundancies and closures the conclusion summarizes the factors which influence job loss and suggests extending the analysis to wider groups of

an empirical analysis of the unemployment duration of school leavers unemployment is a waste of vaulable human resources which also imposes various economics medical and psychological costs on the individual these costs are likely to be greater the longer the duration of umemployment this is true for both prime aged workers and the youngest entrants to the labour market that is school leavers using careers service data on 1979 1980 and 1981 leavers the authors seek to shed light on the issue of what factors determine the duration of unemployment for minimum aged school leavers the way in which these factors can be used by the careers service to identify those school leavers who have a higher risk of long term unemployment is discussed and a number of strategies for helping this group are outlined the results show that after allowing for the distorting influence of the youth opportunities programme longer durations of unemployment are associated with an absence of work experience low to intermediate qualifications and other personality traits

international evidence on bond risk premia abstract this paper revisits the study of time varying excess bond returns in international bond markets using newly available yield curve data from 10 different countries with independent monetary policy i test the robustness of cochrane and piazzesi 2005 for most countries in my sample i find more modest predictive power for forward rates than originally found by cochrane and piazzesi 2005 for the us their single factor model captures well the predictability in international data and this factor also tends to have a tent shape in most countries of my sample cp factors are more idiosyncratic across countries than yields or forward rates finally i show that the recent financial crisis has significantly affected the predictability of excess bond returns

women in the labour markets of the london region a model of dependence and constraint this paper uses a simultaneous equations model of labour and housing market relationships in the london metropolitan region in order to illuminate some of the specific characteristics of female labour markets in an explicitly spatial context in addition to restricted female commuting fields two significant sets of spatial constraint were identified firstly the residential location of married women tended to depend on access to male not female employment opportunities and secondly limited access to owner occupation tended to restrict the residential mobility of non married women nevertheless responsiveness to local demand conditions of married women s participation rates on the one hand and non married women s migration on the other rendered local female unemployment comparatively less sensitive to employment change

redundancies labour turnover and employment contraction in the recession a regional analysis martin r l 1984 redundancies labour turnover and employment contraction in the recession a regional analysis reg studies 18 445 458 the rapid decline of the british economy during the current recession has generated considerable interest in the geography of employment contraction and the regional incidence of redundancy in this paper it is argued that regional variations in the impact of redundancy need to be viewed in relation to the other labour turnover flows that contribute to net employment loss estimates of gross labour turnover flows suggest that there have been wide differences amongst the regions in the proportion of total discharges accounted for by redundancies furthermore there is evidence that regional specific rates of redundancy are related to 1 the pace of decline in a region 2 the average rate of national job turnover in the region and 3 the extent to which such natural turnover declines as employment opportunities diminish and unemployment rises the implication is

the role of large producers in industrial districts a case study of high technology systems houses in southern california scott a j 1992 the role of large producers in industrial districts a case study of high technology systems houses in southern california reg studies 26 265 275 a generalized concept of industrial districts is proposed the concept hinges on the intertwined notions of the social division of labour external economies and locational agglomeration it is argued that large production units often play an important part in sustaining the growth and development of industrial districts and that such districts need not be composed solely of small production units the argument is illustrated by means of a case study of the role of large systems houses within the high technology industrial districts of southern california it is concluded that neither large establishments nor the internationalization of the economy necessarily threaten the continued viability of industrial districts it is also suggested that industrial districts represent a very widely developed phenomenon in time and space scott a j

industry characteristics and productivity growth the study examines the relationship between several industrial characteristics the presence of large or small firms the concentration ratio the extent of unionization and the amount of research and development and multifactor productivity growth overall r and d is the only influence which consistently has a positive effect on productivity growth under all circumstances this conclusion is particularly meaningful since the present study uses three digit specific research data while prior studies have generally assigned a common two digit research value to more detailed industries the evidence therefore supports science and knowledge as the primary determinant of productivity growth and indicates that the firm or market structure within which knowledge is applied to production is less consistently influential than the knowledge effort itself 14 references 2 tables

evaluating the effects of employment changes on local unemployment gordon i 1988 evaluating the effects of employment changes on local unemployment reg studies 22 135 147 this paper outlines a general methodology for estimation of the effects of employment

location choice and labour market perceptions a discrete choice study henley a carruth a thomas a and vickerman r 1989 location choice and labour market perceptions a discrete choice study reg studies 23 431 445 the location of industry in an economy raises many important issues for economists and governments interested in economic efficiency and equity one interesting question is whether economic factors have an important role to play in explaining location patterns this paper uses a survey data set of uk establishments in growth activities it implements a discrete choice framework to contrast the performance of economic variables with that of establishments perceptions about these economic conditions in explaining location choice henley a carruth a thomas a et vickerman r 1989 le choix de localisation et les perceptions du marche de l emploi une etude par choix discret reg studies 23 431 445 dans une economie la localisation de l industrie souleve de nombreuses questions importantes a la fois pour les economistes et pour les gouvernements qu

the cyclical sensitivity of regional employment and unemployment differentials gordon i r 1985 the cyclical sensitivity of regional employment and unemployment differentials reg studies 19 95 110 this paper examines inter regional variations in the cyclical sensitivity of employment and unemployment in the uk over the past thirty years it shows that the patterns for employment and for unemployment are quite different the cyclical sensitivity of unemployment is greatest in the high unemployment regions while that for employment is greatest in the more industrial regions it is argued that the primary reason for differences in the sensitivity of unemployment is not demand side factors but cyclical variations in labour mobility between regions lower mobility in periods of high unemployment reduces the effectiveness of inter regional supply adjustments and increases the variance of unemployment rates

varying risk premia in international bond markets abstract cochrane and piazzesi cochrane j h piazzesi m 2005 bond risk premia american economic review 95 138 160 use forward rates to forecast future bond returns we extend their approach by applying their model to international bond markets our results indicate that the unrestricted cochrane and piazzesi 2005 model has a reasonable forecasting power for future bond returns the restricted model however does not perform as well on an international level furthermore we cannot confirm the systematic tent shape of the estimated parameters found by cochrane and piazzesi 2005 the forecasting models are used to implement various trading strategies these strategies exhibit high information ratios when implemented in individual countries or on an international level and outperform alternative approaches we introduce an alternative specification to forecast future bond returns and achieve superior risk adjusted returns in our trading strategy bayesian model averaging is used to enhance the performance of the proposed trading strategy

small firms business services growth and regional development in the united kingdom some empirical findings keeble d bryson j and wood p 1991 small firms business services growth and regional development in the united kingdom some empirical findings reg studies 25 439 457 since 1980 the united kingdom has experienced very rapid growth in firms and employment in information intensive business services this paper documents the nature and extent of this growth with particular reference to small and new firms in management consultancy and market research and reviews its locational impact numbers of business service firms most of which are small independent companies have grown much faster than consumer service firms despite a significant death rate many small businesses in these sectors have grown rapidly as have very large firms business service growth has contributed powerfully to the uk s north south divide being focused on london and the outer south east possible causes of these trends and key future research issues are reviewed keeble d bryson j et wood p 1991 petites entreprise

measuring the local employment impact of a tourist attraction an empirical study johnson p and thomas b 1990 measuring the local employment impact of a tourist attraction an empirical study reg studies 24 395 403 a framework for estimating the local employment impact of a major tourist attraction in the north of england is presented direct employment occurs inside and outside the attraction as a result of final expenditure the problem of identifying only that expenditure which is attributable to the attraction is confronted indirect employment in the chain of suppliers to the direct activities and induced employment from spending incomes generated in direct and indirect activity are discussed and measured attention is focused on the diversion of demand and the loss of employment elsewhere and estimates of the net employment impact are provided johnson p et thomas b 1990 la mesure de l effet emploi local d une attraction touristique une atude empirique reg studies 24 395 403 une structure qui sert a estimer l effet emploi local d un projet se voit pre enter y

market structure and innovation a survey economics we all recite deals with allocation of limited resources towards satisfaction of unlimited wants resources are typically identified as land labor and capital plus a technology that determines their transformation into consumer goods disparity between the available goods and services and the desired gives rise to scarcity and the question of what how and for whom to produce the focus then shifts to description and evaluation of alternative resource allocation mechanisms for making the choices the pareto criterion by which an allocation of resources is deemed efficient if any reallocation improving the position of some individual worsens the position of others is a commonly employed gauge of a mechanism s performance in the absence of externalities increasing returns to scale and uncertainty a perfectly competitive market system yields a pareto optimal allocation of resources this underlies the view that individual self interest is compatible with society s interest the further conclusion that pareto optimality may not be achieved via the market system in the presence of monopoly elements provides an economic rationale for antitrust laws the objective of a resource allocation mechanism appears to be according to the analysis described above to make the best of available resources the alternative objective of relaxing constraints through expanding the resource base or developing new technology seems to be beyond its scope thus until rather recently technical advance had been regarded in the mainstream of economic theory as unmotivated by the quest for profits and substantially unaffected by resource allocation instead as j schmookler observed technology had been viewed as a parameter like the weather affecting the outcome of resource allocations but itself unaffected by them 84 1965 evidence that technological progress has significantly contributed to growth in productivity together with a substantial increase in research and development activity largely financed by government and carried out by industry see f machlup 51 1962 may have spurred reconsideration of this view once technical advance is regarded as an economic variable it is natural to in

spatial aspects of the growth of part time employment in britain townsend a 1986 spatial aspects of the growth of part time employment in britain reg studies 20 313 330 part time employment has a large and growing share of total employment in britain it is substituting for the growth of full time jobs and is the principal employment opportunity for women with children its distinct spatial pattern of expansion 1971 81 is notable for including peripheral regions such as wales and the south west as most of the growth is in services it proves best analysed in relation to total population growth supplemented by shift share analysis of employment in the public sector a broad relationship to both population and government expenditure trends is evident part time employment must be incorporated in the study of established employment trends such as urban rural shift demand for part time workers is sufficient to explain the regional convergence of female activity rates demand is for relatively cheap labour

job loss and the regions how important is redundancy meager n 1984 job loss and the regions how important is redundancy reg studies 18 459 467 the paper argues that the common emphasis when comparing job losses between regions or industries etc on net employment decline and on redundancy as the major component of it may be misplaced and may conceal important differences between the regions or industries compared the argument is illustrated with data from a local labour market motherwell and with official data on the british regions it is shown in particular that when considered as a component of gross employment change redundancy may not dominate job loss future work should therefore concentrate to a greater extent on gross changes and on non redundancy methods of job loss

the regional impact of the small firms loan guarantee scheme in the united kingdom harrison r t and mason c m 1986 the regional impact of the small firms loan guarantee scheme in the united kingdom reg studies 20 535 550 the small business loan guarantee scheme was introduced in the uk in 1981 in response to long standing concern about the problems encountered by small businesses in raising external finance although the scheme was introduced nationally its impact has varied among regions not unexpectedly the south east and east anglia account for the largest proportion of guarantees both by number and by value of loans this lends superficial support to the argument that nationally oriented small firms policies may actually contradict the aims of regional policy however this conclusion must be qualified in the light of the evidence once each region s share of the total stock of businesses is taken into account certain peripheral regions notably the north west join the south east east anglia region as having more than their expected share of loan guarantees evidence p

development scenarios and policy guidelines for the lagging regions in the 1990s camagni r p 1992 development scenarios and policy guidelines for the lagging regions in the 1990s reg studies 26 361 374 the least favoured ec regions will benefit less from the creation of the single european market due to their weaker economic structure and they will suffer directly from some of the harmonization regulations and the consequences of moving rapidly towards economic and monetary union they will be forced to give up some of the traditional assistance tools and their advantage in unit labour costs will vanish rapidly a renewed effort in terms of regional policy interventions based on new principles and philosophies rather than on new tools is required ideas include integration of different policy instruments and their spatial concentrations the enhancement of local synergies network co operation among firms and interregional co operation camagni r p 1992 des strategies de developpement et politiques d orientation aux annees 90 pour les regions de la ce en retend reg

price pressure in the government bond market what determines the term structure of interest rates standard economic theory links the interest rate for maturity t to the willingness of a representative agent to substitute consumption between times 0 and t the standard model contrasts sharply with a more informal view based on investors preferred habitat proposed by john culbertson 1957 and franco modigliani and richard sutch 1966 according to the preferred habitat view there are investor clienteles with preferences for specific maturities and the interest rate for a given maturity is influenced by the demand of the corresponding clientele and the supply of bonds with that maturity for example the typical clientele for long term bonds are pension funds an increase in their demand would be expected to raise prices of long term bonds and thus lower long term interest rates in short preferred habitat implies that there is price pressure in the bond market while the preferred habitat view has intuitive appeal it has not entered into the academic mainstream typically being relegated to a paragraph in mba level textbooks one reason for this is the mixed findings in early empirical studies of the term structure specifically between 1962 and 1964 the us treasury and federal reserve raised the supply of short term government debt while simultaneously lowering the supply of long term debt this program known as operation twist aimed to raise shortterm interest rates and so improve the balance of payments while also lowering long term rates to stimulate private investment a number of papers evaluated operation twist and while they reached different conclusions none found strong evidence that the operation was effective in flattening the term structure e g modigliani price pressure in the government bond market

england s problem region regionalism in the south east england s south east is the most affluent and privileged place in the uk yet it is also the most institutionally weak and geographically divided of all the english regions and while all the english regions are to some extent unnatural artifices the south east is defined mainly in relation to an external space london the new post 1997 regional bodies rdas regional assemblies and expanded government offices have the task of constructing and legitimizing an institutional framework that is unable to incorporate the heart of the regional economy in the capital city there is as a result little popular support in the south east for regional government and limited pan regional cohesion among elites which tend to have a fragmented local focus incentives for a fuller regional mobilization may though emerge as a defensive strategy to prevent the migration of resources to more coherent and economically disadvantaged northern regions le sud est d angleterre est la region la plus riche et la plus fa

bond yields and the federal reserve bond yields respond to policy decisions by the federal reserve and vice versa to learn about these responses i model a high frequency policy rule based on yield curve information and an arbitrage free bond market in continuous time the fed s target is a pure jump process jump intensities depend on the state of the economy and the meeting calendar of the federal open market committee the model has closed form solutions for yields as functions of a few state variables introducing monetary policy helps to match the whole yield curve because the target is an observable state variable that pins down its short end and introduces important seasonalities around fomc meetings the volatility of yields is snake shaped which the model explains with policy inertia the policy rule crucially depends on the two year yield and describes fed policy better than taylor rules

local development conceptual bases and policy implications coffey w j and polese m 1985 local development conceptual bases and policy implications reg studies 19 85 93 although local development is frequently cited as an option within the broader context of regional policy the concept remains vague the bases of the local development approach lie in its complementarity with three traditional pillars of regional theory and policy capital and infrastructure policies migration as an adjustment mechanism and growth centre strategies in examining the potential utility of local development as an effective element of regional development policy we emphasize the emergence of local entrepreneurship and the role of the state in stimulating local initiatives local development policy may be generalized in terms of three options involving financial assistance access to information and social animation

productive decentralization or indigenous growth small manufacturing enterprises and regional development in central portugal lewis j r and williams a m 1987 productive decentralization or indigenous growth small manufacturing enterprises and regional development in central portugal reg studies 21 343 361 small firms are crucial to the portuguese economy and have been important in the recent expansion of industrial activity away from core regions a survey of the formation and development of manufacturing enterprises in four contrasting rural locations within the central region tested the relevance of explanations based on north italian evidence of productive decentralization and spatial spread however analysis of employment characteristics inter firm linkages and conditions of firm formation reveals the dominance of independent and indigenous growth in the present wave of industrialization variations in firm characteristics between industrial sectors and economic environments indicate the need for more effective promotion policies not least to contain intra regional inequalities lewis j r et williams a m 1

a second great depression in the uk regions can anything be done moore b and rhodes j 1982 a second great depression in the uk regions can anything be done reg studies 16 323 33 this is a revised version of a paper given to the regional studies conference in glasgow in may 1981 the authors were asked to put forward the views of the cambridge economic policy group cepg on the economy as a whole and to draw out any implications for the uk regions a diagnosis of the uk economic problem and its regional manifestation is followed by a discussion of the macro economic strategy favoured by the group which aims to ensure that the economy can be expanded at a permanently faster rate without running into balance of payments problems only a strategy of this kind could make a significant impact on the very high rates of unemployment in the depressed regions

the economic impact of the operation and closure of a nuclear power station lewis p m 1986 the economic impact of the operation and closure of a nuclear power station reg studies 20 425 432 this paper addresses the question of the extent to which one nuclear power station has generated economic benefits for its host economy throughout its operational stage and how far these benefits will be reversed on its closure it does this by evaluating the employment impact of the station s operation and thence predicting the impact of closure on employment opportunities and on unemployment a keynesian multiplier exercise forms the basis of the predictions which relate to the travel to work area which plays host to the power station an essential element in the question in the effect of remoteness on economic impact and dependence the implications of closure for planners are considered

the relationship between regional and national unemployment an important issue in the analysis of regional unemployment is whether movements in regional unemployment rates reflect the impact of region specific shocks or shocks affecting the entire economy previous studies have examined this problem by considering how the regional rates move in relation to the national unemployment rate however it has to be remembered that the national rate is merely a weighted average of the regional rates in this paper we show that misleading correlation or regression results are likely to be generated by such models and that the problem can best be avoided by utilizing available information about the interactions between the regional unemployment rates directly rather than their relationship to the national rate the theoretical arguments are illustrated with simulation experiments and as a practical example we consider the relationship between regional and national unemployment in australia une question cle quant a l analyse du chomage regional c est de savoir si oui ou n

labour turnover in uk manufacturing a model of quits is constructed and combined with a labour demand function to produce a model of layoffs these are combined to provide an explanation of separations the main feature of this is the explicit incorporation of the interactions between quits and layoffs a linear approximation and a structural form are estimated on uk manufacturing data for 1965 82 it is shown that the most important determinant of separations is the state of demand in the labour market with some structural factors having a minor role to play

the measurement of the impact of regional policies in europe a survey and critique ashcroft b 1982 the measurement of the impact of regional policies in europe a survey and critique reg studies 16 287 305 the paper examines the broad approaches and particular methods used to estimate the impact of regional policies in several european countries the strengths and weaknesses of the major approaches are identified the total effects their components and the effects of individual policy instruments are considered the theory and measurement of the costs and benefits of regional policy is examined some areas for further research are suggested