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Insecure lives, secure futures?
No full textMillions of people across the UK experience a lack of security in areas like money, housing, health and care. When these insecurities build and combine, it multiplies their effects. Experiencing a lack of security across different areas can impose emotional burdens, harm wellbeing and keep people out of the workforce. Multiple insecurities force a focus on short-term crisis management, rather than long-term planning for the future
Subjective beliefs estimators and their properties
No full textInformation-theoretic methods recover investors’ subjective beliefs by minimizing the statistical discrepancy between beliefs and the DGP, subject to assets’ Euler constraints. We show that the estimated beliefs converges in probability to its pseudo-true value. Comparing estimators in the Cressie-Read family, we show that the exponential tilting and empirical likelihood estimators produce qualitatively similar estimates of the risk aversion levels and beliefs. The quadratic divergence estimator leads to negative subjective probabilities, implausibly large risk aversion levels, and underestimation of left tail risk. Our results suggest large institutional investors, like pension funds, have countercyclical beliefs about the market return, while extrapolative investors have procyclical beliefs. Our results offer an alternative explanation of the momentum effect in stock returns, help reconcile procyclical beliefs reported in individual investor surveys versus countercyclical beliefs implied by rational expectations representative agent models, and establish the information-theoretic approach as a powerful methodology for the recovery of beliefs
Rethinking student loan design: evidence from a price-based reform in Chilean higher education
No full textThis paper examines the effects of a major 2012 student loan reform in Chile that reduced interest rates from 6% to 2% and introduced more flexible repayment terms. Unlike studies of initial loan implementation, this reform offers a rare opportunity to examine how changes in the cost of borrowing affect enrollment decisions among already-eligible students. Using rich administrative data and a difference-in-differences design, we estimate the effects of the reform on immediate enrollment, second-year enrollment, and second-year dropout. To strengthen causal inference, we complement our strategy with a difference-in-discontinuities approach that leverages eligibility thresholds. We find a compositional shift in immediate enrollment: university enrollment increases by 2.5 percentage points, offset by an equal decline in vocational institutions, with no effect on overall enrollment. This shift persists into second-year outcomes, where university students exhibit slightly higher dropout and vocational students show improved persistence. These effects are concentrated among students from voucher schools and are absent among students from public schools, likely due to persistent academic and financial constraints. We also find that overall enrollment declines for female students, which may reflect greater risk aversion in response to uncertainty. These findings shed light on how price-based reforms to student loan programs can generate unequal responses across student groups and institutional sectors, offering valuable lessons for the design of equitable higher education financing
How can data help us to understand and address complex problems?
No full textA single policy intervention can have hundreds of impacts – large and small, intended and unintended, positive and negative. Research supported by LSE’s Data Science Institute with Dr Alexandra Gomes and her team, in partnership with the Ordnance Survey (OS) and NHS England, highlights the importance of understanding the complexity of data-driven systems behind health and wellbeing interventions
Parental involvement and capital heterogeneity in academic achievement among Chinese music majors
No full textDrawing on Bourdieu’s theory of capital, this study examines how family economic, cultural, and social resources influence the academic achievement of undergraduate music majors in China, and the mediating role of parental educational involvement. A cross-sectional survey of 266 students from eight Beijing universities was conducted, collecting demographic, family capital, and academic performance data. Quantitative analysis shows all capital dimensions correlate positively with performance, with cultural capital most influential (r = 0.323, p < 0.001). Heterogeneity analysis indicates stronger cultural capital effects for female students (r = 0.458, p < 0.001) and social capital significance for rural students (r = 0.315, p < 0.01). Parental encouragement mediates ∼7% of the capital-achievement relationship. The findings highlight the need for targeted policies to enhance cultural capital and optimise the translation of social capital within higher music education
Global learning enabling teacher voices in one Greek primary school: mixed methods including action research and interviews
No full textPolitical socialisation in the UK: describing generational changes of values
No full textA growing bulk of research examines intergenerational shifts in attitudes and the extent to which they are attributable to new cohorts of voters being socialised under different socioeconomic and cultural climates. This paper sets off from this research and provides an overview of how age and generational gaps across economic and sociocultural value dimensions have developed in the context of the United Kingdom. The paper further describes how demographic characteristics such as class, education, and gender affect attitudinal differences between and within generations. Tracing changes in values across a 30-year period, we find that economic attitudes are cyclical rather than veering in a particular direction. Sociocultural values, however, have been consistently shifting towards social liberalism – a change that is driven primarily by generational replacement. Moreover, against growing speculation of increasing ideological polarisation between different age groups, our analysis of British electoral data suggests that age gaps in attitudes, rather than growing, are either stable or decreasing in magnitude throughout the period examined
Empowering students with modern pedagogical approaches: a case study on the fourth industrial revolution in the wake of coronavirus disease 2019
No full textThe Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has brought significant changes to the labour market, introducing new job roles and increasing the demand for soft skills. The rapidly evolving technological landscape demands effective communication, emotional intelligence, and problem-solving skills. This case study sought to understand the creative teaching methods that universities should adopt to prepare students for the future workforce and bridge the skills gap. The study utilised the human capital theory framework to examine the relationship between education and skills. To investigate this correlation, a qualitative case study was conducted, involving interviews with education experts using a semi-structured interview guide consisting of eight items. Upon analysing the data, it was discovered that universities could employ various pedagogical approaches such as formative analytics, experiential learning, and blended learning to prepare students with the skills needed for the future job market
Does this work here? Evaluation and evidence for local industrial strategy and policy
No full textThe successful implementation of industrial strategies relies on high-quality evidence of interventions that work. Yet, there is a lack of such evidence, particularly for local and regional economic policy. While policymakers at all levels of government express a strong desire for better evidence, limited research has addressed the question of why more resources are not devoted to producing better evidence. This article identifies barriers to more and better evaluation of industrial and economic policy more generally. This is a pertinent question in the UK context as a new industrial strategy is launched, while local government is undergoing a reorganisation with new powers for economic policy being devolved. The article makes two contributions. First, it argues that evaluation and evidence should be treated as a public good that will be underprovided without deliberate investment. Second, the lack of a strong ecosystem for evaluation at the local level is identified, which could act as a flexible resource to improve evaluation capacity and capability and support the use of existing evidence. Implications for the design of incentives and institutions for evaluation are considered
Studying social work practice in context
No full textThis chapter critically examines the application of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in social work, arguing that their relevance is limited due to the complexity of social systems. It discusses the need for alternative approaches that go beyond the linear causality of RCTs to explore how interventions work, for whom, and under what circumstances. Using the implementation of the Signs of Safety practice model as a case study, the chapter illustrates the importance of understanding causal mechanisms within complex social systems. It introduces the Meaningful Measures framework as a method for evaluating the effectiveness of social work interventions, highlighting the need for a realist approach to understanding the impact of social work practices on children and families