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Sovereignty and legitimacy in international banking law
No full textIn the United States, as elsewhere around the globe, the prudential regulation of large banks is based on standards promulgated by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS or Basel Committee). In this transnational organization, bank regulators from leading jurisdictions come together to agree to highly detailed and prescriptive standards for large, internationally active banks. National implementations of the Basel rules and standards typically differ from the BCBS standard in only minor ways. For example, U.S. regulators tend to deviate little from what was decided in Basel in the interest of international cooperation. And when the United States does deviate from Basel, it usually does so by “gold-plating.” The legitimacy of this rule-making process recently came under intense scrutiny when U.S. bank regulators proposed controversial regulations intended to complete the post-2008 rule-making package known as Basel 3 in July 2023. The substantive and procedural shortcomings with the proposed Basel 3 (so-called) “endgame” rule have shined a light on long-standing flaws with the legal and democratic legitimacy of the Basel regime. Arguably, the BCBS now encroaches on the sovereignty of its participating member states. This Article critically examines bank prudential rule-making at the Basel Committee and the domestic mechanisms of implementing the Basel rules, thus highlighting the separate but interacting deficiencies in each process. The Article ultimately proposes remedies for enhancing the legitimacy of the prudential regulation of banks in the United States and reconciling the needs of international cooperation in banking law with regulatory sovereignty
The inequality (or the growth) we measure: data gaps and the distribution of incomes
No full textLarge gaps exist between income estimates from inequality studies and macroeconomic statistics, questioning our representation of flows and the relevance of economic growth. We take stock of these gaps by confronting multiple datasets in Latin America, finding that surveys account for around half of macroeconomic income over the past twenty years. Less than half of this gap is due to conceptual differences, the remainder coming from growing measurement issues, which mainly concern capital incomes. Top tails in administrative data and surveys present diverging averages, especially for non-wage incomes, and different shapes. We discuss implications for both inequality levels and trends
Evaluation of the causal impact of recreational marijuana legalisation on traffic safety in the US
No full textSince the legalisation of recreational marijuana in certain US states, traffic fatalities involving drivers testing positive for marijuana have markedly increased, thereby prompting the need to understand how this policy change affects road safety. While marijuana is well-known to impair driving, determining if its recreational use directly causes more traffic fatalities remains contentious due to challenges in roadside impairment testing. Additional challenges arise because (i) Simulations may not accurately replicate driver impairment and road conditions, (ii) Estimation based on observational data must adjust for (unobserved) confounding factors, requiring an innovative model to generate causal inference, and (iii) The dynamic, evolving nature of the process requires capturing temporal relationships. This paper contributes by employing a rigorous study design based on an augmented synthetic control method to assess the causal impact of recreational marijuana legalisation on traffic fatalities. It identifies a consistent but lagged pattern of increased fatality rates in several states post-legalisation, with the effect primarily linked to the drug's retail availability. These findings disprove any prevailing conjectures that dismiss the link between recreational marijuana use and fatal traffic crashes, highlighting the need for informed policy responses
Climate adaptation finance: from paper commitments to climate risk reduction
No full textScience can help to target climate finance at better-quality adaptation
Vergessene Ungleichheiten: Biographische Erzählungen ostdeutscher Professor*innen, edited by Laura Behrmann, Markus Gamper, and Hanna Haag, Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2024, 554 pp., €35 (pbk), ISBN: 978-3-8376-6419-5
No full textHealth system sustainability and resilience: a preliminary provision of measurement through a “mash-up” index
No full textWe present a methodology for a new composite, quantitative “mash-up” index of health system sustainability and resilience, drawing on a qualitative framework developed to assess these dimensions of the health system. The paper summarises quantifiable measures of sustainability and resilience, with sustainability defined through 7 domains and 50 indicator variables, while health system resilience is based on 6 domains and 23 variables. Each domain is captured by a separate index. A composite index is constructed through aggregation across the two dimensions, and their associated domains and indicators. All indices are aggregated through estimation of a geometric means, and are bound between 0 and 100. We pilot across 5 countries over 23 years, with the ultimate aim of identifying health policy strategies for improving national health system capacities and performances; as well as facilitating policy responses to address problematic issues of sustainability and resilience. Face validity suggests that the index captures the non-resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pilot study reveals considerable differences at both the dimension and domain levels within and between the examined countries, while suggesting scope for improvement in both dimensions across all countries. The index thus provides an indicative approach for temporal and spatial yardstick comparison
Decision analysis for practitioners
No full textMany practitioners consider decision analysis as a sociotechnical discipline, with probability, utility, and trade-offs as the core components of a model that enables an accountable decision maker experiencing a sense of unease about the present to explore different assumptions about the future and develop a plan about the way forward for the organization. The decision analyst acts as a process consultant, working with the decision maker and key players as a problem solver and applying any of five structural and five content ingredients of decision analysis in building a requisite model that is sufficient in form and content to resolve the problem while acting as a transitional object, which holds and contains the decision maker’s unease and anxiety about the future. Ten social skills that enable the decision analyst to serve as a process consultant are explained. Six case studies representing problem types for evaluating options, allocating resources, bargaining and negotiating, choosing and deciding, managing risk, and revising opinion demonstrate the many ways that their acting as a transitional object enables exploring the future
How zines can share knowledge about shrinking domesticity
No full textAcross the globe, including in the US, there has been an increasing trend towards housing with smaller living spaces, including tiny housing, co-living, and micro-flats. During a recent conference, hosted by the LSE Phelan US Centre, on housing and homelessness in the US and other countries, participants produced the “The Housing Squeeze Zine.” Jessie Speer and David Madden write that zines offer an opportunity to share academic research in spontaneous, low-cost, and immediate ways and to gain a wider audience compared to traditional academic publications
The role of “good jobs” in tackling in-work poverty
No full textIn the recent past, governments aimed to reduce unemployment by trying to get people “any job”, and at the same time increase the hourly wages of the lowest paying jobs. But that strategy led to people getting stuck in jobs that offered few hours, little flexibility and no potential for advancement. Labour is right to focus on “good jobs” as way out of that trap but, Thomas Stephens warns, this Government ambition needs to be coupled with its Industrial Strategy and deeper reforms to the welfare system
Climate change, political inertia and the power of protest - insights from the LSE Festival exhibition
No full textHow do climate-based natural disasters affect politics? António Valentim presents insights from four studies featured at the 2025 LSE Festival exhibition