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Mental health social care: scoping and developing new and necessary health and care research system
No full textMental health social care is an emerging and evolving field of practice and research within mental health care in the UK. It recognises the significant role played by social determinants in the development of mental illness and distress, and in recovery and well-being. By considering mental health social care as a distinct health and care research system, this paper outlines key priorities for research, funding and capacity building. It argues that mental health social care should be an essential component of mental health service delivery, and calls for a move towards holistic, person-centred care that addresses the social determinants of mental health, alongside biological and psychological factors
Compound optimal design of experiments - semidefinite programming formulations
No full textAn optimal experimental design represents a structured approach to collecting data with the aim of maximizing the information gleaned. Achieving this requires defining an optimality criterion tailored to the specific model under consideration and the purpose of the investigation. However, it is often observed that a design optimized for one criterion may not perform optimally when applied to another. To mitigate this, one strategy involves employing compound designs. These designs balance multiple criteria to create robust experimental plans that are versatile across different applications. In our study, we systematically tackle the challenge of constructing compound approximate optimal experimental designs using Semidefinite Programming. We focus on discretized design spaces, with the objective function being the geometric or the arithmetic mean of design efficiencies relative to individual criteria. We address two combinations of two criteria: concave-concave (illustrated by DE–optimality) and convex-concave (such as DA–optimality). To handle the latter, we reformulate the problem as a bilevel problem. Here, the outer problem is solved using Surrogate Based Optimization, while the inner problem is addressed with a Semidefinite Programming solver. We demonstrate our formulations using both linear and nonlinear models (for the response) of the Beta class, previously linearized to facilitate analysis and comparison
How do central banks control inflation? A guide for the perplexed
No full textCentral banks have a primary goal of price stability. They pursue it using tools that include the interest they pay on reserves, the size and the composition of their balance sheet, and the dividends they distribute to the fiscal authority. We describe the economic theories that justify the central bank's ability to control inflation and discuss their relative effectiveness in light of the historical record. We present alternative approaches as consistent with each other, as opposed to conflicting ideological camps. While interest-rate setting may often be superior, having both a monetarist pillar and fiscal support is essential, and at times pegging the exchange rate or monetizing the debt is inevitable
Everyday voices as big data: a call for the secondary analysis of large-scale qualitative interview data
No full textThis article reflects on the paradox that although research using qualitative interviews has developed sophisticated repertoires of data collection, it has not fully embraced secondary analysis and has struggled to address questions of representativeness. This contrasts with quantitative social science where this is now routine. We discuss recent innovations associated with the ‘big qual’ approach to assembling data from existing qualitative interview studies but argue for a development that champions secondary analysis of qualitative interview data collected from larger, more representative samples. We reflect on precedents for this approach from the 1958 British Birth Cohort Study and, more recently, the American Voices Project. We draw out the unrealised possibilities of secondary analysis, enhanced by recent affordances of computational social science. We argue that the wider deployment of secondary analysis will expand the appeal of qualitative research for policy audiences and contest the hegemony of quantitative survey analysis
Weaponised legal dependence: how states repress their globalised oligarchs
No full textStates increasingly confront security threats from exiled economic elites who retain power through offshore wealth, political influence, and informational leverage. This paper introduces the concept of weaponised legal dependence to explain why and how states file commercial lawsuits against their own citizens in foreign courts – particularly in global legal hubs like London – to neutralise these transnational plutocratic threats. While conventional tools of transnational repression (e.g., extradition, abduction, information warfare) target dissidents’ legitimacy or messaging power, only foreign litigation can directly constrain the material assets that underpin a plutocrat’s influence. However, initiating extraterritorial claims is costly, risky, and entails a partial surrender of sovereignty to liberal jurisdictions. I argue that states resort to these legal strategies when they face power parity with plutocrats – situations where neither side has hierarchical control, prompting political conflict to spill into foreign legal systems under the guise of commercial dispute. Drawing on 60 interviews with legal practitioners and case studies from Russia and Kazakhstan, this paper shows how states instrumentalise the credibility of liberal legal institutions to reclaim offshore assets and delegitimise their rivals. In doing so, illiberal regimes exploit liberal infrastructure, turning courts meant to enforce commercial norms into battlegrounds of domestic power politics
Repayment of EU bailout loans in a member-country of the ES: the case of Greece
No full textThis paper quantifies the future implications of repayment of bailout loans received by Greece from the EU in the previous decade. These debt obligations amount today to around 240 billion euros or 70% of the country’s total public debt and have to be repaid by 2070. This is investigated in a dynamic general equilibrium model calibrated to the Greek economy, in which fiscal policy is conducted under the rules of the new fiscal governance framework and quantitative monetary policy is subject to the rules of the Eurosystem. Our simulations show that, other things equal, repayment will have recessionary implications in the years to come, although the magnitude of these unpleasant implications will depend on how much privately-held public debt rises as the EU-held public debt falls. We then search for ways to mitigate these recessionary effects. While NGEU/RRF funds as they take place at the moment, as well as a new hypothetical support from the ES in the form of more quantitative easing are found to have small and/or temporary beneficial effects only, our simulations show that what can really help is an improvement in total factor productivity
European democracy in action? The 2024 European Parliament elections
No full textThe 2024 European Parliament elections occurred in the context of mounting internal and external pressures on the European Union, including democratic backsliding, rising radical right influence and contentious debates over immigration and climate policy. This introductory article sets the stage for the Special Issue on the 2024 European Parliament elections by outlining the background of the vote, analysing the results and summarising key findings from the contributing studies. Drawing on original data from the European Election Study (EES) 2024, this Special Issue explores how growing support for populist radical right parties has reshaped the European political landscape. The articles investigate evolving conflict lines in European electoral politics, from attitudes toward liberal democracy and European integration to climate action and immigration. Together, these studies provide critical insights into the changing dynamics of voter behaviour, party competition and democratic governance in the EU, raising important questions about the Union's capacity to navigate future challenges and sustain deeper integration
Negative rates and the effective lower bound: theory and evidence
Get PDFWith the monetary policy lower bound a re-emerging concern in some locations, we present new insights on the impact of negative policy rates. We develop a new theoretical model to match the empirical evidence on their effects. The model features a heterogeneous, oligopolistic banking sector where loan pricing is determined in part by the availability of deposit funding and in part by wholesale funding. The use of non-deposit funding ensures that the bank lending channel of negative rates remains active. We explore the impact of the policy on different types of banks: High-deposit banks may experience a fall in interest margins and profitability, which can result in reduced lending. But this is more than compensated for by greater lending from low-deposit banks. We embed this banking sector in an open-economy macroeconomic model, featuring exchange-rate and capital market transmission channels, which continue to work as normal when rates are negative. These non-bank channels, combined with general equilibrium effects and an active bank lending channel, mean that the transmission of negative rates is only somewhat weaker than the transmission of conventional policy
Long-lasting health effects of Soviet education
Get PDFEducation systems serve various purposes, including the enhancement of later‐life health, though effects can differ by sociopolitical regime. This paper examines the effect of communist education, which exposed children to a distinct curriculum and ideological content, on later‐life health. We exploit a novel dataset that collects information on compulsory education reforms in several European countries, with different cohorts exposed and unexposed to Soviet communist education. Using a difference‐in‐differences (DiD) design, we show that while the extension of compulsory education improved some relevant measures of health, communist education encompassed an additional health‐enhancing effect. We document that the effect remains robust when using staggered DiD approaches and various robustness tests, and that it is explained by the priority given to physical education in the school curricula, together with an increased likelihood of marriage
Why size really doesn't matter: from megacity myths to place-sensitive prosperity
Get PDFThis paper offers a critical review and synthesis of the literature on the relationship between urban agglomeration, density, and regional prosperity. Agglomeration and density have long been portrayed as the core drivers of urban and regional success. Yet the evidence remains stubbornly inconclusive: some large cities flourish while others stagnate, and many smaller cities quietly outperform their sprawling counterparts. If density were destiny, the world’s largest cities would consistently lead in wealth and opportunity. However, they frequently do not. The paper argues that genuine sources of growth lie instead in institutional quality, the resilience of local ecosystems, and the strength of inter-territorial linkages. Conventional models have mostly dwelt on a narrow set of negative externalities —congestion, high rents, pollution— while overlooking deeper structural costs: territorial inequalities that erode trust, trigger discontent, and consign whole cities and regions to prolonged decline. As political and social fractures within countries widen, it is increasingly evident that prosperity hinges not on agglomeration itself but on the conditions of cities and their relationships with their hinterlands. The way forward requires a shift in policy and analysis towards place-sensitive strategies and robust institutions capable of promoting inclusive prosperity across all cities and regions, rather than privileging a select few