1,772,854 research outputs found
The U.K.'s rocky road to stability
Full text linkThis paper provides an overview, using extensive documentary material, of developments in U.K. macroeconomic policy in the last half-century. Rather than focusing on well-known recent changes in policy arrangements (such as the introduction of inflation targeting in 1992 or central bank independence in 1997), we instead take a longer perspective, which characterizes the favorable economic performance in the 1990s and 2000s as the culmination of an overhaul of macroeconomic policy since the late 1970s. We stress that policymaking in recent decades has discarded various misconceptions about the macroeconomy and the monetary transmission mechanism that officials held in earlier periods. The misconceptions included: an underestimation of the importance of monetary policy in demand management until 1970; a failure to distinguish real and nominal interest rates until the late 1960s; the deployment until the mid-1980s of ineffective monetary control devices that did not alter the monetary base; and the adherence by policymakers in the 1960s and 1970s to nonmonetary views of the inflation process. We also consider developments in fiscal policy in light of changes in the doctrines underlying U.K. macroeconomic decisions.Monetary policy - Great Britain ; Inflation (Finance) - Great Britain
Euro membership as a U.K. monetary policy option: results from a structural model
Full text linkDevelopments in open-economy modeling, and the accumulation of experience with the monetary policy regimes prevailing in the United Kingdom and the euro area, have increased our ability to evaluate the effects that joining monetary union would have on the U.K. economy. This paper considers the debate on the United Kingdom's monetary policy options using a structural open-economy model. We use the Erceg, Gust, and Lopez-Salido (EGL) (2007) model to explore both the existing U.K. regime (CPI inflation targeting combined with a floating exchange rate), and adoption of the euro, as monetary policy options for the United Kingdom. Experiments with a baseline estimated version of the model suggest that there is improved stability for the U.K. economy with monetary union. Once large differences in the degree of nominal rigidity across economies are considered, the balance tilts toward the existing U.K. monetary policy regime. The improvement in U.K. economic stability under monetary union also diminishes if imports from the euro area are modeled as primarily intermediates instead of finished goods; or if we assume that the pressures reflected in foreign exchange market shocks, instead of vanishing with monetary union, are now manifested as an additional source of disturbances to domestic aggregate spending.Monetary policy - European Union countries ; Monetary policy - Great Britain ; Great Britain
Human perception of wind-induced tall building motions
No full textIn addition to strength and safety requirements, wind-induced building motion can interfere with building occupants’ daily activities and hence occupant comfort is a critical design consideration, particularly for tall and slender buildings constructed in regions of high winds. Human response to motion is a complex mix of psychological and physiological factors, including tactile, vestibular, proprioceptive, kinaesthetic, visual and auditory cues, and visual-vestibular interaction. The response of individuals to single degree-of-freedom sinusoidal motion, on which most previous research using a motion simulator has been based, may be potentially quite different to the narrow-band random motion typical of wind-induced tall building motion. There is limited information available on the effects of this low-frequency narrow-band random motion on cognitive efficiency and mental performance. Although occupant comfort may govern the design of buildings ranging from less than 100 m to greater than 500 m in height with vastly different natural frequencies of vibration, many designers have consistently used the same frequency independent criteria, overlooking frequency-dependent criteria such as ISO-6897 [1]. Very little information has been gathered to clearly demonstrate the physiological response of people at the low natural frequencies typical of modern tall buildings and frequency dependence remains a contentious issue. This paper outlines some results acquired from experiments involving the response of human test subjects experiencing uni-axial and bi-axial random motion at frequencies ranging from 0.125 Hz to 1.00 Hz, using a purpose-built motion simulator in the CLP Power Wind/Wave Tunnel Facility (WWTF) at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) that aims to address the key issues in designing for occupant comfort
A Nonparametric Variance-Ratio Test of the Behavior of U.K. Real Estate and Construction Indices
Full text linkThis study utilizes tests based on ranks and signs suggested by Wright (2000), in addition to the traditional variance-ratio test, to examine the behavior of United Kingdom real estate and construction security indices. The results suggest a positive dependence in the index return series and provide a strong rejection of the random walk hypothesis for the two U.K. index series examined in this study. Thus, the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) is not confirmed for these real estate securities indices in the U.K.variance ratio; heteroskedasticity; stock index; random walk; ranks; signsJournal: International Real Estate Review
Testing for Asymmetric Information Using 'Unused Observables' in Insurance Markets: Evidence from the U.K. Annuity Market
Full text linkThis paper tests for asymmetric information in the U.K. annuity market of the 1990s by trying to identify 'unused observables,' attributes of individual insurance buyers that are correlated both with subsequent claims experience and with insurance demand but that insurance companies did not use to set insurance prices. Unlike the widely-used positive correlation test for asymmetric information, which searches for a positive correlation between insurance demand and risk experience, the unused observables test is not confounded by heterogeneity in individual preference parameters that may affect insurance demand. We identify residential location as an unused observable in the U.K. annuity market of this period, and show that this variable was correlated both with annuity demand and with prospective mortality. Thus even though residential location was observed by all market participants, the decision not to condition prices on it created the same types of market inefficiencies that arise when annuity buyers have private information about mortality risk. Our findings raise interesting questions about how insurance companies select the set of buyer attributes that they use in setting policy prices. In the decade following the period that we study, U.K. insurance companies changed their pricing practices and began to condition annuity prices on a buyer's postcode.
An output of the 2014 UK CubeSat Workshop: White Paper on U.K. CubeSat Regulation & UKSA CubeSat Consultation
No full textThe U.K. CubeSat Forum held a one-day workshop meeting at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Harwell, U.K. in May 2014. One objective of the workshop was for the U.K. CubeSat community – represented by the workshop delegates – to discuss the current and future context for gaining approval, i.e. U.K. government issued licence, to launch and operate a U.K.-registered CubeSat or nanosatellite. This discussion arose given the pre-workshop widespread U.K. community view that to do this within a U.K. context involved significantly more effort, resources and costs than in other countries and perceived to be disproportionate to the overall CubeSat philosophy of low-cost, low-resource and rapid implementation of missions. The workshop attendees (~120 delegates) were split into three parallel discussion groups to discuss this point
Energy Conservation in the 80's - A U.K. Point of View
No full textThe pressures of energy prices and availability do not always provide sufficient incentive towards conservation, but the post 1995 scene is an incentive to industry to design and develop low energy.
The U.K. approach to energy conservation and management has been, since 1974, positive and successful. In its own areas of responsibility, the Government has demonstrated and publicised its successful record in reducing energy and, in addition, introduced financial incentives to conserve energy.
The paper describes one large diversified company's approach to the problem from 1974 to date and demonstrates the successes achieved. The control of conservation measures has been developed for continuous processes, which enables management to monitor the effectiveness of operational control and is independent of the commonly used excuses; rate of production and the weather
U.K. World War I and interwar data for business cycle and growth analysis
Full text linkThis article contributes new time series for studying the U.K. economy during World War I and the interwar period. The time series are per capita hours worked and average tax rates of capital income, labor income, and consumption. Uninterrupted time series of these variables are provided for an annual sample that runs from 1913 to 1938. We highlight the usefulness of these time series with several empirical applications. We use per capita hours worked in a growth accounting exercise to measure the contributions of capital, labor, and productivity to output growth. The average tax rates are employed in a Bayesian model averaging experiment to reevaluate the Benjamin and Kochin (1979) regression.
Milton Friedman and U.K. economic policy: 1938-1979
Full text linkMilton Friedman's publications and commentaries became the subject of enormous publicity and scrutiny in the United Kingdom. This paper analyzes the interaction of Milton Friedman and U.K. economic policy from 1938 to 1979. The period under study is separated into four subperiods: 1938-46, 1946-59, 1959-70, and 1970-79. For each of these subperiods, the author considers Friedman's observations on, and role in, key developments in U.K. monetary policy and in general U.K. economic policy.Friedman, Milton ; Economic policy - Great Britain
- …
