Do Unprejudiced Societies Need Equal Opportunity Legislation?

To what extent should banks, insurance companies and employers be allowed to use personal information about the people whom they lend to, insure or employ in setting the terms of the contract? Even when different treatment is motivated by profit not prejudice, banning discrimination (when combined with mandatory protection against failure) may well be the best way of effecting redistribution of income. Unlike income taxation, this policy achieves its goals without much adverse effect on incentives. Public provision of low-powered incentive contracts issued on generous terms is also a potent instrument of efficient redistribution. This is true even if the government cannot observe type but the private sector can.equal opportunities, incentive contracts, asymmetric information, distribution

Do Unprejudiced Societies Need Equal Opportunity Legislation?

To what extent should banks, insurance companies and employers be allowed to use personal information about the people whom they lend to, insure or employ in setting the terms of the contract? Even when different treatment is motivated by profit not prejudice, banning discrimination (when combined with mandatory protection against failure) may well be the best way of effecting redistribution of income. Unlike income taxation this policy achieves its goals without much adverse effect on incentives. Public provision of low-powered incentive contracts issued on generous terms is also a potent instrument of efficient redistribution. This is true even if the government cannot observe type but the private sector can.equal opportunities, incentives, contracts, asymmetric information, distribution

Integrating Structural Context into the Assessment of Political Leadership: Realism, Gordon Brown and the Great Financial Crisis

How should we assess the performance of political leaders? As many scholars note, it is important to take into account the structural context politicians govern when appraising their record in office. However, many existing approaches used to assess political leaders have not integrated a notion of structure into their research in an explicit or detailed way. This article tries to respond to this gap by first discussing a range of issues involved in undertaking such an exercise. It highlights not only the significance of incorporating structure, but structural change into leadership studies. The article goes on to develop a theoretical account of structural change utilising philosophical realism, before briefly applying it to the case of Gordon Brown's tenure during the global financial crisis. It concludes by suggesting that, understood through the lens of philosophical realism, the crisis posed a particularly difficult and challenging set of circumstances for Brown and his response to them should be given more credit than it has so far received

Incentive Regulation in Theory and Practice: Electricity Distribution and Transmission Networks

Modern theoretical principles to govern the design of incentive regulation mechanisms are reviewed and discussed. General issues associated with applying these principles in practice are identified. Examples of the actual application of incentive regulation mechanisms to the regulation of prices and service quality for 'unbundled' transmission and distribution networks are presented and discussed. Evidence regarding the performance of incentive regulation in practice for electric distribution and transmission networks is reviewed. Issues for future research are identified.

Pedagogy, curriculum, teaching practices and teacher education in developing countries

This rigorous literature review focused on pedagogy, curriculum, teaching practices and teacher education in developing countries. It aimed to: 1. review existing evidence on the review topic to inform programme design and policy making undertaken by the DFID, other agencies and researchers 2. identify critical evidence gaps to guide the development of future research programme

Assessing the authority of political office-holders: the leadership capital index

This article argues that the extent to which political office-holders can effectively attain and wield authority is a function of the stock of ‘leadership capital.’ Drawing on the concept of political capital, we define leadership capital as aggregate authority composed of three dimensions: skills; relations; and reputation of a leader. Leadership capital ebbs and flows over time within a trajectory of acquisition, expenditure and inevitable depreciation. We present a Leadership Capital Index (LCI) that systematically maps out the three broad areas combining concrete measures with interpretive aspects. This can be used as a tool for systematically tracking and comparing the political fortunes of leaders in a way that is both more nuanced and robust than exclusive reliance on the latest approval ratings. We offer an illustrative case study of Tony Blair demonstrating the LCI. We conclude by discerning several promising paths for future development of the LCI

Collective Risk Management in a Flight to Quality Episode

We present a model of optimal intervention in a flight to quality episode. The reason for intervention stems from a collective bias in agents' expectations. Agents in the model make risk management decisions with incomplete knowledge. They understand their own shocks, but are uncertain of how correlated their shocks are with systemwide shocks, treating the latter uncertainty as Knightian. We show that when aggregate liquidity is low, an increase in uncertainty leads agents to a series of protective actions -- decreasing risk exposures, hoarding liquidity, locking-up capital -- that reflect a flight to quality. However, the conservative actions of agents leave the aggregate economy over-exposed to negative shocks. Each agent covers himself against his own worst-case scenario, but the scenario that the collective of agents are guarding against is impossible. A lender of last resort, even if less knowledgeable than private agents about individual shocks, does not suffer from this collective bias and finds that pledging intervention in extreme events is valuable. The intervention unlocks private capital markets.