Higher voter turnout does not necessarily lead to greater representation for the poor, or to greater government spending

Recent months have seen concern over voter identification measures that have been introduced that may have the effect of reducing turnout among voters from low income groups. While many maintain that greater turnout among those on low incomes will mean that government spends more on those groups, new research from Lucy Barnes casts doubts on these accounts. Looking at differences in government spending, and spending targeted towards the poor, across the American states between 1978 and 2002, she finds that with turnout at such a low level at this point, any increases will have little relationship with levels of government spending

Private debt and the Anglo-Liberal Growth Model

Was there really a debt-fueled 'liberal growth model' preceding the 2008 financial crisis? The accepted narrative about the pre-crisis boom is that some liberal countries relied on domestic consumption to fuel economic growth, and on household debt to fuel this consumption. In this, they contrasted with coordinated economies. While eventually unsustainable, the growth strategy was politically necessary, to maintain middle class living standards in the context of increasing income inequality. In this article, I take these contentions to the data. Economic evidence from 1995-2007, and political data from the Manifesto Project Database undermine this received wisdom: while household debt increased in the liberal countries, it does not differentiate this particular growth model. Further, there is no evidence that politicians in liberal countries advocate different economic policies, including surrounding borrowing, to claim credit and stay in power. Differences in the importance of finance across countries, however, suggest a more elite-driven divergence

How far does the apple fall from the tree? The size of English bank branch networks in the nineteenth century

After the Bank Charter Act in 1833, English banks could branch nationally without legal or geographical restriction. It has been previously thought that despite this freedom, early English joint-stock banks predominantly began as single units. Drawing upon a new dataset, this article maps the growth of branch banking, the size of bank networks and their geographical location and spread. It demonstrates that banks pursued branching strategies against the intentions of regulators and were successful in forming large and complex networks. However, ultimately, the majority settled for local, district and multi-regional structures, as opposed to national structures

War memorials in organizational memory: a case study of the Bank of England

Nation-states are not the only bodies to have invested in memory-building through the construction of war memorials. This article moves the analysis on from nation-states to firms. It undertakes an analysis of war memorials built by the Bank of England. At the close of World War I, the Bank of England was not yet a nationalized company. Yet, it still, like many other organizations, engaged in this process of memorialization. We show that businesses closely followed the habits of nation-states when it came to commemorating war. The building of monuments and the ceremonies, which took place around them assigned values to the imagined communities, groups and nations. These events continue to the present day

Risk and self-respect

What is the nature of the experience of risk? Risk can impose distinctive burdens on individuals: making us anxious, impairing our relationships, and limiting our ability to plan our lives. On the other hand, risky situations are sometimes exciting, liberating, and even empowering. The article explores the idea that risk can result in benefits for the individuals who bear it. Specifically, we evaluate John Tomasi’s claim that the experience of economic risk is a precondition of individual self-respect. Philosophical claims about the social bases of self-respect such as Tomasi’s have not been subjected to sufficient empirical scrutiny. The article exemplifies an alternative approach, by integrating philosophical argument with the analysis of large-scale survey data. Whilst Tomasi’s claim has force in some contexts, evidence from the economic domain shows that risk tends to undermine rather than to support self-respect

Visualizing organizational identity: the history of a capitalist enterprise

This article examines the context in which firms reflect on their own history in order to help form their organizational identity. By undertaking research in business archives, it shows that external change is as important as an internal transition in understanding shifts in the way an organization understands its past. We trace the messages communicated internally through paintings of past chairmen and senior staff when they were displayed inside the head office of Lloyds Bank during the 1960s and 1970s. These portraits generated interest and were an effective means of non-verbal communication which provoked a discussion about the purpose, values and norms in the firm’s past, present, and future. The objects retold the story of the bank’s success as a privately owned family firm in the midst of on-going political debates inside the Labour party about the nationalization of large banking companies. With the portraits in place, they recognized the bank’s history as a capitalist enterprise. The pictures legitimized the tradition of private ownership, helped to form organizational identity, and set future obligations that would see its continuation in what was a period of potential change