Were New Labour’s cultural policies neo-liberal?

This article assesses the cultural policies of ‘New Labour’, the UK Labour government of 1997–2010. It takes neo-liberalism as its starting point, asking to what extent Labour’s cultural policies can be validly and usefully characterised as neo-liberal. It explores this issue across three dimensions: corporate sponsorship and cuts in public subsidy; the running of public sector cultural institutions as though they were private businesses; and a shift in prevailing rationales for cultural policy, away from cultural justifications, and towards economic and social goals. Neo-liberalism is shown to be a significant but rather crude tool for evaluating and explaining New Labour’s cultural policies. At worse, it falsely implies that New Labour did not differ from Conservative approaches to cultural policy, downplays the effect of sociocultural factors on policy-making, and fails to differentiate varying periods and directions of policy. It does, however, usefully draw attention to the public policy environment in which Labour operated, in particular the damaging effects of focusing, to an excessive degree, on economic conceptions of the good in a way that does not recognise the limitations of markets as a way of organising production, circulation and consumption

The impact of socio-economic factors on gambling expenditure

This paper examines the socio-economic determinants of gambling expenditure on lotteries, Lotto and Instant Lotto, TAB/on-course betting, poker machines and casino-type games. Using a sample of 8,389 Australian households in 1993-1994, the impact of income source and level, sex, age, ethnicity, occupational status and family composition on the decision to gamble is assessed. The results indicate that these variables exert a significant influence on the probability of households gambling. Furthermore, the effect of these same variables is likely to vary across the large range of gambling products currently available

An International Comparison and Analysis of Lotteries and the Distribution of Lottery Expenditures

Lotteries are found in nearly half of the world's countries, with annual worldwide lottery ticket sales topping $115 billion. Despite the global presence of lottery games, there has been little research conducted on any international aspect of lotteries. This paper presents the first-ever examination and comparison of lottery games from around the world. Differences in both absolute and relative lottery expenditures are presented. Estimates for the income elasticity of demand for lottery tickets provide evidence on the distributional burden of lottery expenditures. These estimates consider each country by continental location and country income level. Further analysis reveals that lower income countries could adopt Lotto games in order to increase revenues. Recognizing that the distributional impact of lottery games is one of the greatest concerns surrounding lotteries, it is shown that the introduction of Lotto games does not significantly affect the distributional burden of lottery ticket expenditures. Given the international scope of lotteries and the availability of international lottery game data, the paper concludes by discussing future research on international lottery games.

Parallel lives? Ethnic segregation in schools and neighbourhoods

We provide evidence on the extent of ethnic segregation experienced by children across secondary schools and neighbourhoods (wards). Using 2001 Schools Census and Population Census data we employ the indices of dissimilarity and isolation and compare patterns of segregation across nine ethnic groups, and across Local Education Authorities in England. Looking at both schools and neighbourhoods, we find high levels of segregation for the different groups, along with considerable variation across England. We find consistently higher segregation for South Asian pupils than for Black pupils. For most ethnic groups children are more segregated at school than in their neighbourhood. We analyse the relative degree of segregation and show that high population density is associated with high relative school segregation