Older but Not Wiser- Smokers and Passive Smoking Belief

In recent years the proportion of people who smoke in developed countries has reached a plateau, even though countries like the UK continue to run anti-smoking campaigns. We aim to inform UK policy makers about the effects of anti-smoking campaigns by looking at the beliefs that smokers and non-smokers have about the dangers of passive smoking, with particular interest in whether these beliefs vary amongst smokers of different ages. We envisage two groups of potential smokers. There are the altruists, who are less likely to start to smoke once they are fully aware of the dangers of passive smoking; and there are the non-altruists for whom the effects of passive smoking are an irrelevancy. We hypothesis that anti-smoking campaigns have managed to dissuade the altruists of later generations from ever starting to smoke, but are having no effect on the behavior of the non-altruists and hence the plateau. The older smoking altruists are then captive to their smoking behavior and have to rationalize their smoking behavior by downplaying the effects of passive smoking. Using data from the Health Survey for England we find strong evidence that it is the older smokers who are less prone to believe in the dangers of passive smoking whilst younger smokers essentially have the same beliefs as nonsmokers: a young uneducated smoker is more aware of the dangers of passive smoking than a highly educated older smoker. This conclusion is robust to a number of sensitivity analyses. We conclude that the main effect of current campaigns is the continuing deterrence of potential young altruist smokers.

Discrimination makes me Sick! Establishing a relationship between discrimination and health

The attitudes of the general British population towards Muslims changed post 2001, and this change led to a significant increase in Anti-Muslim discrimination. We use this exogenous attitude change to estimate the causal impact of increased discrimination on a range of objective and subjective health outcomes. The difference-in-differences estimates indicate that discrimination worsens blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI, self-assessed general health, and some dimensions of mental health. Thus, discrimination is a potentially important determinant of the large racial and ethnic health gaps observed in many countries. We also investigate the pathways through which discrimination impacts upon health, and find that discrimination has a negative effect on employment, perceived social support, and health-producing behaviours. Crucially, our results hold for different control groups and model specifications.

People versus machines in the UK: minimum wages, labor reallocation and automatable jobs

This study follows the Lordan and Neumark (2018)1 analysis for the US, and examines whether minimum wage increases affect employment opportunities in automatable jobs in the UK for low-skilled low-wage workers. Overall, I find that increasing the minimum wage decreases the share of automatable employment held by low-skilled low-wage workers, and increases the likelihood that workers in automatable jobs become dis-employed. On aggregate the effect size is modest, but I also provide evidence that these effects are larger in more recent years. The study also highlights significant heterogeneity by industry and demographic group, including more substantive adverse effects for older low-skilled workers in manufacturing, as well as effects at the intensive margin

The obesity epidemic is spreading more rapidly than expected, but many people don’t even recognise that they are too heavy

Recently, it has been shown that the average Briton exercises far less than is recommended and that obesity is on the rise. Grace Lordan quantifies some of the costs of obesity and some of the obstacles that stand in the way of exercise. Importantly, many overweight individuals do not even recognise that they are overweight, and so perhaps a first step is to begin telling people that they need to lose weight, either through their GP, a national campaign of information or by providing the right kind of incentives to individuals

Smile in 2022

As 2021 draws to a close, Grace Lordan offers six life lessons rooted in the behavioural sciences that will make you SMILE

Virtual inclusion in the City

On March 16th 2020 the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson started giving the nation daily updates urging its citizens to work from home as part of the COVID-19 response. Even before that date, over in the City of London, many firms had introduced working from home for a large proportion of their workers, expecting that they would soon no longer be able to travel to site. Therefore, throughout March 2020, as part of the COVID-19 response, financial and professional services firms made the transition from physical workspaces to virtual ones, with limited or no planning time. Soon, save for those people nominated as key workers, such as certain traders and salespersons, the majority of employees from the City of London were working at home. In order to understand the obstacles that stand in the way of virtual inclusion for the City of London’s workers, Dr Grace Lordan went on a virtual listening tour engaging 35 of its most senior leaders who work in financial and professional services in the City of London. The aim was to identify their perceived obstacles to enhancing virtual inclusion in their firm during the COVID-19 response. Ten major obstacles were identified, each with a set of three independent actions that can be easily pursued to enhance virtual inclusion in the firm, with a view to benefiting business outcomes now

Courage and leadership in 2023

The type of leader who has succeeded in the past is probably not going to cut it in the new economy. The new times demand a high level of innovation that cannot be achieved by alpha leaders. Grace Lordan writes that successful leadership will require a lot of courage to do things differently

Covid-19: overcoming obstacles to virtual inclusion for city of london workers

In March 2020, as part of the COVID-19 response, firms in the UK made the transition from physical workspaces to virtual ones, with limited or no planning time. A similar pattern happened across the globe with different start dates. Today, most organisations have moved beyond the initial hurdle of shifting their workforce to a virtual format, and are now searching [...

If firms start measuring the gains of flexible working, women will benefit

Financial services firms have regarded flexible working as an option for women struggling with family responsibilities. Now that it has become the norm, says Grace Lordan (LSE), they have an opportunity to measure whether it is cost-effective. Once men begin to see it as good for business, the penalty women pay for choosing flexible working will shrink

Employers have a role to play in encouraging increased participation in physical activities

Research by Grace Lordan and Debayan Pakrashi quantified the benefits of exercise for mental and physical health. Given that the average person recognizes the benefits but does not meet the recommended amount, how can we motivate people to exercise? Simply disseminating information on the benefits is not enough to motivate people to exercise. Because many of us lack the time or work in sedentary jobs, one policy option is for employers to encourage exercise during work hours. The benefits of a healthier work-force would pay off in terms of reduced absenteeism and productivity gains