Occasional Paper – serie

The author discusses how research in financial markets has evolved and whether the application of theories can ever be translated into 'excess profits'.

Lal analyses the effects of minimum wages on unemployment and training, and concludes that they increase unemployment and reduce the incentive to acquire skills

CONTENTS: The Lessons of History; Stages of European Integration; The Role of Monetary Policy in the Integration Process; Common Currency as Pace-Setter for Political Union; The Labour Market & Social Union; Compensatory transfers; Possible Political Tensions; Institutional Arrangements & 'Good Money from Outside'; The Difficulties & Risks of Monetary Union; Barriers Against Deficits & Debts; Constitutional restraints; Ambivalence of the Political Union; Summary.

Economic historian Professor Nick Crafts gives a wide-ranging assessment of the economic record of the recent Conservative Government.

Between February and April 2002 Oxford Archaeology carried out excavations at 90-93 Broad Street, Reading (NGR SU 7142 7342) in advance of a new retail development. The excavations revealed a cultivation soil and ditch that may have represented activity within the grounds of the Saxon minster; a small assemblage of mid-Saxon pottery was recovered from later deposits, including a single sherd of Ipswich ware. Medieval gravel pits and a bell mould pit were revealed within the back yards of tenements fronting Broad St and Chain St, immediately to the north of St Mary's Churchyard. It is likely that the bell mould pit was for the casting of 13th century bell for St Mary's. The pits contained exceptional assemblages of bird, fish and animal bone, suggestive of primary butchery and skinning in the vicinity, as well as the presence of a high status household. There were also notable assemblages of 11th- to 13th0century pottery and 16th- to 17th-century glass. Excavations at 7-8 Broad Street (Market Way), Reading, revealed part of a possible 16th- to 17th-century tavern or inn, situated behind the street frontage. A stone cess pit and cellar were revealed, built in the 16th century and demolished in the 17th century. A large collection of pottery associated with the serving and consumption of drink, fine Venetian-style glassware and few early clay pipes were recovered from these features. Limited evidence of medieval occupation was also found, in the form of rubbish pits, although much of the site had been severely disturbed by the construction of the Corn Exchange in the 19th century.

A posthumous work by Begona Aretxaga (1960-2002) who was interested in the cultural politics of state violence and the formation of political subjectivities. Research for her essays focused on gender and political violence in Northern Ireland as well as nationalism among Basque youth.

Professor Bhagwati applies his unrivalled knowledge and meticulous analysis to some of the most serious threats to the prized goal of freeing world trade.

Since 1988, Professor Geoffrey Wood of City University Business School has written a regular column in the Institute's Journal, Economic Affairs, in which he exposes popular economic fallacies. occasional Paper 102 is a collection of these columns which includes many of the fallacies in common circulation - for example, about the supposed dangers of free trade, about the abilities of governments to control economies, about the significance of current account deficits, about the use of fiscal policy to control inflation and about the effects of government regulation of markets. These lucid and stimulating columns are invaluable to students, struggling to master some of the complexities of economic theory and its applications, who often find that the most effective way of learning economic analysis is to see such fallacies exposed. It is a text particularly suitable for first year University students of economics which complements existing textbook by using examples to clarify fundamental concepts in economics and to demonstrate the practical uses of economic theory.

In this reprint of his January 1998 lecture to the IEA, Mr Portillo directly addresses the political issues raised by EMU. He considers the project's effects on democracy and concludes that it raises real dangers of conflict in the future. The book also contains a postscript by noted American economist Professor Martin Feldstein.

The rising tide of government regulation in most countries is provoking a reconsideration of the extent to which the state should lay down rules for others. Self-regulation and other forms of voluntary rule-setting are being examined as substitutes for regulation by government. Readings 52 begins with a paper by John Blundell and Colin Robinson which analyses the forces behind government regulation, its shortcomings and the scope for voluntary regulation. Seven papers by distinguished commentators on regulation then examine Blundell and Robinson's conclusions.