One of the more frequent and most underrated activities as an academic is reviewing materials for publication. Training for this at the PhD level is often ignored. One of the interesting aspects of receiving reviews is seeing how others approach the process. Sometimes this is interesting for good reasons (as in, ‘I should do this’) […]
Financial innovation and macroprudential policies
A project with Max Bernier, a former MSc student of mine, was recently (and very speedily) accepted at Research in Economics, after spending a long time awaiting a second reviewer at another journal. We take an aggregate approach to financial innovation, in contrast with most other research (which focuses on distinct methods of innovation), and […]
The OBOR Problem
Over the past few years, China’s One Belt-One Road (OBOR) investment and trade initiative has gained a lot of attention from students, particularly those visiting UCL from China. This seems to be the result of political announcements and media coverage: ‘everyone is talking about it’ is a frequent motivation. This, in itself, is not at […]
Brexit Trade Deals
I wrote a short piece for The Conversation (picked up today by the International Business Times) on Britain’s post-Brexit bargaining power in trade deals. While yesterday’s vote injects more uncertainty into the Brexit process and potential outcome, the only way the UK can hope to gain some leverage in negotiations with the US would be […]
Electoral institutions and trade protection in Public Choice
Electoral systems and trade-policy outcomes: the effects of personal-vote incentives on barriers to international trade, with Patrick Wagner, is now available online in Public Choice. The article is available through open access thanks to an agreement between UCL and Springer Nature. From the abstract: Despite established benefits in free trade, protectionism persists to varying degrees […]
Pacific International Politics Conference
The third meeting of the Pacific International Politics Conference (PIPC) was held at Hong Kong University at the beginning of this month. I received the call for papers through the International Political Economy Society (IPES) email list earlier this year, and the combination of attractive location, substantive focus, and friendly (and established) organizers convinced me […]