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Bulletin
13 APRIL 1986 International economic issues feature prominently in this issue of the Bulletin. In the first article, David Currie and Marcus Miller describe the major research initiative recently launched by the Centre in conjunction with the Brookings Institution. The research programme will focus on the issues facing national policy-makers as a result of the growing interdependence in the world economy. The Centre fosters contact between its Research Fellows and their colleagues in other countries. In this issue of the Bulletin there are reports of meetings with economists from France and from Finland. There are also reports of recent lunchtime meetings on the estimated benefits of policy coordination between the US and the EEC, analysis of policies to encourage employee share ownership and the future of occupational pensions in the UK. Much of the Centre's recent output of Discussion Papers has fallen in the International Macroeconomics and International Trade programmes, and these are summarised below. Macro policy and interdependence David Currie and Marcus Miller discuss the policy issues which will be addressed by the recently launched CEPR-Brookings research project on macroeconomic policy and economic interdependence. Industrial economics and industrial organisation The Centre and the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme brought together British and French economists at a colloquium to discuss how the theory of industrial organisation could illuminate our understanding of industrial economics. Anglo/Finnish workshop Economists from Finland and the UK met at the Centre in December to exchange ideas and discuss possibilities for collaborative research. The gains from policy coordination There have been many calls for greater international coordination of macroeconomic policies, yet there are virtually no quantitative estimates of the benefits this might bring. At a January lunchtime meeting, Andrew Hughes Hallett discussed simulations designed to assess the potential gains from US-EEC coordination during 1974-78. Employee share ownership Despite widespread support and enthusiasm for greater employee share ownership, our knowledge of its economic consequences is still inadequate. Paul Grout described plans for new research into the effects of employee share ownership at a February meeting. The pensions 'big bang' Leslie Hannah predicted that government attempts to make pensions more portable and flexible would increase competition as well as the risk of pension fund insolvencies. Discussion papers Nicholas Crafts and Mark Thomas find that UK exports during the interwar period consisted of goods produced using relatively unskilled labour. This indicates continuity with the previous century and not an interwar economic resurgence . Neil Rankin finds that even in disequilibrium models, tax cuts are preferable to increased government expenditure as a means of achieving full employment. Barry Eichengreen analyses the pattern of interwar unemployment using 1930s survey data for London. Paul Fisher and Mark Salmon discuss the effects of non-linearity in large macro models and develop tests to detect these effects. Sweder van Wijnbergen demonstrates that fiscal reforms must take precedence in attempts to stabilize inflation and exchange rates. Sweder van Wijnbergen suggests how aid flows may have contributed to the poor export performance of African countries. Sweder van Wijnbergen explores the conditions under which capital controls will affect real exchange rates. Richard Portes defends an aggregative, disequilibrium macroeconomic approach to the analysis of centrally planned economies. |