London School of Economics and Political Science

About: London School of Economics and Political Science is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Politics & Population. The organization has 8759 authors who have published 35017 publications receiving 1436302 citations.

Crime and Economic Incentives

Abstract: In economic models of crime, changing economic incentives alter the participation of individuals in criminal activities. We critically appraise the work in this area. After a brief overview of the workhorse economics of crime model for organizing our discussion on crime and economic incentives, we first document the significant rise of the economics of crime as a research field and then go on to review the evidence on the relationship between crime and economic incentives. We divide this discussion into incentives operating through legal wages in the formal labor market and the economic returns to illegal activities. Evidence that economic incentives matter for crime emerges from both.

A Flow-Based Explanation for Return Predictability

Abstract: This paper proposes and tests an investment-flow based explanation for three empirical findings about return predictability -- the persistence of mutual fund performance, the "smart money" effect, and stock price momentum. Motivated by prior studies, I construct a measure of demand shocks to individual stocks by projecting mutual fund flows onto the stocks they hold, and document a significant flow-induced price pressure effect in individual stock returns. Moreover, building upon prior results that capital flows to mutual funds are highly predictable, I further show that the flow-based mechanism can lead to significant stock return and mutual fund performance predictability. The main findings of the paper are that such flow-based return predictability can fully account for mutual fund performance persistence and the "smart money" effect, and can partially explain stock price momentum.

Consistent Testing for Stochastic Dominance under General Sampling Schemes

Abstract: We propose a procedure for estimating the critical values of the extended Kolmogorov- Smirnov tests of First and Second Order Stochastic Dominance in the general K-prospect case. We allow for the observations to be serially dependent and, for the first time, we can accommodate general dependence amongst the prospects which are to be ranked. Also, the prospects may be the residuals from certain conditional models, opening the way for conditional ranking. We also propose a test of Prospect Stochastic Dominance. Our method is subsampling; we show that the resulting tests are consistent and powerful against some N|1/2 local alternatives even when computed with a data-based subsample size. We also propose some heuristic methods for selecting subsample size and demonstrate in simulations that they perform reasonably. We show that our test is asymptotically similar on the entire boundary of the null hypothesis, and is unbiased. In comparison, any method based on resampling or simulating from the least favorable distribution does not have these properties and consequently will have less power against some alternatives.

Social housing in Europe

Abstract: Social housing has been an important part in Europe’s housing provision for many decades both in terms of investment in new build and regeneration but also in providing adequate affordable housing for a wide range of European citizens. This role has been seen to be under threat especially since the 1980s as public expenditure pressures have grown, liberalisation and privatisation have become more important and alternative tenures have become more readily available.1 This paper draws out some of the most important trends in the scale of social housing in countries across Europe; clarifies who lives in the sector and under what terms and conditions, and then discusses some of the drivers behind these trends and implications for the future provision of social housing.2 In particular it addresses the extent to which social housing contributes to ensuring that households can access adequate standard accommodation at a price they can afford in different contexts within the European Union. It also looks to the challenges faced by the sector and its role in the future.