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: Population & Politics. The organization has 8759 authors who have published 35017 publications receiving 1436302 citations.

The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification

Abstract: This paper exploits the division of Germany after the Second World War and the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 as a natural experiment to provide evidence for the importance of market access for economic development. In line with a standard new economic geography model, we find that following division cities in West Germany close to the East-West German border experienced a substantial decline in population growth relative to other West German cities. We show that the model can account for the quantitative magnitude of our findings and provide additional evidence against alternative possible explanations. (JEL F15, N94, O18)

Economic cost of autism in the UK

Abstract: Autism has lifetime consequences, with potentially a range of impacts on the health, wellbeing, social integration and quality of life of individuals and families. Many of those impacts are economic. This study estimated the costs of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in the UK. Data on prevalence, level of intellectual disability and place of residence were combined with average annual costs of services and support, together with the opportunity costs of lost productivity. The costs of supporting children with ASDs were estimated to be £2.7 billion each year. For adults, these costs amount to £25 billion each year. The lifetime cost, after discounting, for someone with ASD and intellectual disability is estimated at approximately £1.23 million, and for someone with ASD without intellectual disability is approximately £0.80 million.

Five feminist myths about women's employment

Abstract: Feminist sociology has contributed substantial revisions to theory, especially in the sociology of work and employment. But it is also creating new feminist myths to replace the old patriarchal myths about women's attitudes and behaviour. Five feminist myths about women's employment are discussed whose acceptance as fact is not damaged by being demonstrably untrue. Arguably the most pervasive is the myth of rising female employment. The myth that women's work commitment is the same as that of men is often adduced to resist labour market discrimination. The myth of childcare problems as the main barrier to women's employment is commonplace in advocacy research reports. The myth of poor quality part-time jobs is used to blame employers for the characteristic behaviour of part-time workers, including high labour turnover. The issue of the sex differential in labour turnover and employment stability illustrates clearly how feminist orthodoxy has replaced dispassionate sociological research in certain topics. The concluding section considers the implications of such feminist myths for an academic community that claims to be in the truth business and for theories on the sexual division of labour.

Powerful CEOs and their Impact on Corporate Performance

Abstract: Executives can only impact firm outcomes if they have influence over crucial decisions. Based on this idea we develop and test the hypothesis that firms whose CEOs have more decision-making power should experience more variability in performance. We construct proxies for the CEO's power to influence decisions and show that stock returns are significantly more variable for firms run by powerful CEOs. We find similar results using alternative measures of performance. These findings suggest that the interaction between executive characteristics and organizational variables may have important consequences for firm performance.