in this presentation given to HM Treasury economists on 27 July 2010. The update takes full account of the June Budget measures, provides a critique of the medium-term projections of the Office for Budget Responsibility and describes an updated set of scenarios for the UK economy. The dangers of anaemic recovery are highlighted, with an analysis of the instabilities created by what Bill Martin calls "the battle of the savers". He discusses the problems facing policy makers who are "rebalancing in the dark" and emphasises the threat that would be posed were sterling to appreciate.
Congratulations go to
John Armour,
Simon Deakin, Priya Lele and
Mathias Siems for the award of the
Best Law Working Paper Prize of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). The prize which is sponsored by the international legal practice, Allen & Overy, was awarded to the authors for their paper on
How Do Legal Rules Evolve? Evidence from a Cross-Country Comparison of Shareholder, Creditor and Worker Protection at
ECGI's General Assembly held at the University of Luxembourg on 7 May 2010.
Click the links for further details on the
Prize and the
Law, Finance and Development research project.
Corporate Governance and
board-level practice in Nigeria
Simon Deakin gave a keynote address on 'Corporate governance, development and growth' to a conference on Good Governance and Regulation Leadership Forum, organized by Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission in Abuja in May 2010. The conference brought together executive and non-executive directors from leading Nigerian listed companies with a number of corporate governance experts and officials of the Commonwealth Business Council.
PRESS RELEASE - 12 May 2010
WEAK RECOVERY OUT OF RECESSION IS A TRAP
How will the British economy fare after the largest contraction since the Great Depression? A new research report quantifies the forces that drove the economy into recession and identifies the macroeconomic policies that would support a balanced recovery.
The report by Bill Martin, Centre for Business Research, highlights two future economic scenarios for the UK: a comparatively benign scenario in which the economy outperforms current expectations and a "slow recovery" scenario in which the credit crunch inflicts lasting damage. The second scenario is a trap.
To avoid it, the author argues for policies to support the revival of demand, in turn encouraging an expansion of productive capacity geared to the balance of payments. A large medium-term fall in sterling may well be required.
The author also quantifies in a novel way the extent to which Britain's long pre-recession expansion was flattered by asset price bubbles, the resulting systemic imbalances, and the recession-deepening impact of the domestic credit crunch.
Commenting on this research Professor Alan Hughes, University of Cambridge, says "This research is published at a critical time. It is essential that the correct decisions are made in relation to sustaining demand in the face of pressure to cut public spending and in the pursuit of industrial activism to re-balance the economy away from financial services. This report makes an significant contribution to the current policy debate by clearly identifying the important choices which will need to be made in these areas and by spelling out the implications of alternative ways forward."
NOTES TO EDITORS
About the Author
Bill Martin has been a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Business Research at the University of Cambridge since January 2007. Until 2004, he was Chief Economist at the fund management arm of the Swiss bank UBS and held the position of Visiting Professor of London Guildhall University until 2003. His earlier career was spent in the Government Economic Service advising on macroeconomic and industrial policies. He was made a Special Adviser in the Central Policy Review Staff, better known as "The Think Tank", in 1981. Between 1983 and 1998, he held various senior roles, including that of Chief UK Economist, at the investment-banking arm of UBS. He was a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Treasury Committee between 1986 and 1997. Since leaving UBS, Bill has worked on a variety of academic projects in the field of macroeconomics and official statistics. He became a member of the Financial Services Consumer Panel in 2009.
E-mail: bm342@cam.ac.uk
About the CBR
The Centre for Business Research (CBR) is an independent research institution hosted at Cambridge University's Judge Business School. It began originally as the Small Business Research Centre, and to this day, the study of smaller enterprises remains a key area of research. The CBR is a multi-disciplinary centre, drawing on expertise across all the University departments, as well as increasingly working in international collaborations.
www.cbr.cam.ac.uk
About the UK~IRC
The UK Innovation Research Centre (UK~IRC) is a collaborative initiative for cutting-edge research and knowledge hub activity in innovation, established in response to The Government's 'Innovation Nation' White Paper (March 2008). It is a joint venture between the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge, and Imperial College London Business School.
www.ukirc.cam.ac.uk
The report can be downloaded from:
www.cbr.cam.ac.uk/pdf/RebalancingBritishEconomy.pdf.
For a printed copy of the report please contact:
Philippa Millerchip or Rachel Wagstaff on:
T: 01223 746575
E: enquiries@ukirc.ac.uk
R&D CONTRACTS FOR CUSTOMERS THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL HI-TECH START-UPS
UK Government innovation policy should be refocused to reflect the crucial role played by customers in stimulating and funding the development of new hi-tech companies, claims a major new report on the Cambridge hi-tech cluster.
and 's work on Innovation Policy and the Role of 'Soft' Companies was
presented in a variety of UK and EU policy fora. This has led along with Connell's earlier CBR work
on public procurement to the establishment of pilot programmes of procurement for R&D at the
Technology Strategy Board as well as the introduction of a regional scheme by EEDA. In both of
these developments Connell has been directly involved as an adviser and designer of the schemes.
To read more and to download the report click here.
Takeover Regulation and Board Structure in Japan
Simon Deakin and John Buchanan gave presentations on UK and Japanese takeover regulation and
corporate governance practice to a workshop organized by Waseda University in Tokyo in January 2010.
The background to the workshop was the consideration of proposals for the reform of the law governing
takeovers and board structure in Japan. It was attended by civil servants and policy makers as well as
leading academics.
Simon Deakin was commissioned by the DIALOGUE section of the International Labour Office to write a report on labour law and
development drawing in part on the CBR datasets. In addition, in March 2010 he gave a presentation on the CBR datasets to a roundtable on Measuring Law in Washington DC at which representatives from the World Bank, IMF, EBRD and a number of other international financial institutions were present.
The impact on policy of new methods for evaluating and measuring legal and regulatory change in corporate governance, financial markets and labour markets
As part of the ESRC-funded project on 'Law, Finance and Development', CBR researchers have been involved in developing new 'leximetric' methods for measuring and evaluating legal change over
time in areas which include corporate governance law, insolvency law, and employment law. The
datasets developed by the CBR team as part of this project have been the focus of interest from a
number of international organisations.
