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Access to the radio spectrum is vital for modern digital communication. It is an essential component for smartphone capabilities, the Cloud, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, and multiple other new technologies. Governments use spectrum auctions to decide which companies should use what parts of the radio spectrum. Successful auctions can fuel rapid innovation in products and services, unlock substantial economic benefits, build comparative advantage across all regions, and create billions of dollars of government revenues. Poor auction strategies can leave bandwidth unsold and delay innovation, sell national assets to firms too cheaply, or create uncompetitive markets with high mobile prices and patchy coverage that stifles economic growth. Corporate bidders regularly complain that auctions raise their costs, while government critics argue that insufficient revenues are raised. The cross-national record shows many examples of both highly successful auctions and miserable failures.
Drawing on experience from the UK and other countries, senior regulator Geoffrey Myers explains how to optimise the regulatory design of auctions, from initial planning to final implementation. Spectrum Auctions offers unrivalled expertise for regulators and economists engaged in practical auction design or company executives planning bidding strategies. For applied economists, teachers, and advanced students this book provides unrivalled insights in market design and public management. Providing clear analytical frameworks, case studies of auctions, and stage-by-stage advice, it is essential reading for anyone interested in designing public-interested and successful spectrum auctions.
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Governments in liberal democracies pursue social welfare, but in many different ways. The wellbeing approach instead asks: why not focus directly on increasing measured human happiness? Why not try to improve people’s overall quality of life, as it is subjectively seen by citizens themselves?
The radical implications of this stance include shifting attention to previously neglected areas (such as mental health and ‘social infrastructure’ services) and developing defensible measures of overall wellbeing or quality of life indicators. Can one ‘master’ concept of wellbeing work to create more holistic policy-making? Or should we stick with multiple metrics? These debates are well-developed in health policy-making and in alternative ‘capabilities’ approaches to assessing quality of life. Most recently, the connections between wellbeing and political participation have come into sharper focus.
Wellbeing remains a contested concept, one that can be interpreted and used differently, with consequences for how it is incorporated into policy decisions. By bringing together scholars from economics, psychology and behavioural science, philosophy and political science, the authors and editors of this short volume explore how different disciplinary approaches can contribute to the study of wellbeing and how this can shape policy priorities.
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Populist movements, parties and leaders have gained influence in many countries, disrupting long-established patterns of party competition, impugning the legitimacy of representative institutions and sometimes actively weakening or coarsening government capabilities. By positing an acute contrast between the will of the people and established elites, and advocating simplistic policy solutions careless of minority rights, populists have challenged the development and even the maintenance of liberal democracy on many fronts.
Social scientists’ attention to populism has grown rapidly, although it remains somewhat fragmented across disciplines. Many questions remain. Are populism’s causes economic or cultural? National or local? Is populism a threat to liberal democracy? If so, what kind of threat? And what can be done about it? Employing a range of conceptual toolkits and methods, this interdisciplinary book addresses in a critical and evidence-based way the most common diagnoses of populism’s causes, consequences and policy antidotes.
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Supplementary material for this textbook, including slides and DSGE and VAR estimation tutorials, can be found here
Supported by the LSE Knowledge Exchange and Impact Fund
Macroeconomic policy is one of the most important policy domains, and the tools of macroeconomics are among the most valuable for policy makers. Yet there has been, up to now, a wide gulf between the level at which macroeconomics is taught at the undergraduate level and the level at which it is practiced. At the same time, doctoral-level textbooks are usually not targeted at a policy audience, making advanced macroeconomics less accessible to current and aspiring practitioners.
This book, born out of the Masters course the authors taught for many years at the Harvard Kennedy School, fills this gap. It introduces the tools of dynamic optimization in the context of economic growth, and then applies them to a wide range of policy questions – ranging from pensions, consumption, investment and finance, to the most recent developments in fiscal and monetary policy. It does so with the requisite rigor, but also with a light touch, and an unyielding focus on their application to policy-making, as befits the authors’ own practical experience.
Advanced Macroeconomics: An Easy Guide is bound to become a great resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, and practitioners alike.
“A tour de force. Presenting modern macro theory rigorously but simply, and showing why it helps understand complex macroeconomic events and macroeconomic policies.” — Olivier Blanchard (Peterson Institute, Professor Emeritus at MIT, and former Chief Economist and Director of Research at the IMF)
“This terrifically useful text fills the considerable gap between standard intermediate macroeconomics texts and the more technical text aimed at PhD economics courses. The authors cover the core models of modern macroeconomics with clarity and elegance, filling in details that PhD texts too often leave out. At the same time, the authors draw on their own extensive policy experience to provide thoughtful policy motivation and historical context throughout. Advanced undergraduates, public policy students and indeed many economics PhD students will find it a pleasure to read, and a valuable long-term resource.” — Kenneth Rogoff (Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University, former Chief Economist and Director of Research at the IMF)
“This is an excellent and highly rigorous yet accessible guide to fundamental macroeconomic frameworks that underpin research and policy making in the world. The content reflects the unique perspective of authors who have worked at the highest levels of both government and academia. This makes the book essential reading for serious practitioners, students, and researchers.” — Gita Gopinath (John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and of Economics at Harvard University, Chief Economist and Director of Research at the IMF)
“The words Advanced and Easy rarely belong together, but this book gets as close as possible. It covers macroeconomics from the classic fundamentals to the fancy and creative innovations necessary to anyone interested in keeping up with both the policy and the academic worlds.” — Arminio Fraga (former president, Central Bank of Brazil)
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