Income

London is a major reason for the UK's inequality problem. Unfortunately, City leaders don't want to talk about it

Retrieved on: 
星期二, 九月 5, 2023

In 2022, the richest fifth of the UK population had an income more than 12 times that of the poorest fifth.

Key Points: 
  • In 2022, the richest fifth of the UK population had an income more than 12 times that of the poorest fifth.
  • Many of these firms are located in the City, which the Corporation states “drives the UK economy, generating over £85bn in economic output annually”.
  • An alternative perspective is that these contributions should be balanced against what the City takes out of the wider UK economy.
  • In 2022, the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that the biggest boom in City bonuses since the 2008 financial crisis would further increase this inequality gap.

The City’s diversity smokescreen

    • This is a complex picture, but few disagree that developing a more equitable UK economy and society requires significant structural change.
    • Politically, this has been recognised from most sides amid often heated debates about the new levelling-up bill.
    • Read more:
      Class and the City of London: my decade of research shows why elitism is endemic and top firms don't really care

Changing the national conversation

    • I believe they are well placed to help change the national conversation, by asking more of their leaders on this front.
    • Within many corporate organisations, the issue of inequality is positioned as part of corporate sustainability agendas, or the currently more fashionable “environmental, social and governance”.
    • The momentum to help drive these and many other changes requires a majority of the population on board.
    • We need its leaders to play a central role in our national debate about how to address this problem.

Feeling lonely? Too many of us are. Here's what our supermarkets can do to help

Retrieved on: 
星期二, 九月 5, 2023

For some, a weekly shopping trip may be the only chance to interact with others.

Key Points: 
  • For some, a weekly shopping trip may be the only chance to interact with others.
  • A supermarket chain in the Netherlands is helping to combat loneliness with so-called “slow” checkouts where chatting is encouraged.
  • Read more:
    Why loneliness is both an individual thing and a shared result of the cities we create

We’re getting lonelier

    • Another Australian survey found men aged 35 to 49 had the highest levels of loneliness.
    • Social isolation is a matter of how often we have contact with friends, family and others, which can be measured.
    • Instead of meaningful face-to-face interactions, many of us now rely on social media, phone apps and video calls to socialise.
    • Read more:
      Loneliness is making us physically sick, but social prescribing can treat it – podcast

Could slow, ‘chatty’ checkouts be part of the solution?

    • Sadly, increased use of technology, including self-serve checkouts, and cashiers tasked with speedily processing customers can make it challenging to have a conversation.
    • Recognising loneliness was an issue for many, the idea was to increase social interaction between customers and staff by slowing things down and encouraging conversation.
    • Jumbo’s chief commercial officer, Colette Cloosterman-van Eerd, explained:
      Many people, especially the elderly, sometimes feel lonely.
    • Our shops are an important meeting place for many people, and we want to play a role in identifying and reducing loneliness.
    • The first Kletskassa, in Vlijmen in Brabant, was so successful the family-owned company started rolling out slow checkouts in 200 of its stores.

Supermarkets as ‘third places’ to combat loneliness

    • Third places are familiar public spaces where people can connect over a shared interest or activity.
    • Libraries, coffee shops, book stores, community gardens, churches, gyms and clubs are examples of third places.
    • They all provide the opportunity for close proximity, interaction and often serendipitous conversations with other people we might not usually meet.

Is the US banking crisis over?

Retrieved on: 
星期一, 九月 4, 2023

The US banking crisis triggered worries about the global banking system earlier in the year.

Key Points: 
  • The US banking crisis triggered worries about the global banking system earlier in the year.
  • Three mid-sized US banks, Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate and Signature, fell in quick succession, driving down bank share-prices across the world.

Tight margins and dwindling deposits

    • In July, the Fed raised its key interest rate to as much as 5.5%, the highest in 20 years.
    • This saw more customers at other banks withdrawing deposits for fear that their money wasn’t safe either.
    • In sum, US banks saw deposits declining between June 2022 and June 2023 by almost 4%.
    • You can see the effect on banks’ profitability by looking at overall net interest margins (NIMs).

Credit rating downgrades

    • In early August, Fitch downgraded its rating of US government debt to AA+ from AAA.
    • Sovereign downgrades often reflect problems in the wider economy.
    • This can destabilise banks by making them seem less creditworthy, leading their credit ratings to be downgraded too.
    • Our research suggests bank downgrades are associated with making them riskier and more unstable, particularly when accompanied by a sovereign downgrade.

Regulatory intervention

    • These plans to increase banks’ capacity to absorb losses are encouraging, though will take more than four years to fully implement.
    • For the moment, the US banking system remains vulnerable both to shocks within the financial system and more general calamities.

Feeling lonely? Too many of us do. Here's what our supermarkets can do to help

Retrieved on: 
星期一, 九月 4, 2023

For some, a weekly shopping trip may be the only chance to interact with others.

Key Points: 
  • For some, a weekly shopping trip may be the only chance to interact with others.
  • A supermarket chain in the Netherlands is helping to combat loneliness with so-called “slow” checkouts where chatting is encouraged.
  • Read more:
    Why loneliness is both an individual thing and a shared result of the cities we create

We’re getting lonelier

    • Another Australian survey found men aged 35 to 49 had the highest levels of loneliness.
    • Social isolation is a matter of how often we have contact with friends, family and others, which can be measured.
    • Instead of meaningful face-to-face interactions, many of us now rely on social media, phone apps and video calls to socialise.
    • Read more:
      Loneliness is making us physically sick, but social prescribing can treat it – podcast

Could slow, ‘chatty’ checkouts be part of the solution?

    • Sadly, increased use of technology, including self-serve checkouts, and cashiers tasked with speedily processing customers can make it challenging to have a conversation.
    • Recognising loneliness was an issue for many, the idea was to increase social interaction between customers and staff by slowing things down and encouraging conversation.
    • Jumbo’s chief commercial officer, Colette Cloosterman-van Eerd, explained:
      Many people, especially the elderly, sometimes feel lonely.
    • Our shops are an important meeting place for many people, and we want to play a role in identifying and reducing loneliness.
    • The first Kletskassa, in Vlijmen in Brabant, was so successful the family-owned company started rolling out slow checkouts in 200 of its stores.

Supermarkets as ‘third places’ to combat loneliness

    • Third places are familiar public spaces where people can connect over a shared interest or activity.
    • Libraries, coffee shops, book stores, community gardens, churches, gyms and clubs are examples of third places.
    • They all provide the opportunity for close proximity, interaction and often serendipitous conversations with other people we might not usually meet.

As NZ struggles to resolve its long-running housing crisis, investors should be taxed for keeping homes empty

Retrieved on: 
星期一, 九月 4, 2023

But there is an ongoing debate over how we tax houses - particularly those sitting empty despite the ongoing housing crisis.

Key Points: 
  • But there is an ongoing debate over how we tax houses - particularly those sitting empty despite the ongoing housing crisis.
  • Housing affordability is an ongoing concern for both renters and home owners.
  • My forthcoming research looks at the feasibility of taxing empty homes and what I found was a potential source of substantial revenue for the government.

Empty homes during a housing shortage

    • According to the Empty Homes report, roughly 10% of the empty homes surveyed were intentionally being kept empty, while 35% were empty because they were holiday homes.
    • Read more:
      Taxing empty homes: a step towards affordable housing, but much more can be done

      It was not clear how much of New Zealand’s housing stock remains in the hands of overseas-based investors after rules changed in 2018 to restrict foreign ownership.

Introducing an empty homes tax

    • In the financial year 2021-22, the central government earned 4.7% of its total tax revenue from property taxes, below the OECD average of 5.7%.
    • An empty house tax targets home owners who let a property sit empty for a certain length of time.
    • What’s more, New Zealand has the infrastructural prerequisites needed to implement an empty house tax.

A potential boon for government

    • Some sort of empty house tax could be a source of revenue for the government, as illustrated by cities and countries overseas.
    • Empty properties in Paris, France, incur an annual surcharge of 160% of the standard property rates.
    • In Ireland, the empty house tax is three times the property’s existing base local property tax.

Time for serious consideration

    • The first option is to charge a tax of between 200% and 300% of rates, similar to Ireland.
    • Alternatively, we could introduce a tax of 3-5% of land value, like Vancouver.
    • The revenue from an empty house tax could then be funnelled into building new homes.

Being the main breadwinner didn't necessarily keep married mums in work during the pandemic

Retrieved on: 
星期日, 九月 3, 2023

Our study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, involved analysis of 7,139 different-sex married parents in the United States, captured at multiple time points.

Key Points: 
  • Our study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, involved analysis of 7,139 different-sex married parents in the United States, captured at multiple time points.
  • We found many married mothers who earned half or more of the family’s income got knocked out of employment during the first 18 months of the pandemic.
  • Our study also found the ability to work remotely was an important lifeline for mothers to retain employment.

Even earning more, many mothers were knocked out of employment

    • The employment rate for mothers, by contrast, dropped significantly in the first few months and never fully recovered.
    • So, earning more of the family income didn’t necessarily shield mothers from employment loss.
    • Mothers who could work online had significantly higher employment rates across the period of our study than mothers who couldn’t.
    • Additionally, the positive effect of telecommuting on employment was four times larger for mothers than for fathers.

The pandemic-pummelled mothers

    • At the start of the pandemic, our previous research found nearly 250,000 more mothers than fathers exited employment from February to April 2020.
    • We also found in prior studies that US mothers with children aged five or under reduced their work time four to five times more than equivalent fathers.
    • And our earlier research revealed how US mothers stepped into more housework and childcare, causing sleep problems, anxiety and stress.

Where to from here?

    • But we can’t ignore the fact many mothers stepped into the added care of the pandemic while also trying to maintain their work lives.
    • Australian workers want remote work to remain which has long been critical to mothers maintaining employment and to avoid burnout.
    • The pandemic showed care work is critical to our lives and we must support those who do it.
    • Views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the US Department of Labor.

Johannesburg fire disaster: why eradicating hijacked buildings is not the answer

Retrieved on: 
星期六, 九月 2, 2023

They have placed the blame on the informal occupation of abandoned buildings, a phenomenon known as “hijacking”.

Key Points: 
  • They have placed the blame on the informal occupation of abandoned buildings, a phenomenon known as “hijacking”.
  • They have also blamed immigrant populations who, they say, are the primary residents of such buildings.
  • To solve the problem, they argue, hijacked buildings should be expropriated and redeveloped by the private sector.
  • The rhetoric by politicians and city officials treats the latest tragedy as a freakish problem of hijacked buildings occupied by migrant populations.

A pervasive problem

    • Yet this problem is not limited to hijacked buildings.
    • As these cases show, eradicating “hijacked” buildings would not have solved failures to comply with fire regulations in legally occupied buildings in the city.
    • Nor would eradicating “hijacked” buildings remove the risk of fire posed to low income groups across the city as a whole.
    • But the shack dwellers movement Abahlali Basemjondolo successfully challenged this initiative in the Constitutional Court.

Disposable lives

    • According to the geographer Martin Murray, shack fires underscore the disposability of the lives of the poor.
    • South Africa’s acute levels of inequality and poverty mean that some people can afford to buy their way out of risks while others cannot.

Helping without eradicating

    • Government does indeed have a vital role to play in promoting the right to decent housing for all.
    • A good example is the City of Johannesburg’s recent inclusionary housing policy that obliges developers to include affordable housing in all projects.
    • These and many other measures – rather than the impulse to “eradicate” – are the basis through which society cares for vulnerable people.

Tory MP's historic family links to slavery raise questions about Britain's position on reparations

Retrieved on: 
星期五, 九月 1, 2023

This would include compensation for loss of life and liberty, uncompensated labour, personal injury, mental pain and anguish and gender-based violence.

Key Points: 
  • This would include compensation for loss of life and liberty, uncompensated labour, personal injury, mental pain and anguish and gender-based violence.
  • But then centuries of value derived from the trade in human beings produced for Britain an equally unimaginable sum.
  • According to the Treasury, the loan was only finally paid off in 2015.
  • One example is the Drax family of the Charborough Estate in Dorset, which is now owned by Conservative MP, Richard Drax.

Drax family legacy

    • For the past three years I have been researching – and have just completed – an unauthorised history of the Drax family.
    • The family appears to be unique in having an unbroken history of owning sugar plantations in the Caribbean from their inception until the present day.
    • Their ancestor James Drax (c.1609-1662) was one of the first settlers in Barbados in 1627 and is credited with inventing the British sugar industry in the 1630s.
    • His descendant – the Conservative MP for South Dorset, Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, (who prefers to be known as Richard Drax) heads the family that owns the vast Charborough Estate and the Drax Hall Plantation in Barbados.
    • Although he is a public figure, Richard Drax and his family are very private, not least about their wealth which is locked into a number of trusts.

Mounting pressure for reparations

    • In the three years since I first wrote about Richard Drax MP, the call for reparations has gotten much louder.
    • Globally, Drax has come to symbolise those whose families benefited from slavery but rebuff formal apologies and paying reparations.
    • Pressure has grown on him and in October 2022 he flew to Barbados to meet with the country’s prime minister, Mia Mottley.
    • In the meeting between Drax and Mia Mottley, he was offered two options, one a package of reparations including all or a substantial part of Drax Hall.

Australia needs a 'knowledge economy' fuelled by scientists and arts graduates: here's why

Retrieved on: 
星期四, 八月 31, 2023

The federal government has been asking for “bold ideas” to “reimagine” the future of Australian higher education for decades to come.

Key Points: 
  • The federal government has been asking for “bold ideas” to “reimagine” the future of Australian higher education for decades to come.
  • An interim report for the Universities Accord was released in July.
  • This is crucial if we are going to move past our economic reliance on carbon.

What is a knowledge economy?

    • A knowledge economy is focused on activities that accelerate the pace of technical and scientific advances.
    • Research and development generate products and services which lead to the formation of new companies, new industries and new economic opportunities.
    • This requires both the discovery of new technologies and the application of these technologies to new and existing industries, in both domestic and international markets.

Economic complexity

    • The Atlas of Economic Complexity is produced at Harvard University.
    • The assumption is the more complex a country’s exports are, the less exposed they will be to cheap substitutes from rival nations.
    • According to 2021 data, we ranked 93rd out of 133 countries, down from 60th in 2000.
    • This is way behind countries such as Japan (first), Germany (fourth), the United Kingdom (eigth) and the United States (14th).

Translating our research

    • In a report on innovation released earlier this year, the Productivity Commission noted Australia was a “small open economy with limited (business and public) research capacity [so] many ideas and technologies will come to Australia from overseas”.
    • This means our efforts should focus on how we apply and encourage the uptake of new knowledge or “knowledge diffusion”.
    • According to the 2022 Global Innovation Index, while Australia ranks 25th for its innovation capabilities, it is way back in 72nd for “knowledge diffusion”.

What is the role for universities?

    • Universities have a crucial role to play in securing this future for Australia.
    • Their mission is already to discover new knowledge through research and disseminate this through teaching and learning.
    • Geography matters when cutting-edge technology firms are looking to attract talented graduates, collaborate with experts and commercialise research innovation.

What should the Universities Accord do?

    • In its initial draft, the Universities Accord notes the need to promote “commercial use” of Australian research capability and to “encourage” universities to “move towards” research translation.
    • In its final report in December, we suggest there is far greater emphasis on the transformation needed to ensure Australia is sustainable and productive into the future.

Under-counting, a gendered industry, and precarious work: the challenges facing Creative Australia in supporting visual artists

Retrieved on: 
星期四, 八月 31, 2023

In exchange for what they give us, they should have safe workplaces and be remunerated fairly.

Key Points: 
  • In exchange for what they give us, they should have safe workplaces and be remunerated fairly.
  • Creative Australia recognises that artists and creatives throughout our great landscape, from metropolitan cities to the red desert, are workers.
  • Our new research identifies three key areas that need to be addressed to ensure fair remuneration for all visual and craft artists.

Counting the artists

    • This leads to an under-counting of artists, as most visual art and craft artists support themselves through other work – either related to their artwork, such as in academia or in arts management, or in an entirely different field.
    • Nonetheless, at a minimum the survey identifies an additional 100,000 visual and craft artists not captured within the census definition.
    • If all artists are to be remunerated fairly, it is critical Creative Australia ensures support mechanisms extend to the around 100,000 visual and craft artists for whom art making is not their primary occupation.

The gendered nature of the industry

    • This inclusive definition produced a much higher proportion of female artists than the census, with 73% identifying as female.
    • This aligns with other estimates of the gender breakdown of the industry.
    • We found a distinctive experience of female artists compared to their male counterparts, suggesting policy responses need to recognise the gendered nature of art making.
    • The gendered nature of the visual arts and craft sector must be front of mind in the design of remuneration policies for artists undertaken by Creative Australia.

How artists earn a living

    • Many visual art and craft artists conduct their practice from their home and operate as a sole trader.
    • Achieving the goal of remunerating artists fairly is not just about payment for art making.
    • It is also about the other work these artists must undertake to make a living, much of which consists of part-time employment elsewhere in the arts and cultural sector.