His Majesty's Treasury

There is now clear scientific evidence that emissions from economic activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels for energy, are causing changes to the Earth´s climate. A sound understanding of the economics of climate change is needed in order to underpin an effective global response to this challenge. The Stern Review is an independent, rigourous and comprehensive analysis of the economic aspects of this crucial issue. It has been conducted by Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the UK Government Economic Service, and a former Chief Economist of the World Bank. The Economics of Climate Change will be invaluable for all students of the economics and policy implications of climate change, and economists, scientists and policy makers involved in all aspects of climate change.

The basic structural model is a univariate time series model consisting of a slowly changing trend component, a slowly changing seasonal component, and a random irregular component. It is part of a class of models that have a number of advantages over the seasonal ARIMA models adopted by Box and Jenkins (1976). This article reports the results of an exercise in which the basic structural model was estimated for six U.K. macroeconomic time series and the forecasting performance compared with that of ARIMA models previously fitted by Prothero and Wallis (1976).

Despite the apparent importance of the “knowledge economy,” U.K. macroeconomic performance appears unaffected: investment rates are flat, and productivity has slowed. We investigate whether measurement issues might account for this puzzle. The standard National Accounts treatment of most spending on “knowledge” or “intangible” assets is as intermediate consumption. Thus they do not count as either GDP or investment. We ask how treating such spending as investment affects some key macro variables, namely, market sector gross value added (MGVA), business investment, capital and labor shares, growth in labor and total factor productivity (TFP), and capital deepening. We find: (a) MGVA was understated by about 6 percent in 1970 and 13 percent in 2004; (b) instead of the business investment/MGVA ratio falling since 1970 it has been rising; (c) instead of the labor share being flat since 1970 it has been falling; (d) growth in labor productivity and capital deepening has been understated and growth in TFP overstated; and (e) TFP growth has not slowed since 1990 but has been accelerating.

This article describes the development of the Sure Start programme in the United Kingdom, which marks an important new departure in the provision of services for the ‘early years'. Announced in July 1998 as part of the Labour Government's Comprehensive Spending Review, it is important not only in terms of its substance—£540 m to be spent in the United Kingdom over the Spending Review years 1999/2000 to 2001/2, 250 local programmes by the end of the Parliament covering up to 150 000 children—but in terms of the way the policy was developed and the way it is to be implemented. In many ways it is a prime example of ‘joined‐up government' and evidence‐based policy making. The first 60 ‘trailblazer' areas were announced in January 1999 and the programme will be rolled out from the early summer. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Findings that MHP36 stem cells grafted into intact parenchyma contralateral to the lesion induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion promoted recovery from stroke deficits led us to investigate whether implantation site of stem cells affects the functional efficacy of MHP36 grafts. METHODS: MHP36 cells (200 000/8 microL) were implanted in the left (n=8) or right (n=9) parenchyma or infused into the right ventricle (intraventricular; n=7) 2 to 3 weeks after stroke induced by 60 minutes of intraluminal right middle cerebral artery occlusion. Additionally, intact (n=11) and stroke (n=7) control groups were tested for 14 weeks in bilateral asymmetry, rotation bias, and spatial learning tasks before histological investigation of cell distribution and differentiation. RESULTS: Rats with left and right parenchymal grafts showed reduced bilateral asymmetry but no improvement in spatial learning. Conversely, spatial learning improved in rats with intraventricular grafts, but marked asymmetry persisted. No grafted group showed reduced amphetamine-induced rotation bias or reduced lesion volume relative to stroke controls. In all grafted groups, cells occupied both sides of the brain. A third of cells grafted in the striatum crossed the midline to occupy homologous regions in intact and lesioned hemispheres and differentiated into site-appropriate phenotypes. CONCLUSIONS: After stroke, both the intact and lesioned hemispheres attract grafted stem cells, suggesting repair processes that utilize cells both for local repair and to augment plastic changes in contralateral motor pathways. However, differential effects of parenchymal and intraventricular grafts suggest that different mechanisms are implicated in recovery from cognitive and sensorimotor deficits induced by stroke.

Abstract The author of this paper, after noticing Wilson’s Theorem, (pub­lished by Waring about the year 1770, without any proof), which theorem is that, if A be a prime number, 1. 2. 3. . . . (A —1)+1 is divisible by A ; refers to Lagrange’s and Euler’s demonstrations, and mentions Gauss’s extension of the theorem, to any number, not prime; provided that instead of 1, 2, 3, &c. (A —1), those numbers only be taken which are prime to A, and 1 be either added or sub­tracted. This theorem was published by Gauss without a proof in 1801, with a rule as to the cases in which 1 is to be added or sub­tracted, the correctness of which is questioned by the author, who proceeds to propound the following theorem, which he had previ­ously, for distinctness, divided into three. If any number, prime or not, be taken, and the numbers prime to it, and less than one half of it be ascertained, and those be rejected whose squares ±1 are equal to the prime number, or some multiple of it (which may be more than one), then the product of the re­maining primes (if any), ±1 shall be divisible by the prime number.

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that education protects against cardiovascular disease. However, it is not known whether such an effect is independent of cognition. METHODS: We performed two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses to investigate the effect of education and cognition, respectively, on risk of CHD and ischaemic stroke. Additionally, we used multivariable MR to adjust for the effects of cognition and education in the respective analyses to measure the effects of these traits independently of each other. RESULTS: In unadjusted MR, there was evidence that education is causally associated with both CHD and stroke risk [CHD: odds ratio (OR) 0.65 per 1-standard deviation (SD; 3.6 years) increase in education; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.61-0.70, stroke: OR 0.77; 95% CI 0.69-0.86]. This effect persisted after adjusting for cognition in multivariable MR (CHD: OR 0.76; 95% CI 0.65-0.89, stroke OR 0.74; 95% CI 0.59-0.92). Cognition had an apparent effect on CHD risk in unadjusted MR (OR per 1-SD increase 0.80; 95% CI 0.74-0.85), however after adjusting for education this was no longer observed (OR 1.03; 95% CI 0.86-1.25). Cognition did not have any notable effect on the risk of developing ischaemic stroke, with (OR 0.97; 95% CI 0.87-1.08) or without adjustment for education (OR 1.04; 95% CI 0.79-1.36). CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence to support that education protects against CHD and ischaemic stroke risk independently of cognition, but does not provide evidence to support that cognition protects against CHD and stroke risk independently of education. These findings could have implications for education and health policy.

This paper considers the likely operating characteristics of the new UK monetary arrangements introduced in May 1997. The paper first argues that the time inconsistency of policy is not an issue provided the Bank of England is properly independent. However, the current inflation remit from the Chancellor to the Bank specifies a numerical target for the inflation rate, but does not specify how quickly deviations from the target are to be corrected. It is thus an incomplete contract, and there is a danger that the Bank may choose to stabilise inflation at the cost of excessively volatile movements in output, or vice versa. We estimate the optimal policy frontier for the UK economy and show that in practice it is close to rectangular. Consequently all the Bank needs to assume is that the government's preferences are ‘reasonable’ in order to know approximately where to locate on this frontier; the incompleteness of the remit therefore need not be a cause for concern.

Abstract There is growing awareness that biodiversity loss poses a significant risk to the global economy, but a lack of clarity on what this means for corporations, and how they are responding. This study provides a first quantitative assessment of biodiversity risk exposure across the world's largest listed companies, compared with their adoption of biodiversity policies, through analysis of disclosures from a sample of 11,812 companies from 2004 to 2018. We find that companies have started responding strategically to biodiversity risk, with 29% having adopted a biodiversity policy by 2018. However, around $7.2 trillion of total enterprise value remains exposed to unmanaged biodiversity risk. Companies in sectors with material impacts on biodiversity tend to have high levels of response, but there is poorer responsiveness to material biodiversity dependency risks. A natural‐capital‐based view (NCBV) of the firm is proposed to theorise how corporations are constrained by both their impacts and dependencies on natural capital.

Derivative securities have transformed the way treasurers view financial price risk and have been used to hedge risks that were previously left open. In this paper, we present the results of surveys of treasurers of large UK companies to questions about their derivative use. We examine the extent of derivative use, the reasons for their use, the perceived risks associated with derivatives, what sort of controls are in place to monitor the use of derivatives, and, finally, reporting practices which govern the disclosure of derivative practices. Results of the surveys indicate widespread use of derivatives like swaps, forwards and options. The primary reasons for their use are to manage interest rate and currency risk. There is a rather limited, but growing, use of derivatives to manage commodity and equity risk. Treasurers report that they are somewhat cautious about more exotic types of derivatives, primarily because of concern over the illiquidity of the underlying market for these derivatives. Interestingly, treasurers revealed that they view control and the nature of their counterparty as the main risks in using derivatives. Finally, the use of derivatives is accompanied by significant control mechanisms inside companies, and treasurers are using sophisticated procedures to quantify their derivative exposures before they are reported at board level.

This report estimates the impact on earnings of attending HE compared with not going. The authors detail how this varies by subject and institution of study, as well as how these returns vary by gender, prior educational attainment and the sorts of subjects individuals have studied up to age 18. The report makes use of the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset, which links together tax, benefit, higher education and school records to provide a rich description of individuals’ trajectories through the education system and into the labour market.

Background: Acute myocardial injury in hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has a poor prognosis. Its associations and pathogenesis are unclear. Our aim was to assess the presence, nature, and extent of myocardial damage in hospitalized patients with troponin elevation. Methods: Across 25 hospitals in the United Kingdom, 342 patients with COVID-19 and an elevated troponin level (COVID+/troponin+) were enrolled between June 2020 and March 2021 and had a magnetic resonance imaging scan within 28 days of discharge. Two prospective control groups were recruited, comprising 64 patients with COVID-19 and normal troponin levels (COVID+/troponin−) and 113 patients without COVID-19 or elevated troponin level matched by age and cardiovascular comorbidities (COVID−/comorbidity+). Regression modeling was performed to identify predictors of major adverse cardiovascular events at 12 months. Results: Of the 519 included patients, 356 (69%) were men, with a median (interquartile range) age of 61.0 years (53.8, 68.8). The frequency of any heart abnormality, defined as left or right ventricular impairment, scar, or pericardial disease, was 2-fold greater in cases (61% [207/342]) compared with controls (36% [COVID+/troponin−] versus 31% [COVID−/comorbidity+]; P <0.001 for both). More cases than controls had ventricular impairment (17.2% versus 3.1% and 7.1%) or scar (42% versus 7% and 23%; P <0.001 for both). The myocardial injury pattern was different, with cases more likely than controls to have infarction (13% versus 2% and 7%; P <0.01) or microinfarction (9% versus 0% and 1%; P <0.001), but there was no difference in nonischemic scar (13% versus 5% and 14%; P =0.10). Using the Lake Louise magnetic resonance imaging criteria, the prevalence of probable recent myocarditis was 6.7% (23/342) in cases compared with 1.7% (2/113) in controls without COVID-19 ( P =0.045). During follow-up, 4 patients died and 34 experienced a subsequent major adverse cardiovascular event (10.2%), which was similar to controls (6.1%; P =0.70). Myocardial scar, but not previous COVID-19 infection or troponin, was an independent predictor of major adverse cardiovascular events (odds ratio, 2.25 [95% CI, 1.12–4.57]; P =0.02). Conclusions: Compared with contemporary controls, patients with COVID-19 and elevated cardiac troponin level have more ventricular impairment and myocardial scar in early convalescence. However, the proportion with myocarditis was low and scar pathogenesis was diverse, including a newly described pattern of microinfarction. Registration: URL: https://www.isrctn.com ; Unique identifier: 58667920.

Abstract This article uses the myth of the many‐headed Hydra, commonly employed by members of various ruling classes around the Atlantic to describe the class struggles that surrounded them, to illuminate the history of the working class in the eighteenth century. It concentrates on two groups of workers, wage laborers (especially sailors) and slaves, two zones of the Atlantic, Europe and North America, and four moments in the history of the Atlantic working class: 1747, when, in the Knowles Riot in Boston, sailors and slaves fought the King's press gangs and in so doing created one of the central ideas of the ‘Age of Revolution’ 1768, when, in the London port strike, sailors, Irish coal heavers, and others pioneered one of the central ideas and activities of the modern working‐class movement, the strike; 1776, when, in the American Revolution, sailors and slaves helped to instigate and win the world's first colonial war for liberation; and 1780, when, in the Gordon Riots, the polyglot working class of London liberated the prisons amid the greatest municipal insurrection of the eighteenth century. It argues that fixed, static notions of race, ethnicity, and nationality among historians have obscured a vital world of cooperation and accomplishment within a multi‐racial, multi‐ethnic, international working class.

Companies, investors, and regulators around the world are now seeking to tie executives' payoffs to long‐term results and avoid rewarding executives for short‐term gains. Focusing on equity‐based compensation, the primary component of top executives' pay, the authors analyze how such compensation should best be structured to provide executives with incentives to focus on long‐term value creation. To improve the link between equity compensation and long‐term results, the authors recommend that executives be prevented from unwinding their equity incentives for a significant time period after vesting. At the same time, however, the authors suggest that it would be counterproductive to require that executives hold their equity incentives until retirement, as some have proposed. Instead, the authors recommend that companies adopt a combination of “grant‐based” and “aggregate” limitations on the unwinding of equity incentives. Grant‐based limitations would allow executives to unwind the equity incentives associated with a particular grant only gradually after vesting, according to a fixed, pre‐specified schedule put in place at the time of the grant. Aggregate limitations on unwinding would prevent an executive from unloading more than a specified fraction of the executive's freely disposable equity incentives in any given year. Finally, the authors emphasize the need for effective limitations on executives' use of hedging and derivative transactions that would weaken the connection between executive payoffs and long‐term stock values that a well‐designed equity arrangement should produce.

Summary Individual- and household-based aggregate measures of joblessness can offer conflicting signals about labour market performance if work is unequally distributed. The paper introduces an index that can be used to measure both the extent and the sources of divergence between non-employment rates calculated at the two levels of aggregation. Built around a comparison of the actual household joblessness rate with that which would occur if work were equally distributed, the index conforms to basic axioms of consistency and can be decomposed and applied to any binary variable of interest measured at two different levels of aggregation. Applying these measures to data for Britain, we show that rising inequality in the distribution of work is mostly within group, largely unrelated to changes in size of household or the principal characteristics that are associated with individual joblessness.

This article describes the development of the Sure Start programme in the United Kingdom, which marks an important new departure in the provision of services for the ‘early years'. Announced in July 1998 as part of the Labour Government's Comprehensive Spending Review, it is important not only in terms of its substance—£540 m to be spent in the United Kingdom over the Spending Review years 1999/2000 to 2001/2, 250 local programmes by the end of the Parliament covering up to 150 000 children—but in terms of the way the policy was developed and the way it is to be implemented. In many ways it is a prime example of ‘joined-up government' and evidence-based policy making. The first 60 ‘trailblazer' areas were announced in January 1999 and the programme will be rolled out from the early summer. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

OBJECTIVE: Recent evidence has found potential associations between cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and common musculoskeletal disorders. We evaluated possible associations between risk factors and both glenohumeral joint pain and rotator cuff tendinopathy. METHODS: Data from WISTAH hand study participants (n = 1226) were assessed for associations between Framingham Heart Study CVD risk factors and both health outcomes. RESULTS: A strong association was observed between CVD risk scores and both glenohumeral joint pain and rotator cuff tendinopathy. Peak odds ratios (ORs) of the adjusted models were 4.55 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.97 to 10.31] and 5.97 (95% CI 2.12 to 16.83), respectively. The results show a dose-response trend of increasing risk. CONCLUSIONS: Individual risk factors were associated with both outcomes. Combined, CVD risk factors demonstrated a strong correlation with glenohumeral joint pain and an even stronger correlation with rotator cuff tendinopathy. Results suggest a potentially modifiable disease mechanism.

We examine wages in jobs taken by those out of work—entry jobs—and the characteristics of the individuals who fill them. There are large entry wage gaps relative to other jobs. More importantly, real entry wages have fallen by around 20 log points relative to all other jobs since 1979. One‐quarter of this decline is accounted for by differences in individual and job characteristics and around 40% from an unexplained fall in the position of entry jobs in the wage distribution. That entry wages differ from the stock of all wages should be incorporated into labour supply modelling.

Analysis of a nationally representative sample of adults with mental health needs shows that rural residents have fewer ambulatory mental health visits than their urban counterparts do. Even among people already on prescription medications for mental health conditions, rural-urban differences are large.

It had been previously shown that an idealized version of the two-wave-vector extension of the NMR pulsed-field-gradient spin echo diffusion experiment can be used to determine the apparent radius of geometries with restricted diffusion. In the present work, the feasibility of the experiment was demonstrated in an NMR imaging experiment, in which the apparent radius of axons in white matter tissue was determined. Moreover, numerical simulations have been carried out to determine the reliability of the results. For small diffusion times, the radius is systematically underestimated. Larger gradient area, finite length gradient pulses, and a statistical distribution of radii within a voxel all have a minor influence on the estimated radius.