Publications

As well as the political economy blog SPERI Comment,  SPERI publishes its research in a number of forms:

Listed below are our three latest publications:

SPERI British Political Economy Brief No. 34

The rationale for local authority pension fund investment decisions by Craig Berry and Adam Barber

This Brief assesses the rationale behind the strategic asset allocation of the UK’s largest local authority pension funds since the 2007/2008 financial crisis. The analysis builds directly upon that of SPERI Brief 29, Local Authority Pension Fund Investment Since the Financial Crisis, which charted changes in the investment patterns of pension funds between 2005 and 2016. This Brief explores the basis of these changes, such as the move away from equity investment, and the partial move towards ‘alternative’ investments such as infrastructure.

SPERI Global Political Economy Brief No. 11

The rise and rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation by Rick Rowden

The Brief charts the development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and assesses how Russia and China have come together to cooperate on common geostrategic and geoeconomic goals for the long-term economic integration of Asia. The Brief discusses the origins of the SCO, including its military and economic goals; the China-Russia relationship, which served as the fulcrum for the establishment of the SCO; the recent expansion of the SCO to include both India and Pakistan and considers the likelihood of Iran and Turkey joining in the future.

SPERI Paper No. 43

Revisiting the developmental state edited by Matt Bishop and Tony Payne

This Paper brings together a range of eminent experts on the subject of the ‘developmental state’: Kunal Sen, Shaun Breslin, Ziya Öniş, Valbona Muzaka, David Booth, Courtney Lindsay and Henry Wai-chung Yeung.  The notion of a ‘developmental state’ is a key concept in the political economy of development. The simultaneous failure of neoliberal free market fundamentalism to deliver rising living standards in the West and the contrasting success of high levels of intervention in China have reignited interest in the concept. The authors each offer pithy, incisive accounts of key points of controversy and debate as they revisit the notion of a developmental state.