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. 10

Frankfurt as a financial centre after Brexit by Scott Lavery and Davide Schmid

The Brief looks at how stakeholders based within Frankfurt’s financial sector have sought to position the city as an EU financial centre since the Brexit referendum. Following extensive interviews with elite stakeholders within Frankfurt’s financial sector, the Brief presents new findings that demonstrate how influential political and financial organisations in Frankfurt are working together to promote the city to financial service firms. It outlines how Frankfurt has not taken the more ‘aggressive’ approach pursued by other rival EU financial centres, such as Paris and Luxembourg.

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.