Publications

This chapter explores the question of how different places react to economic shocks. Increasingly, economic geographers, planners and sociologists have emphasised the importance of ‘place’ in understanding and recommending responses to short-term economic shocks and long-term socio-economic transformation. Consequently, there is a growing consensus within the local and regional economic development literature that ‘one size…

We study implications of persistence of shocks in total factor productivity (TFP) growth under Bayesian framework for a set of African countries over the period 1970-2003. Contrary to convention, we find that stochastic unit root is present for most of the African countries and that there is time-varying dependence structure in the underlying processes. The…

The team has produced a literature review report to conceptually frame and analytically ground the project. This report presents the findings of a preliminary review of the literature in the areas of digital divides, community connectivity and minority communities. It also introduces literature regarding digital divides in the context of Wales in order to contextualise…

Rapid industrialization and urbanization in China has produced a unique phenomenon of ‘village-hollowing’, shaped by the dual-track structure of socio-economic development. This paper analyzes the phenomenon of ‘village-hollowing’, identifying the processes and influences that have driven their evolution, and highlighting the challenge that the locking-up of unused rural housing land in ‘hollowed villages’ presents for…

The field of youth development, long given over to discussions of youth as a time of storm and stress, raging hormones and problem behavior, has increasingly turned to look at the ‘sunny side’ of youth – at their agency, insights, capabilities and contributions. Youth, we are now regularly told, are not problems but resources and…

Human Resource Management Journal 21(2) pp 171-189 This article examines the post-application employment consequences for individuals registering complaints to Employment Tribunals following dismissal or redundancy. We consider several pieces of evidence: (a) the probability of finding another job, (b) the time taken to get a new job and (c) the pay/status of the new job….

In this paper we present a multi-dimensional analysis of the closure of Woolworths in Wales and the way in which the loss of this familiar high-street brand can be accounted for at a number of levels and within different social arenas. Primarily, the paper demonstrates how Woolworths is positioned as a symbol of a previous…

In this chapter we examine orientations towards nation and country with sole reference to the ‘ethnic majority’ in England. Drawing on extensive qualitative interview data collected as part of the Leverhulme Programme, we examine the nuanced ways in which majority people orientate to concepts of nation, country and multiculturalism. We illustrate the linkages between these…

A multilevel analysis of cross-sectional data from a survey involving 1941 pupils (in grades 10 and 11) and policy indicators developed from interviews with staff from 45 secondary schools in Wales examined the hypotheses that pupil smoking prevalence would be associated with: restrictive staff and pupil smoking policies; dissemination of school smoking policies; and implementation of smoking…

The contrast between the Welsh Assembly Government’s stance on higher education tuition fees and that of the UK government hit the headlines recently. But Gareth Rees, Director of the Wales Institute for Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD), questions whether currently devolved powers are sufficiently robust to sustain this distinctive Welsh policy.