Economics in Action

In the latest of a series of interviews from the Royal Economic Society Conference 2007, Romesh Vaitilingam talks to Emma Tominey about the effect of smoking during pregnancy.

Mothers who smoke during pregnancy will have smaller babies. But much of the harm is due to unobservable traits of the mother. If mums stub it out by the time they are five months pregnant, the damage is as good as undone.

At the same time, the lasting harm to babies is greatest if the mothers have low education. So a much more holistic approach to improving child health in pregnancy is needed to help thousands of children break out of the poverty trap.

These are the conclusions of extensive new research by Emma Tominey, presented to the Royal Economic Society’s 2007 annual conference at the University of Warwick, 11-13 April. (more…)

Three short (i.e. 2 or 3 minute) videos from the BBC TV series “Trust Me, I’m an Economist” have found their way online, seemingly to promote the book by presenter Tim Harford. In part one, he gives free advice to someone who wants to be a gangsta rapper. In part two, he uses second-hand cars as examples of a problem called asymmetric information. In part three, he uses airport queues as an analogy for the stock market.

Listen to the interview

Providing family planning services for young people has little impact on pregnancy rates and may have contributed to the dramatic increase in rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among young people. That is the conclusion of research presented at the Royal Economic Society annual conference by Professor David Paton of the Nottingham University Business School.

The research casts further doubt on the wisdom of the Government’s Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, following on from the announcement in February 2002 that the latest figures show an increase in teenage pregnancy rates, following several years of decline. (more…)

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Economists at Nottingham University Business School and Nottingham Trent University claim to have found a way to beat the bookies and make money out of spread betting.

In a paper presented at the Royal Economic Society’s Annual Conference, Dr David Paton and Dr Leighton Vaughan Williams show that punters can take advantage of different odds quoted by spread betting companies.

The two economists investigated returns to spread bets on one of the most popular markets, the number of bookings points in Premier League football matches. Dr Vaughan Williams explained: (more…)