Are the new Corporate governance reforms weak?

This week the UK government introduced a series of measures to regulate corporate governance.
The aim of these is to increase trust

Reaction.
TUC  - feeble
Unite Union response
BBC business editor referred to it as a corporate climb down.
Guardian - Corporate governance be stronger not weaker.
FT - reforms can be effective
Institute of Directors.
CBI comment.
CIPD - earlier comment on 'fat cat executive pay'

One of the measures is for listed companies to publish pay ratios
the High Pay Centre has reports on  what the top FTSE CEOs earn and the gap/ ratio with other workers.
This recent review from CIPD and High Pay Centre found that although the renumeration of the top 25 fell in 2016, ' it would still take the average UK full-time worker on a salary of £28,000 (median full-time earnings) 160 years to earn what an average FTSE 100 CEO is paid in just one year'

Pay Compare- an non profit body also campaigns for pay ratio fairness and transparency. Its website has examples of campaigns and reports.
see the pay ratios for those it has collected.
The office of National Statistics Annual Survey on Hours and Earnings give details on working conditions in the UK

Social science sites of the week

In the news this week: What’s wrong with the British Steel Industry?

Get the facts on its contribution to UK manufacturing, employment and trends in production.

Guardian Newspaper  launch campaign against Internet abuse and harassment

Guardian comment on nature and extent of online abuse.

They have also released some initial analysis of comments posted and blocked on their website. This reveals  more abusive comments were blocked about articles written by women. As a result the site is leading a discussion on what can improve social relations on the Internet.

Here are some other useful sources measuring the extent and nature of online abuse.

In 2015 the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development issued a report calling for a world-wide wake up call against cyberviolence targeting women and girls.

In England/ Wales Official figures on negative online experiences are gathered by the Office for National Statistics and published as a supplementary table they record online harassment by gender. In 2014 Demos published an interesting report on the extent and nature of misogyny on Twitter

In Australia a recent Norton survey found that 47& of women responding had suffered online abuse. In the USA a 2014 survey found that 73% of those responding had witnessed online harassment

Reports on cyberstalking and Cyberbullying in the USA can be retrieved from this special feature on the NCRJC website. and WAM has some resources concerning harassment, women and twitter.

Which graduates earn the most? Do family, class and Gender matter?

New from IFS an analysis of 260,000 student tax and loan records which examines variations in earnings over a 10 year period after graduation . It considers whether gender, socioeconomic class, institution and subject studied effect income. A key conclusion is that

p.55 Graduates from higher income households earn more (up to around 60%

more for males and 45% for females) than their peers from lower income households.

There were also shocking  large variations by institution

‘For instance, more than 10% of male graduates from LSE, Oxford and Cambridge were earning in excess of £100,000 a year ten years after graduation in 2012/13, with LSE graduates earning the most. LSE was the only institution with more than 10% of its female graduates earning in excess of £100,000 a year ten years on . Whereas the median male graduate earnings were nearer £45,000

Universities UK response to the report

Million+ report

Russell Group Response

New EU referendum reports this week

This week IFS launch an interactive tool to allow voters to explore the EU budget which countries pay in the most? Who gets the most?

The Electoral Commission designated the two lead campaigners at the EU Referendum – designating ‘The In Campaign Ltd’ to be the lead campaigner for the “Remain” outcome, and ‘Vote Leave Ltd’ for the “Leave” outcome. Its decision , with associated papers can be downloaded from the website.

LSE launches EU referendum videos on its YouTube channel. The 10-week video series (starting 13^th April) will feature daily  expert comment from the School’s academics on a wide range of issues relating to the EU referendum on 23 June.

See the links to the latest papers, speech transcripts and reports on our blog

Million pound homes – get the facts!

According to some data releases from the Office for National Statistics. 13,679 was the number of properties sold for £1million or more in England and Wales, in the year ending September 2015. In 1996 it was 270 . Get the full data set   House price statistics for all areas from 1995-2015 and Test your knowledge in the million pound properties quiz!

A report by the LSE and Santander has predicted that by 2030 1 in 4 London homes will be valued at £1milion or more.

In terms of affordability . In 2015 Shelter published a report that from 1969-2014, house prices for first time buyers had increased by 48 times, whereas incomes had risen 29 times. the London Data store has information on  house price ratios to salary in London Boroughs.   Recently the Centre for London also issued a report on Housing and inequality in the capital which shows rising housing costs (both in the rented and mortgage sector)  causing greater wealth disparity.and a move to the suburbs for poorer people. Shelter has also issued a tube map of affordability of rented housing in London stating that of 270 stations only 15 are in affordable renting areas.

Use the BBC tracker tool to find out where you can afford to live

Fairness for Children: a league table of inequality in child well-being in rich countries

The latest report card from UNICEF examines the condition of children in  the EU and wealthy OECD nations. It focuses on the gap between rich and poor in four areas: income, education, health and life satisfaction

Key policy concerns include:

 Protect the incomes of households with the poorest children.
• Improve the educational achievements of disadvantaged learners.
• Promote and support healthy lifestyles for all children.
• Take subjective well-being seriously.
• Place equity at the heart of child well-being agendas. 

See the UK ranking. UNICEF concluded that the gap between rich and poor had narrowed .

Denmark was ranked first in the report's findings. Britain 1. There were concerns in gaps about educational performance, and health eating where the uK was rated lowly.

Another key report published this week relating to Child wellbeing was CentreForum Commission on children and young people’s mental health. It revealed the problems young people face when trying to access mental health care.

Hansard Society Audit of Political Engagement released.

The 13^th annual edition of this key publication  has just been published. It is based on is based on an opinion poll conducted by Ipsos MORI between 11 and 29 December 2015 with a representative quota sample of adults aged 18+ across Great Britain measuring factors associated with interest in and engagement in politics amongst voters. Topics covered include interest in EU and certainty to vote in the referendum, perception of parliament and levels of participation.

Data USA

A great new site which visualizes American government Data. It is developed by Deloitte, Datawheel, and Cesar Hidalgo, Professor at the MIT Media Lab with the aim of making statistical data visible and accessible.

View maps or profiles  by location, occupation and industry and education . The site also has visual stories created by users. See for instance this one on the skills required for an economics degree. Which also has data on gender, racial composition of award holders, geographic concentration in the USA and pay!

Trussell Trust Food Bank data visualization.

The Trussell Trust has worked with data scientists, business model specialists and academics from the University of Hull and the commercial sector to create the UK’s first ever dynamic visualisation tool for crises leading to foodbank use, mapping 18 months of foodbank data against deprivation indices from the 2011 census and other open data. See the mapping hunger report

How to choose a world Leader

This week the United Nations held its first public debates to select a new secretary general. This press release explains the process. Further detail is on the UN website .  UN webTV has recordings.

There is also a twitter feed where you can see questions submitted.

1 for 7 Billion is a global campaign supported by organisations and individuals from all corners of the globe committed to getting the best UN Secretary-General. see its discussion of the process and its 10 urgent reforms.        

Finally find a remedy for your hayfever!

Digital archive of Druggist and Chemist

A fascinating digital journal archive project completed by the Wellcome Library and available on the Internet Archive.  The Chemist and Druggist is weekly journal of the pharmacy trade, the online issues cover over 150 years from the 1850s. As well as  constituting a fascinating  resource on the history of medicine and pharmacy; Social historians can browse original advertisements for patent medicines, medical products and more.  See this example from May 1889 which features on the front page an advertisement for Royal embrocation- I was not sure if this was for the horse or the rider to rub in!  Read more about the digitisation project on their blog.

Social Science sites of the week

Happy new year

Welcome to 2016 with the latest update of new and interesting sites for social scientists

 

New Year’s resolutions.

Try  the RSA social brain quiz to find out what new year’s resolution you should choose and how you can stick to it.

It is based on the findings of a recent Royal Society report Easier Said than done – why we struggle with healthy behaviours and what can be done about it. This 33 page report has some practical tips on positive lifestyle changes to encourage healthy walking, eating, sleeping and talking which are based on psychological research

See some links to insights from psychology research on our recent blog posting.

Central African Republic elections.

Elections finally took place on the 31^st December. Find out more about the human rights background plus get news reports and  press releases from the 2015 election observation teams on our elections blog.

Fat Cat Tuesday

On the 5^th January 2016 top bosses salaries  FTSE CEOS will already have exceeded the average annual pay of many workers (£27,645) according to the High Pay Centre

Find out how your wages compare using their pay calculator

Price Waterhouse Cooper conducts regular surveys on the state of executive pay in the UK

According to a recent survey from CIPD 71% of employees think CEO pay is too high in the UK.

In an associated report on the behavioural impact of high wages on CEO behaviour and motivation CIPD recommended that pay rises became evidence based.

NCVO conducted an inquiry into executive pay in the charity sector. The final report from 2014 can be downloaded from their website

Norton Rose Fulbright maintain a UK Corporate Governance portal which as a really useful collection of links to recent reports from the UK government, trade associations and other bodies on executive pay. These cover regulation, performance related pay and ethics related issues.

First Anniversary of Charlie Hebdo attacks

Twitter coverage of the anniversary

The University of Oxford has translated and made free on the Internet a book on tolerance. With extracts from key French philosophers and writers. The original text was

La Société Française d'Etude du Dix-Huitième Siècle (ed.), Tolerance: le combat des Lumières (Paris: SFEDS, 2015). Contents include:

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, 1789
Voltaire, ‘Prayer to God’, from Treatise on Tolerance, 1763
Three aphorisms from Denis Diderot, Philosophical Thoughts, 1746; Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 1748; and Voltaire, Portable Philosophical Dictionary, 1764
Nicolas de Condorcet, 'On Admitting Women to the Rights of Citizenship', 1790
John Locke, Letter on Toleration, 1686

Harvard University is in the middle of creating a physical and virtual archive of materials relating to the 2015 attack. See an explanation of the archive on its own pages. This page has some preliminary data visualizations of georeferenced tweets using the Je suis charlie hashtag

New York Times Learning Network lesson plans to encourage students to consider concepts relating to journalism and blasphemy

Newsmuseum – has archived front pages of over 900 newspapers which enables some brief comparison of coverage and headlines across the world. January 8^th 2015 coverage and

January 12^th Coverage

The Internet Archive has preserved over 3,000 pages from a variety of institutions and social media preserving contemporary responses to the attacks

What makes cities competitive?

Find out by downloading a recent working paper from the World Bank

Kilroy, Austin Francis Louis; Mukim, Megha; Negri, Stefano. 2015. Competitive cities for jobs and growth : what, who, and how. Competitive cities for jobs and growth. Its objective is to create a knowledge base on what  makes cities competitive, to improve the understanding of  job creation at the city level, and to establish a foundation for

a community of practice on this topic

The A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index (GCI) ranks 125 cities according to 27criteria  across five main themes  business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement.

JLL’s Global300 cities has a ranking of cities worldwide attracting the most commercial real estate activity.

Cities of Opportunity Price Waterhouse Cooper ranks 30 leading cities in terms of social and economic factors such as cost, transport infrastructure, safety, ease of doing business

‘Many Postgraduates are overwhelmed by their workloads’

According to the results of the latest Postgraduate Taught Experience survey published by the Higher Education Academy 72,000 students from over a 100 institutions took part giving their opinion on workloads, motivation, and quality of teaching and learning.

Some potentially interesting points arising for service providers problems relating to workload – can libraries help students organise their time / research more effectively/ develop time management skills?

Employability – large numbers of students mention that a key motivation in enrolling was to improve career prospects. Can libraries highlight / teach skills that will help students in the workplace or find jobs?

Find more free reports on HE education, teaching and learning on our scoop,it page

Agents of Future Promise: children’s burden or benefit?

During 2015 researchers at the University of Leeds, Cardiff and Huddersfield. Examined ideology in the portrayal of children in British and French history from the 19^th century to the post war era. The project website now has videoed discussion from the end of project workshop help in September 2015. Topics covered include toys and gender, toys and the British empire, the Vichy regime and children, the use of children to envisage the future in wartime Britain.

Top 100  Global Innovators.

Thomson Reuters has just released its annual ranking of the most innovative global organisations .  It analyses patent  and citation data across four main criteria: volume, success, globalization and

influence using Thomson Reuters solutions including Derwent World Patents

Index (DWPI), Thomson Innovation and Derwent Patent Citations Index (PCI). The site includes breakdowns by region and industry as well as details on the methodology used.

Coming soon: 2016 US elections.
RealClearPolitics: Election 2016

This site from RealClearPolitics offers readers daily updates on polls, interviews, speeches, and other news related to the 2016 election. It currently includes polls relating to the Republican and Democratic nominations.

Stunning images of Earth

As Tim Peake and space continue to dominate the news. View some amazing images of earth from the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. The site also has some free downloads of lunaserv mapping