• a conference on Speculative Attacks on Foreign Currency Reserves at which Willem Buiter (Cambridge University and Bank of England) presented his work on interpreting the ERM crisis;

 

• a conference on Growth Trade and Labour Markets, organized by Chris Pissarides and Danny Quah (both LSE), at which Alan Manning (LSE) and Marco Manacorda (LSE and UCL) presented their analysis of skill mismatch in European labour markets;

 

• a conference on European Migration at which Anthony Venables (LSE) and Ian Wooton (University of Glasgow) presented their work;

 

• a conference on ‘Growth: Transfer of Technology, Capital and Skills’, where Alasdair Smith (University of Sussex) outlined his analysis of quality differentiation in production and the labour market effects of international trade in Europe;

 

• ‘Rethinking the Welfare Society’, a conference organized by Dennis Snower (Birkbeck College) at which Patrick Minford (University of Cardiff Business School) presented his paper on welfare loans;

 

• ‘Model Specification, Identification and Estimation in Empirical Macroeconomics’, a conference at which Anthony Grant (Cambridge University) and Andrew Scott (London Business School) presented their work on money and output as an indicator.

 

• David Begg (Birkbeck College) on the transition strategy to EMU;

 

• Dennis Snower (Birkbeck College) on policy options to tackle European unemployment;

 

• A report on the policy implications of EMU for the UK (whether or not it decides to join). The report was prepared by an independent panel which included David Miles (Imperial College), David Begg (Birkbeck College), Richard Portes (London Business School) and Paul Seabright (Cambridge University).

 

• Simon Burgess (Bristol University) on job insecurity in the UK

 

• Mike Orszag and Dennis Snower (both Birkbeck College) on the reform of the Welfare State in Europe

The Resource Centre organizes lunchtime meetings in continental Europe and the United States which provide opportunities for UK researchers to present their work, and has launched a series of lunchtime meetings in the United Kingdom outside London.

There were thirteen London lunchtime or evening meetings during the period October 1997-November 1998, which covered subjects such as various aspects of EMU (Braga de Macedo and Honohan; Begg; Portes; Buiter); currency crises and Asia (Portes, Vines and Barrell; Rose); Dutch drugs policy (Van der Ploeg); social policy in the EU (Bean); the determinants of export performance (Carlin and van Reenen); job security and tenure (Burgess); telecoms in Europe (Doyle) and European competition policy (Seabright).

One public discussion meeting also took place outside London, when we took advantage of the EU Finance Ministers meeting taking place in York in March 1998 in order to hold a meeting on ‘The Risk of a Currency Crisis in EMU’. At the meeting, Richard Portes argued that the fears of a crisis in EMU lack any sound theoretical and empirical foundation. The meeting was well attended by both press and researchers and was jointly organized by CEPR and the University of York.

A further lunchtime meeting in Edinburgh will take place on January 29 1999, at the Royal Society, Edinburgh, when David Begg will discuss ‘Scotland and EMU’. In particular, the discussion will focus on why EMU is taking place; what it is likely to mean for all countries of Europe, whether in or out of EMU; why it is not an ambush leading to tax harmonization; and whether it makes devolution of real political power easier or harder.

CEPR also organized 12 lunchtime meetings in other European cities and in the United States, at some of which UK-based researchers presented their work. For example, Danny Quah (LSE) presented work on technology and growth to a Stockholm audience in September 1998; Diego Puga (LSE) presented work on European regional policy to a Brussels audience in December 1997; Steve Nickell (LSE) presented work on labour market institutions, again to a Stockholm audience in April 1998; Paul Seabright (Cambridge) presented work on European competition policy at a Warsaw lunchtime meeting in February 1998 and to a Brussels lunchtime meeting in June 1998; Len Waverman (London Business School) presented the first Monitoring European Deregulation to a Paris audience in November 1998; and Richard Portes presented recent work on EMU to a New York meeting (sponsored by Merrill Lynch).