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We examine the relationship between industry-specific regulations and startup birth rates (entry) and startup ‘deaths’ (closings) in the United States and Canada during 2012–19. Our sample contains data on thousands of active and closed technology startups in the United States and Canada that were founded between January 2012 and June 2019. We use the Mercatus Center's RegData database to capture the intensity of national-level regulations. Our findings suggest that more regulated industries may exhibit lower rates of entry and that more regulated industries are associated with a greater likelihood of a startup closing. These findings seem more robust for the US than for Canada. We discuss startup funding as a potential mechanism by which regulation may impact startup closings, using our fieldwork interviews with over 100 technology startup executives and venture capital investors.

Peter Dwyer, Lisa Scullion, Katy Jones, Jenny McNeill & Alastair B. R. Stewart, The Impacts of Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behavioural Change. Policy Press. 2022. pp. 218. £80 (hbk). ISBN: 978-1447320111. £26.99 (pbk). ISBN: 978-1447343738. £26.99 (ebk). ISBN: 978-1447343745

Behavioural conditions have always been attached to the receipt of social security benefits for the UK's unemployed. These conditions have increased in number and scope in recent decades, alongside heavier sanctions for non-compliance, as part of a trend across OECD countries (Watts & Fitzpatrick, 2018). The UK Welfare Reform Act 2012 was a landmark in this process. Its “work search requirement” obliges claimants of unemployment benefit – now Universal Credit (UC), previously Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) – to take “all reasonable action” and “any particular action specified by the Secretary of State, for the purpose of obtaining work” (s. 17). In practice this means that a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ‘Work Coach’ can now compel an unemployed UC claimant, under threat of a financial penalty, to apply for a job of their choosing. Those who leave a job voluntarily and then apply for UC can now also face a “sanction” (s. 49).

Heralding the 2012 Act, its architect, the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith (2010), argued in a speech that “reinforced conditionality” to ensure claimants “take reasonable offers of work” was necessitated by the benefit system's regrettable drift towards one that “Beveridge warned against”, in which “idleness” had become “institutionalised” (see Beveridge, 1942, p. 58). In the same speech, he claimed that in the 2000s British companies had been “unable to get British people to fill” some job vacancies, so “workers from overseas stepped in”. Around this time, Duncan Smith referred to a television documentary in which some unemployed benefit claimants would not get “on a bus” to a nearby city to widen their job search (BBC, 2010). The issues Duncan Smith referred to may be persisting; there were 5.6 million UK people of working age on out-of-work benefits in December 2023, just below the record high of 5.9 million in 1993, despite 0.9 million unfilled job vacancies (see Andrews, 2024).

This review article focuses on the £2 million Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded ‘Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change’ research programme (often abbreviated to ‘WelCond’). Led by Peter Dwyer, a Professor of Social Policy at the University of York, and involving academics from six universities, it ran from 2013 to 2018, just as the 2012 Act's new policies were being slowly rolled out across the country. The project's main purpose was to test

From December 2020, China made a significant shift towards prioritising security over development. This study delves into the economic repercussions of China's security policy, specifically the Holistic View of National Security. The evolution of this security policy is analysed utilising Baidu Index data. The components of the policy, encompassing political, economic, financial and technology security, are scrutinised, with the economic burdens it imposes being highlighted. China's recent legislative measures concerning national security are assessed, with their potential to hamper economic growth. The adverse effects of the security policy on the economy are uncovered by examining foreign direct investment data, industry sector trends, and the responses of the largest listed firms.

Current technological advances have revived the old socialist calculation debate. While the arguments on the socialist side appear to be backed by exciting technological developments, the pro-market camp still mainly relies on the classical thinking of the Austrian school. A reasonable way to reinvigorate the free-market thesis is to look at the ends of economic calculations, intentionally overlooked during the classical period of the debate. A valuable supplement to the contemporary pro-market position could be found in the ordoliberal vision that emphasised the interdependence of various spheres and the power problem.