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League table throws new light on cost of banking misconduct
International aid used to influence elections Governments of democratic developing countries are using international aid to support their election drives, new research from Dr Ryan Jablonski, an assistant professor in LSE’s Department of Government, has found. Dr Jablonski tracked the spending of aid across Kenya from 1992, when multiparty elections began, to 2010. His research, published in World Politics, reveals that electorally strategic voters receive higher levels of foreign aid over those who may be more in need but support the opposition. Individuals in constituencies that most strongly support the incumbent party benefit from more than three times the amount of aid as those in constituencies supporting opposition parties, or about US$1.50 more in World Bank and African Development Bank aid each year on average. He also found a clear ethnicity bias in aid allocation, with individuals in constituencies that share the ethnicity with the country’s leaders receiving about twice the aid, or about US$0.80 more per year than those who do not. In total this means that these constituencies receive over US$4,000,000 more in aid each year on average. lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2014/04/InternationalAidPaper.aspx
“One size fits all” approach to global marketing a recipe for failure Major global brands are at risk of failing to win new customers from Eastern countries because they don’t take into account key cultural differences when marketing their products, research from LSE and ESCP Europe Business School has found. The report argues that some of the world’s most recognised brands fall into the trap of marketing their products in a global way, while ignoring cross-cultural differences in consumer psychology. Dr Ben Voyer, a visiting fellow in Psychology@LSE, says the psychology of consumers in the East is often vastly different to the West, leading to recurring market failures when new products are launched. “Simple things such as how people perceive the colour white can make a huge difference. For example, people in Western cultures associate a white dress with purity, whereas in Eastern cultures white signifies death, so using the colour in advertising requires some sensitivity.” lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2014/02/GlobalMarketing.aspx
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Ten of the world’s leading banks have racked up fines and similar “conduct costs” of nearly £150 billion over a period of just five years, the LSE Conduct Cost Project has revealed. The analysis gives, for the first time, a picture of how the banks compare with each other over the period 2008-12. The researchers, led by LSE Professor Roger McCormick, assessed the costs accrued by ten of the world’s leading banks across the UK, Europe and America as a result of misconduct. When put together, these ten banks alone incurred nearly £150 billion for misconduct of various kinds, including mis-selling PPI and other products, manipulating LIBOR and failing to observe money-laundering rules. Professor Roger McCormick said: “This league table allows the public for the first time to view an independent, objective set of figures which relate in one way or another to bank behaviour over the five years ending December 2012. The banks ranked are all household names. The fundamental question is: can we expect these costs to start going down soon if these banks now have sound ethical cultures? If not, why not?” lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2013/11/ConductCostsProject.aspx
Banding and ballots on the rise as schools seek fairer intakes A small but growing number of schools, mainly sponsored academies, are using ability banding or random allocation (ballots) as part of their admissions criteria, according to new research by LSE’s Professor Anne West, Dr Philip Noden and Audrey Hind. The researchers examined the admissions policies of England’s 3,000 state secondary schools and academies in the 2012-13 school year. They found that the main admissions criteria continue to reflect how near pupils live to the school (distance) or whether they already have brothers and sisters attending (sibling). However, the number of schools using banding – where pupils are tested and placed in different ability bands intended to provide a comprehensive intake – increased from 95 in 2008 to 121 in 2012-13. A further 42 schools were using random allocation in 2012-13. lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2014/02/SuttonTrust.aspx