Linda Yueh
@lindayueh.bsky.social
Economist at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford & London Business School
Author of The #GreatCrashes & #GreatEconomists
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/024198808X/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lindayueh
IG: instagram.com/lindayueh
W: www.lindayueh.com ..
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Economist at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford & London Business School
Author of The #GreatCrashes & #GreatEconomists
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/024198808X/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lindayueh
IG: instagram.com/lindayueh
W: www.lindayueh.com
Linda Yi-Chuang Yueh is a Taiwanese-born British-American economist, lawyer, broadcaster, and author. Yueh is an adjunct professor of economics at London Business School, and a fellow in economics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University. She was also a visiting professor at Peking University and associated with both the Centre for Economic Performance and IDEAS research centres at the London School of Economics (LSE). .. more
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Linda Yueh
@lindayueh.bsky.social
· May 11
The Great Economists and The Great Crashes are both economic history books that draw lessons from history to help with current challenges and opportunities
www.lindayueh.com/books
www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Econom...
www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Crashe...
www.lindayueh.com/books
www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Econom...
www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Crashe...
Reforming international taxation: Balancing profit shifting and investment responses
The global minimum tax represents the most ambitious international effort in decades to curb profit shifting to tax havens. But how much profit shifting actually occurs, and how is it affected by taxation? This column argues that ignoring the large number of multinationals that shift all their profits out of high-tax countries understates the true scale of profit shifting by roughly half, and revenue projections based solely on responses to tax rate changes by partial shifters are too conservative. Profit shifting doesn't just affect tax revenues – it fundamentally alters investment incentives, creating fundamental trade-offs that cannot be ignored.
cepr.org
Meta-analyses of firm-level studies suggest that reported taxable profits fall by a little over 1% when the tax rate rises by one percentage point – a modest semi-elasticity.
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Between 2017–2018 and 2022–2023, annual corporate green debt issuance jumped nearly ninefold, even as conventional borrowing slowed. By 2023, green instruments accounted for about 12% of all corporate debt
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Aligning drug prices and innovation: How global spillovers shape the future of medicines
As the US and EU push forward with drug-pricing reforms, the topic has moved to the centre of political debate. This column shows how national decisions reverberate internationally. Because pharmaceutical innovation is a global public good, every pricing change or pharmaceutical legislation reform shifts the incentives behind tomorrow’s medical breakthroughs. To promote sustained innovation alongside affordable access, drug-pricing policy must integrate global spillovers into its design, such as through coordinated value-based pricing, global innovation funds, transferable exclusivity extensions, and agreements on launch sequencing.
cepr.org
Pharmaceutical innovation has driven large health gains worldwide. In the US, new medicines accounted for 35% of the 3.3 years of life-expectancy gains from 1990 to 2015. In Spain, they explained 96% of the rise in age at cancer death between 1999 and 2016.
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Hidden exposures in domestic supply chains: The spread of foreign trade risks
Understanding how foreign shocks affect economies has become a policy priority. Using domestic firm-to-firm transaction data matched with customs records, this column shows that Italy’s exposure to external risks, such as US tariffs and a sudden stop of Chinese supplies, is far larger than standard trade statistics suggest. Indirect exposure transmitted through domestic supply chains exceeds direct export and import exposure in most Italian regions. A small number of large traders and wholesalers act as key transmission hubs. Widely used input–output tables substantially understate these risks. Micro-level supply-chain data are essential to detect local vulnerabilities and design mitigation policies.
cepr.org
International trade data — which capture only direct links — substantially underestimate the potential disruptions coming from foreign shocks.
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Trailing with a margin: Official macro forecasts in EU fiscal surveillance
Budgetary planning in the euro area involves a codified interaction between national governments and the European Commission where economic and fiscal forecasts play a crucial role. This column marks the first extension of the European Fiscal Board's Forecast Tracker. Next to the European Commission’s biannual forecast of key macro variables, the extension adds those underpinning the projections of the draft budgetary plans of euro area member states, and allows for a more detailed analysis of fiscal policymaking in the EU.
cepr.org
On average, both national authorities and the European Commission show a tendency towards optimism in forecasting GDP growth, although differences are generally not statistically significant and the European Commission’s projections tend to be comparatively more accurate.
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Demographic change: Headwinds for economic growth
With fertility rates falling and populations ageing worldwide, the impact of demographic change on economic prosperity has become a central policy concern. This column uses a neoclassical growth model to quantify the economic cost of ageing in the economies where the EBRD invests and beyond. It contrasts the headwinds facing emerging Europe with the potential demographic dividend in Central Asia and Africa, highlighting that rapid fertility declines are quickly narrowing this window of opportunity.
cepr.org
Historically, advanced economies saw their fertility rates drop below the long-run replacement rate of roughly 2.1 births per woman only after reaching high levels of income. However, post-communist economies have experienced this transition much earlier
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Why EU innovation policy fails to promote disruptive innovation
Europe’s long-term prosperity depends on its ability to generate and absorb disruptive innovation. This column argues, however, that the European Commission’s proposed 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework continues to prioritise large, highly prescriptive, and administratively complex collaborative schemes, and that there is little evidence that such grants foster disruptive innovation. The grants boost recipients’ short-term revenues but shows no long-term impact. Nearly half of the current grant programme is allocated to existing ‘mid-tech’ companies. EU innovation policy needs to shift from supporting established firms to funding bold, bottom-up ideas, especially from small, independent companies.
cepr.org
European Commission’s proposed 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework continues to prioritise large, highly prescriptive, and administratively complex collaborative schemes, and that there is little evidence that such grants foster disruptive innovation.
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A combination of reductions in gender employment gaps and increases in participation of older people could offset most of the expected decline in employment-to-population ratios between 2023 and 2050
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The political economy of climate policy: Evidence from the American Clean Energy and Security Act
Comprehensive national climate legislation remains elusive in the US. Linking district-level employment to roll-call behaviour in the 2009 House vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, this column shows that a higher share of carbon-intensive (‘brown’) establishments sharply lowers the probability of a ‘Yea’ vote. At the same time, district-level climate opinion boosts support for the Act and moderates the influence of brown industries, suggesting that public sentiment can constrain special interests when climate is a salient issue. Although conservative Democrats are less supportive of the bill, they are more responsive to local industry interests than liberals.
cepr.org
Robert Dahl famously stressed that formal political equality does not necessarily imply equal influence over policy. Climate change is a stark example. According to Gallup polls most Americans believe global warming is happening and support stronger action.
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The economics of the second Trump administration
As soon as he took office for the second time, Donald Trump made it clear that there would be dramatic changes in US government policy. This column describes how President Trump’s actions may have undermined his stated goal to “Make America Great Again” with low inflation and high rates of growth and employment. Instead, the policies seem more likely to deliver additional frustration and disappointment for most Americans.
cepr.org
The stock market boom may garner much press and presidential attention – but only roughly 60% of Americans own shares – and most lower-income Americans do not own much or any stock. The vast majority of market gains have accrued to the richest Americans.
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US-Japanese knowledge transfer programme in the aftermath of WWII
Following WWII, Japan experienced three decades of rapid productivity growth and convergence with the US. This column studies the Japanese Productivity Program, a joint US-Japanese initiative to transfer American management and industrial knowledge to Japan. Overseas study trips were a key part of the programme, allowing Japanese managers, engineers, and union representatives to observe modern American factories, offices, and management systems firsthand. It finds that the programme helped firms grow in scale and management sophistication, laying the foundation for future productivity improvements, which made Japan a leader in industrial efficiency by the 1980s.
cepr.org
In the late 1940s – in the aftermath of WWII – manufacturing productivity in Japan, as well as in Western Europe, was roughly one-third to one-half of US levels. By the 1980s, Japan had closed much of the gap through rapid productivity growth.
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Offsetting population ageing through migration alone would require unprecedented migration inflows in EBRD economies
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Brexit’s slow‑burn hit to the UK economy
The UK is once again debating why its economy has grown slowly since the mid‑2010s. This column examines the impact of the decision to leave the European Union in 2016. Using almost a decade of data since the referendum, the authors combine simulations based on macro data with estimates derived from micro data. These estimates suggest that by 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time. Investment, employment, and productivity were all affected, reflecting a combination of elevated uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time, and increased misallocation of resources.
cepr.org
Brexit has had a large and persistent effect on the UK economy. By 2025, research estimates that UK GDP per capita was 6–8% lower than it would have been without Brexit. Investment was 12–18% lower, employment 3–4% lower, and productivity 3–4% lower.
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After ‘the change’: How menopause affects women’s labour and health outcomes
The labour costs associated with the menopause transition have been largely understudied. Exploiting the individual timing of menopause, this column estimates the causal effects of the menopause transition on labour and health outcomes in the US. Menopause leads to large declines in women’s probability of employment and increases the probability of a woman receiving social security benefits. Hormone replacement therapy appears to mitigate some of the costs of menopause, but access to therapy significantly differs by race and education, underscoring the need to expand menopause-related medical care to reduce labour market gaps.
cepr.org
Decades after experiencing the child penalty, the ‘menopause penalty’ comes at a time when women’s labour market outcomes could be peaking: for 1995-2005, the median income for 55-year-old men exceeded that of 45-year-olds, while the reverse is true for women.
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Wealth shocks tilt the balance toward self-insurance for long-term care
When older adults need paid long-term care, most rely on their own assets unless they hold private long-term care insurance or qualify for Medicaid. This column shows that positive wealth shocks – from rising home prices or stock market gains – make individuals significantly less likely to buy long-term care insurance and more likely to self-insure. The effect is stronger for financial assets than for housing gains. The authors find no significant evidence that a positive wealth shock affects Medicaid receipt, likely because individuals that hold housing or financial wealth are unlikely to qualify for Medicaid.
cepr.org
Research shows that positive wealth shocks – from rising home prices or stock market gains – make individuals significantly less likely to buy long-term care insurance and more likely to self-insure. The effect is stronger for financial assets than for housing gains.
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