Letterforms for handwriting and reading: print script and sanserifs in early twentieth-century England

This essay is about letterforms and typography in reading books for young children and how they were influenced by the teaching of handwriting in the early decades of the twentieth century. I examine the contributions made by infant teachers to typography and book design and draw particular attention to the print script movement and the gradual introduction of sanserif typefaces in reading books. I suggest that the use of sanserifs in reading books for young children is one of their first appearances for continuous text. Although the influence of print script on the teaching of handwriting may have had some undesirable effects, I suggest that it indirectly contributed to some innovations in book design.

Monetary integration and real estate markets: an investigation of the impact of the introduction of a single currency on real estate performance

This paper assesses the impact of the monetary integration on different types of stock returns in Europe. In order to isolate European factors, the impact of global equity integration and small cap factors are investigated. European countries are sub-divided according to the process of monetary convergence. Analysis shows that national equity indices are strongly influenced by global market movements, with a European stock factor providing additional explanatory power. The global and European factors explain small cap and real estate stocks much less well –suggesting an increased importance of ‘local’ drivers. For real estate, there are notable differences between core and non-core countries. Core European countries exhibit convergence – a convergence to a European rather than a global factor. The non-core countries do not seem to exhibit common trends or movements. For the non-core countries, monetary integration has been associated with increased dispersion of returns, lower correlation and lower explanatory power of a European factor. It is concluded that this may be explained by divergence in underlying macro-economic drivers between core and non-core countries in the post-Euro period.