'Trusting the numbers': mineral prospecting, raising finance and the governance of knowledge

Mineral prospecting and raising finance for ‘junior’ mining firms has historically been regarded as a speculative activity. For the regulators of securities markets upon which ‘junior’ mining companies seek to raise capital, a perennial problem has been handling not only the indeterminacy of scientific claims, but also the social basis of epistemic practices. This paper examines the production of a system of public warrant and associated knowledge practices intended to enable investors to differentiate between ‘destructive’ and ‘productive’ varieties of financial speculation. It traces the use of the notion of ‘disclosure’ in constructing and legitimizing the ‘juniors’ market in Canada. It argues that though the work of ‘economics’ may be necessary in the construction of markets, it is by no means sufficient. Attention must also be given to the ways in which legal models of ‘the free-market’ can be translated and constantly re-worked across the sites and spaces of regulatory practice, animating the geographies of markets.

Trends in Economic Stress and the Great Recession in Ireland: An Analysis of the CSO Survey in Income and Living Conditions (SILC)

Since 2008, Ireland has experienced the most severe economic and labour market crisis since the foundation of the State. These economic and labour market changes have had a stark impact on the standard of living across the Irish population. The rapid deterioration in the labour market, the rising level of household indebtedness and stringent austerity measures to plug the public finance deficit have had a widespread impact yet there is debate about where the heaviest burden has fallen and where the economic stress has been felt most. The paper analyses data from the Survey of Income and Living Conditions for the period 2004 to 2011. The aim of the paper is to develop and test a measure of economic stress, which will capture some of the aspects of the rapid change in economic fortunes on Irish households that are not picked up by income alone. This includes tapping into features of the recession such as debt problems, unsustainable housing costs, and other difficulties associated with managing on reduced household income in a period of uncertainty. In testing such a measure we examine trends over time from boom to bust in the Irish economy and consider how economic stress is distributed across different socio-economic groups. The paper explores the distribution and level of economic stress across income class groups, social classes and the life-course and tests the thesis of ‘middle class squeeze’.

Housing booms and media coverage

This article analyses news media coverage of the housing market. Building on theories of media influence where word of mouth is the final mechanism of opinion change but media initiate discourse, I examine the relationship between news media and the recent UK house price boom. Over 30 000 articles on the UK housing market from the period 1993 to 2008 are analysed, and it is found that media Granger-caused real house price changes, suggesting the media may have influenced opinions on the housing market. However, media sentiment on the housing market did not change with the secular increase in house prices in the 2000s, suggesting that the media did not contribute to the UK’s housing boom and may have helped constrain it.

IDEAhaus: A Modular Approach to Climate Resilient UK Housing

This paper describes the result of a project to develop climate adaptation design strategies funded by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board. The aim of the project was to look at the threats and opportunities presented by industrialized and house-building techniques in the light of predicted future increases in flooding and overheating due to anthropogenic climate change. The paper shows that the thermal performance of houses built to the current UK Building Regulations is not adequate to cope with changing weather patterns, and in light of this, develops a detailed design for a new house: one that is industrially produced and climatically resilient, but affordable. This detailed concept IDEAhaus of a modular house is not only flood-proof to a water depth of 750 mm, but also is designed to utilize passive cooling, which dramatically reduces the amount of overheating, both now and in the future.

Econometric Methods and their Applications in Finance, Macro and Related Fields

The volume aims at providing an outlet for some of the best papers presented at the 15th Annual Conference of the African Econometric Society, which is one of the “chapters” of the International Econometric Society. Many of these papers represent the state of the art in financial econometrics and applied econometric modeling, and some also provide useful simulations that shed light on the models' ability to generate meaningful scenarios for forecasting and policy analysis.