The best of both worlds: scale economies and discriminatory policies in London’s global financial centre

From the early 1960s onwards London has managed to vie with New York for the top spot as an international financial centre. Ever since then, London has reigned as a leading global financial hub, despite not having behind it anything like the political or economic backing enjoyed by New York. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by building on Kindleberger’s classic analysis of financial centres as international hubs that arise due to economic, geographic and infrastructural advantages, and more recent theories of specialized financial centres which suggest that financial centres deploy discriminatory business practices in order to compete with the scale economy-based centres. Our central claim is that London’s continuing financial supremacy can be traced to the way that the opposing ‘economic’ and ‘political’ sets of criteria necessary for a financial centre are here inextricably fused together in a mutually reinforcing dynamic. Three case studies are used to support this claim: the market for international loans and deposits; the forex (FX) and over the counter (OTC) derivatives markets; and the area of asset and collateral management.     

Forensic human identification in the United States and Canada: A review of the law, admissible techniques, and the legal implications of their application in forensic cases

Forensic human identification techniques are successful if they lead to positive personal identification. However, the strongest personal identification is of no use in the prosecution - or vindication - of an accused if the associated evidence and testimony is ruled inadmissible in a court of law. This review examines the U.S. and Canadian legal rulings regarding the admissibility of expert evidence and testimony, and subsequently explores four established methods of human identification (i.e., DNA profiling, forensic anthropology, forensic radiography, forensic odontology) and one complementary technique useful in determining identity, and the legal implications of their application in forensic cases.     

A dynamic analysis of the income–pollution relationship in a two-country setting

Economic Change and Restructuring - This research explores the presence of the income–pollution relationship in a dynamic two-country setting. We argue that the initial conditions of an...