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The London School of Economics and Political Science, often referred to as the London School of Economics or simply the LSE, is a specialist university, located on Houghton Street in Central London, off the Aldwych and next to the Royal Courts of Justice.
History LSE was founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas, and George Bernard Shaw, with funding provided by private philanthropy, including a £20,000 bequest from Henry Hunt Hutchinson left to the Fabian Society. As an intellectual movement Fabians believe in the advancement of socialist causes by reformist rather than revolutionary means. The LSE was established based on the Fabian tradition with the aim of bettering society, and focused heavily on issues of poverty and inequality. This led the Fabians, and the LSE, to be one of the main influences on the UK Labour Party. * While LSE's initial reputation was that of a socialist-leaning institution, this began to change in the late 1960s, with LSE Director Walter Adams fighting hard to remove LSE from its Fabian roots, resulting in many public arguments, including with Lionel Robbins, who had returned to LSE as chairman of governors, having been a member of staff for many years. The school was founded with the initial intention of renewing the training of Britain's political and business elite, which seemed to be faltering due to inadequate teaching and research - the number of postgraduate students was dwarfed by those in other countries. A year before the founding, the British Association for the Advancement of Science pushed for the need to advance the systematic study of social sciences as well. In fact, Sidney and Beatrice Webb used the curriculum of Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (best known as Sciences Po), which covered the full-range of the social sciences, as part of their inspiration for molding the LSE's educational purpose. LSE was opened in October 1895 at No. 9 John Street, Adelphi. The school expanded rapidly and was moved along with the British Library of Political and Economic Science to No. 10 Adelphi Terrace after a year. The LSE was recognised as a Faculty of Economics within the University of London in 1900. The school begain enrolling students for bachelor degrees and doctorates in 1900, as it began to expand into other areas of social sciences, including international relations, history, philosophy and sociology. The school moved to its current site near the Aldwych - not far from Whitehall - in 1902. The Old Building, which remains a significant office and classroom building, was opened on Houghton Street in 1922. Over the years, the LSE has continued to expand around Houghton Street with a £30 million refit of the "Public Trust Building" to serve as LSE's newest academic building. The building is planned to open to students in October 2008. During these years and under the directorship of William Beveridge, future father of the welfare state and the National Health Service, LSE redefined the study of economics and the new conception of the study of economics as "a science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses" is looked to as the norm. LSE in this sense must be looked at as the father of modern economics studies. Further more under Beveridge, Friedrich Hayek was appointed as a professor and he brought about the ascendancy of the LSE through his famous debates with John Maynard Keynes. The famed Keynes-Hayek debates which occurred between Cambridge and the LSE still shapes the 2 major schools of economic thought today as nations still debate the merits of the welfare state versus an economy solely controlled by the market. LSE's influence upon modern economics is undeniable since it both formed the very basis for economic thought as well as shaped modern perception of free market economics. Hayek's works continue to influence the study of economics across the globe. At the other extreme, during these years Harold Joseph Laski, a professor of political science at the LSE was influential in British politics as an advocate of far left policies. Many renowned world leaders including John F. Kennedy studied under his guidance. Anthony Giddens, the former director of the LSE stands as the creator of the 'Third Way' followed by both Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. His policy created a balance between the traditional welfare state and the belief in total free market economics; the Third Way was credited to have helped the prosperous economy of the United States during the 1990s under the guidance of President Clinton. This policy is being put into effect by governments all across the world as free market economies continue to deal with wealth inequalities and bettering the welfare of the general population. The current director of the school, Sir Howard Davies, was formerly head of the Financial Services Authority and 40% of undergraduates at the LSE apply for careers in investment banking. The top 10 employers of LSE graduates are principally Accounting, Investment Banking, and Law firms *. An article by The Guardian describes the LSE's overwhelming power when it states that "Once again the political clout of the school, which seems to be closely wired into parliament, Whitehall and the Bank of England, is being felt by ministers." *. "The strength of the LSE is that it is close to the political process: the present director Sir Howard Davies moved there from running the Financial Services Authority and the current governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, was a former LSE professor. The chairman of the House of Commons education committee, Barry Sheerman, sits on its board of governors, along with Labour peer Lord (Frank) Judd. Also on the board are Tory MPs Virginia Bottomley and Richard Shepherd, not to mention Lord Saatchi and Lady Howe." Under a recent fund raising scheme, called the "Campaign for the LSE", which is seeking to raise £100 million, the LSE has purchased another building, the New Academic Building. This will be redeveloped into a ultra-modern educational building, at a total cost of over £30 million, and will increase the campus space by 120,000 square feet, in a highly crowded area of London. To date, just over £80 million have been raised under the scheme including funds for various new scholarships, including a £2 million fund for Cypriot students, set up by LSE alumnus and BSc Economics Graduate, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of the easyJet and easyGroup companies. Programmes and admission
Student body There are nearly 7,800 full-time students and around 800 part-time students at the university. Of these, 38% come from the United Kingdom, 18% from other European Union countries, and 44% from more than 130 other countries, giving it the highest proportion of international students in the world. At one point, the LSE prided itself on having more countries represented amongst its students than in the UN. 52% of the student body are postgraduates, an unusually high proportion for most universities. Postgraduates are divided between Taught-Masters (MSc) and Research students (MPhil, PhD). Around 49% of all students are women. The students' union lists over 160 societies catering to a very diverse range of interests. The SU is widely regarded as the UK's most politically active - a reputation it has held since the famous LSE student riots in 1968/69. Future politicians cut their teeth in the ruthless world of LSE student politics - centred around the weekly Union General Meeting (to which any student may turn up and vote)- the last meeting of its kind in the country - a politically charged, often raucous, tour de force. LSE politiques pride themselves on the Union's democratic tradition and high rate of student participation. For its size, the LSE SU records the highest level of voter turnout in students' union elections in the country. LSE students are also unusually heavy users of their campus library with borrowing rates four times the national average. * Campus life
Accommodation
The British Library of Political and Economic Science
General rankings The LSE has often been characterised as a 'Grand Laboratory of the Social Sciences' to give a flavour both of its specialist nature and its contribution and periodic academic dominance of the social sciences. The school is generally regarded as one of the leading social science institutions in the world. LSE is the largest recipient of funding for social science research in the UK. League tables published by British newspapers consistently rank the LSE inside the top four academic institutions in the United Kingdom. In the most recent national research assessment (RAE 2001), the LSE came second after Cambridge for the quality of its research - and top if only the social sciences are taken into account. Since the LSE only offers programmes in the Social Sciences, it often cites this last ranking in its promotional material. In the 2005 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), LSE was ranked "2nd in the world" after Harvard for the social sciences, "4th in the world" according to recruiters' eyes, "9th in the world" for arts and humanities, and "11th in the world" (tied with Duke University) overall. * The 2004 THES World University Rankings also ranked LSE 2nd in the world for the social sciences and 11th in the world overall, as well as 10th in the world for arts and humanities (the employers' rankings of world universities did not feature in the 2004 rankings). * The Guardian's 2006 University Guide ranked LSE the 3rd best university in the UK. * The Sunday Times University Guide 2006 also ranked LSE the 3rd best university in the UK. * LSE was ranked fourth overall in the 2007 Times Good University Guide. The subject league tables were as follows: 1st in the UK for both Economics and Accounting and Finance; 2nd for Business Studies, Politics, Geography, Social Policy and Sociology; 3rd for both Philosophy and Anthropology; 4th for Law; 5th for History; and 6th for Maths. LSE's MSc Management program ranked 4th in 2005 of the FT European Masters Ranking.* LSE vs. Cambridge The 1930s economic debate between LSE and Cambridge is well-known in academic circles. Rivalry between academic opinion in LSE and Cambridge's case goes back to the School's roots when LSE's Edwin Cannan (1861-1935), Professor of Economics, and Cambridge's Professor of Political Economy, Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), the leading economist of the day, argued about the bedrock matter of economics and whether the subject should be considered as an organic whole. (Marshall disapproved of LSE's separate listing of pure theory and its insistence on economic history.) The dispute also concerned the question of the economist's role, and whether this should be as a detached expert or a practical adviser. For LSE and the historical economists, economic theory's application was of greater significance than economic theory itself. The consequence of LSE's approach to economics was greater innovation through receptivity to new ideas, and a style of economics with a strong applied and practical orientation. LSE and Cambridge economists worked jointly in the 1920s - for example, the London and Cambridge Economic Service - but the 1930s returned to dispute as LSE and Cambridge argued over the solution to the economic depression. LSE's Robbins and von Hayek, and Cambridge's Keynes were chief figures in the intellectual disagreement between the institutions. The controversy widened from deflation versus demand management as a solution to the economic problems of the day, to broader conceptions of economics and macroeconomics. Robbins and von Hayek's views were based on the Austrian School of Economics with its emphasis on free trade and anti-interventionism, an approach Robbins (but not Hayek) later acknowledged as inappropriate to the timing and circumstances of the 1930s economic depression. Within the context of increased protectionism and "beggar thy neighbour" devaluation policies being implimented by all major economies, recovery was only possible with the early implimentation of these policies. The UK formed the Sterling Bloc and devalued in 1931, and this was largely responsible for the rapid recovery, contrary to the beliefs of free-trade economists such as von Hayek. The situation is widely accepted to be a prisoner's dilemma (see Game Theory) in which a global policy of free trade and cooperation would have resulted in an optimum recovery path; the point argued by Robbins and von Hayek. Cambridge was acknowledged to be right within the context of the times, but from a longer term perspective the LSE philosophy has achieved a measure of dominance in modern economic thought, with the advent of game theory and developments in trade theory. Many of the liberal ideas of the Austrian School of Economics, fostered at the LSE, in tandem with the growing Chicago School of Economics, have influenced much of modern liberal economics. The measure of the validity of von Hayek's argument is the growth of international free trade organisations and agreements such as those achieved in the GATT rounds (later to become the World Trade Organisation), which have as their goal the promotion of these policies in order to avoid the repetition of the globally sub-optimal reaction that took place in the 1930s, as advocated by Cambridge at the time. * Impact on economics Some of the most specific and important contibutions to our understanding of economics made by the LSE can be found in the individuals and their work listed below, who lectured, researched or studied at the LSE. While most of these economists were eventual recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics for particular theories or works, listed below are the works which had the most impact on modern economic modelling and thought: John Hicks, whose most famous contribution was the development of the Hicks-Hansen IS-LM model, now a standard macroeconomic Keynesian starting point for all University economists. Friedrich von Hayek, one of the most eminent advocates of economic Liberalism, his literature came to define much of economic policy in the UK and US following the adoption of Hayek's economic philosophy by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Implementation of his philosophy led to key economic developments, such as the reduction in unionisation, observed by Bean and Crafts as the primary cause of stagnation during the previous 25 years which for all other European nations had been a period of prosperity. He also famously predicted the collapse of communist Eastern Europe and its subsequent fragmentation. James Meade won the prize for his groundbreaking work on trade theory. William Arthur Lewis, developed the important Dual Model of the economy that would eventually prove the foundation of much of economic industrialisation theory, and formed the basis for Heywood's "revisionist" view on French industrialisation in comparison with Britain. Lewis also pioneered work into the importance of "terms of trade" in trade theory. Merton Miller received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (jointly) in 1990 for pioneering work in the theory of financial economics. Ronald Coase received the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 1991 for his discovery and clarification of the significance of transaction costs and property rights for the institutional structure and functioning of the economy. Amartya Sen made many contributions to development economics, including pioneering studies of gender inequality, and he always takes care to write "her" rather than "his" when referring to an abstract person Robert Mundell has mainly researched in the field of optimum currency area, and his work remains one of the pillars of analysis in the assessment of the effectiveness of a single currency. While political tests, such as those in place in the UK for the decision to join the Euro, bare little to no resemblance to the key OCA criteria contributed to by Mundell, economic theorists use the OCA criteria in literature as the most effective method of analysis for the success of a single currency. The Mundell-Fleming model was also an effective extension of the IS-LM analysis to factor in the impact of international equilibrium, and is the basis of analysis over the relative merits of fixed or floating exchange rates. George Akerlof is perhaps best known for his article, "The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism", published in Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1970, in which he identified the severe problems that may afflict markets characterized by asymmetrical information. Also of note is the LSE economist A.W. Phillips, who, while never receiving a Nobel Prize for his work, made his most well-known contribution in the Phillips curve, which he first described in 1958. The Phillips Curve has proved instrumental in the further understanding of government economic policy regarding employment and inflation. Even more importantly, it is one of the most effective models of stagflation which was a particular problem for many developed economies. Beyond the great academic contributions, the general work of the university and its graduates continues to have a large impact on the field of economics. The IDEAS Economic Research Assessment January 2006 placed the London School of Economics and Political Science as the 3rd best University Economics research department in the world, and the best outside the US. Yale University's 1999 analysis on the impact of Econometrics research, analysing the work of the best 100 Economics Ph. D graduates, from institutions across the globe, placed the LSE as 1st in the world, and as the only institution with over 2000 pages of published research to its graduates' names. * The UK Research Assessment Exercise has rated the LSE Economics department as 5 Notable alumni and faculty See List of London School of Economics people LSE alumni and former staff include fourteen Nobel Prize winners in Economics, Peace and Literature, thirty-four heads of state or heads of government, including four current heads of state or government (Italy, Denmark, Kenya, Kiribati), twenty-eight current British Members of Parliament, and forty-two current peers of the House of Lords. Notable former students include an American President (John F. Kennedy), a German Chancellor, the Danish Queen, two Canadian Prime Ministers (Kim Campbell and Pierre Elliot Trudeau), the Norwegian Crown-Prince, several billionaires (including George Soros), and celebrities such as The Rolling Stones' frontman Mick Jagger. The British Prime Minister Clement Attlee also taught at the LSE. The Philosophy Department was founded by Sir Karl Popper and has served as a place of study for well-known philosophers of science such as Paul Feyerabend and Imre Lakatos. With the appointment of both Tim Besley and Andrew Sentance to the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England, which is responsible for setting interest rates and managing inflation in the UK, a total of six former LSE graduates, researchers and professors now sit on the panel that governs UK monetary policy. The other LSE affiliated members comprise of Governor Mervyn King, Chief Economist Charles Bean, Deputy Governor Rachel Lomax and external member David Blanchflower * A new lobby Recent press reports have identified the LSE as part of a new group of universities which has started to act as a self-conscious elite lobby and pressure group: known commonly as the 'G5'. According to the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), the five are the LSE, Imperial College, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and University College London, and it describes them as the "super-elite" (as all five are already members of the elite Russell Group). The 'G5' have begun to meet regularly and formally to plan their own path through the upheavals that are currently transforming British higher education, and to lobby for their own particular interests in maintaining the standards at the sharp end of tertiary education in the UK. It has been reported in the THES that "The group, which calls itself the G5, warns that without more money to support its high-quality teaching, its members will turn away British undergraduates and focus instead on overseas and postgraduate students, whose fees cover most of the full cost of their courses. The new group has been meeting in secret for a few months. Few vice-chancellors know of its existence as a fully fledged grouping. The G5's goal is to secure extra state cash above the £3,000 student top-up fees likely from 2006 to cover the full costs of home and European Union undergraduates on their courses. The G5 group will make a case for special treatment for its members. Sir Richard Sykes, rector of Imperial, said: "Imperial does not have any cheap courses. We will press the government to recognise this or lift the £3,000 cap on fees. If they say our courses are too high quality and too expensive, we will not reduce our quality. We will have to look at expanding the number of postgraduates and overseas undergraduates we take." * These five colleges have been noted to share the following attributes which appear to have been the common binding factors: strong research outputs, high teaching ratings, many famous names in public life, a major impact on global affairs and policy, and big international standing in academia. They also have some of the most influential and active student unions, with the overall University of London Student Union standing out for notable activism against successive governments, ranging from the 1968 storming of Downing Street, to recent protests over the War on Iraq and student "top-up" fees. The LSE is also member of a new group known as the Golden Triangle, made up of Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, LSE, Imperial and KCL. The last four are each notable colleges of the University of London, and are often regarded as universities* in their own right. All have made progress towards gaining their own powers to award degrees; an action in line with the long term trend towards expressing the true individual natures of these colleges by putting in place official individual and independent powers. Notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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