Spending without productivity improvements won’t lead to better public services

The decision by the government to stuff money into the bank accounts of the train drivers and junior doctors has been widely discussed. But the constant insistence by the doctors, and many others in the public sector, that they have in some ways suffered since the year 2010 has received much less attention. The use […]

Interest rates aren’t as influential as you think

Criticising the Bank of England has become fashionable in City circles. From persisting too long with quantitative easing, to completely missing the upsurge in inflation to the condescending group think displayed on the validity of its discredited New Keynesian models, the Bank under Andrew Bailey has done plenty to make itself fair game. But when […]

There’s a solution to dire public services: make our public sector more productive

Pre-election blows are being traded with increasing ferocity by both the main parties. Do the costs of Labour’s energy policies bear scrutiny? And can the Conservatives really afford to cut taxes? All of these questions relate back to the state of the public finances. Taxes are already at a post-war high relative to the size […]

Marriage: Romantics bemoan its demise but so should economists

The dramatic erosion of marriage in the UK is one of the key social changes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.   Last week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published data showing that for the first time the proportion of the population aged over 16 who were married had fallen to below 50 per cent. […]

May Cameron’s Wellbeing Unit rest in peace, money can buy happiness after all

Last month, the government announced that the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, set up with great fanfare by David Cameron in 2014 with the mission to boost national happiness, is to be shut down. Ever since the concept was first launched after the Second World War, the main focus of the policy of governments of […]

Without a recession, Bailey won’t wrest back control over inflation

Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, admitted last week that interest rates will remain higher for some time to come.  The boss of the Old Lady said he stood by the target inflation rate of 2 per cent, but to get there, higher interest rates were necessary in the arsenal for the “last […]

Sunak should be modelling his fiscal rules on Clem Attlee’s, not Margaret Thatcher’s

Normally, reading economic statistics is, for almost everybody, a sure-fire way of curing insomnia. Not anymore. The Office for National Statistics came out with yet another attention-grabber last week. Government debt in the UK, the august body pronounced, is now bigger than GDP for the first time in over 60 years. The statisticians did qualify […]

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