Don’t blame austerity for the crumbling concrete, Osborne salvaged Britain’s deficit
If only the Conservatives had loosened the purse strings on public spending in the 2010s, the story now goes, all the decrepit buildings could have been fixed. “Austerity” has, of course, become the catch-all word describing the David Cameron and George Osborne policy of restrictions on public spending to control Britain’s financial deficit. This misperception […]
The UK could teach the Eurozone a thing or two about successful monetary unions
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published last week some figures which show how a successful monetary union works in practice. It is not obvious at first sight, from the dry heading: “regional public sector finances”. The ONS collects information on the amounts of public spending and money raised in taxes across the regions of […]
Psychology, not hard line maths, tells us why Osborne’s strategy is working
So, International Monetary Fund, wrong again! At the end of last week, the IMF abandoned its criticism of the UK government’s economic strategy. Christine Lagarde, the IMF chief, said her organisation had ‘underestimated’ the strength of the recovery in Britain. The IMF now believes that the UK will be the fastest growing of any major […]
The recovery is well grounded – except in France
The coming year looks like it will be a good one. At the start of each of the past five years, the economic scales have been tilted down, and the challenge has been to look for factors which might have tipped them back up. This year, the balance is reversed. The onus lies with the […]
How Big Is My Multiplier?
The debate rages about whether the Chancellor should implement a Plan B, or C or D or even Z. There seems to be a plethora of alternatives. But many of them share a key common theme. Namely, that an increase in public spending will boost output in the economy overall. This was one of the […]
