It is always good to begin with some ‘good news’. The UK government recorded an unexpectedly large budget surplus in January, with revenues exceeding spending by £5.4 billion. This was £5.0 billion better than forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). It would be daft to focus on just one month’s figures, but this … Continue reading Latest misses show the danger of relying too much on OBR forecasts
Category: Applied economics
The MPC should now pause for breath
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) increased UK interest rates by another half point this week, as most had expected, taking them to 4%. But it also hinted that rates may not rise much further - if at all. I think the MPC has got this about right. The decision to raise interest rates was … Continue reading The MPC should now pause for breath
Are we becoming too dependent on the state?
I have to tip my hat to Civitas. The ‘Tufton Street’ think tank made quite a splash on Monday, including bagging the front page of the Daily Mail, with two striking claims. One was that over half of UK households now receive more in benefits from the government than they pay in tax. The other … Continue reading Are we becoming too dependent on the state?
Why is the UK short of workers and what should be done about it?
In the good old days, economists could gauge the health of the UK labour market simply by glancing at the unemployment rate. The latest official figure is still just 3.7 per cent, which suggests all is well. Unemployment has not been this low since the early 1970s. Put another way, the vast majority of people … Continue reading Why is the UK short of workers and what should be done about it?
Plain-speaking Economics 