The shocks that occasionally batter the UK economy seem to be coming thicker and faster. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) blew up in 2008. The Brexit vote followed eight year later. But we then only had to wait four years for Covid, and just two more for the cost-of-living crisis. At this rate we are … Continue reading End of free money brings the chickens home to roost
Could a house price crash still trigger a recession?
Fingers crossed, it looks like the UK has dodged the severe recession that many had feared. But we are not out of the woods yet. Could a sharp fall in house prices still drag the economy down? Many better economists than me have been tripped up by their forecasts for the UK housing market. For … Continue reading Could a house price crash still trigger a recession?
Latest misses show the danger of relying too much on OBR forecasts
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
Did the Truss/Kwarteng mini-Budget really cost the country £ [insert gigantic number here] billion?
Speculation that Liz Truss is about to make to return to frontline politics has prompted a flurry of dodgy claims and daft statistics about the economic cost of last September’s mini-Budget. Here's a quick debunking of the most common. I’ll start with the biggest number: £74 billion (sometimes cited as £73 billion). This appears to … Continue reading Did the Truss/Kwarteng mini-Budget really cost the country £ [insert gigantic number here] billion?
Plain-speaking Economics 