On 14 April the New Statesman published an article which was intended to show that the Irish economy is booming at the expense of ‘Brexit Britain’. This conclusion was backed by some striking graphics, which are still being gleefully shared by the usual suspects. But it was also baloney. People have been taken in here … Continue reading Are Irish incomes really twice those of the UK?
Tag: GDP
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?
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?
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
Plain-speaking Economics 