Analysis and action on living standards
The Resolution Foundation’s Macroeconomic Policy Unit has been set up with the aim of contributing to a more inclusive and better informed macroeconomic policy debate. It will publish original and rigorous macroeconomic analysis on key policy issues. As well as research undertaken by Resolution Foundation staff and the MPU’s Associates, we will collaborate with, and provide a platform for, high-quality and innovative thinking on macroeconomic policy issues.
Macroeconomic developments play a key role in driving living standards. The unprecedented stagnation in earnings seen since the financial crisis has to a large degree reflected the weakness of aggregate GDP and productivity. While low to middle income households have fared worse than those at the top of the distribution, weak income growth has affected all parts of the distribution. Macroeconomic policy plays a key role in determining macroeconomic outcomes, and so is inextricably linked to living standards. This is particularly true in recessions when macroeconomic policy plays a vital role in limiting the damage.
Real wages – measured in terms of the goods that workers can buy with their regular wages – rose by around 2 per cent in the year to February 2024. This is much faster than the average in recent years
2023 was yet another year of economic stagnation for the UK. By the third quarter of the year, economic activity was only 0.2 per cent higher than at the end of 2022. But forecasts this time last year were far
In this edition of the MPO we focus on the scale and nature of the UK’s inflation challenge, looking at what we can learn from comparisons with other countries, and what that means for monetary policy. A key reason to
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