The UK has great strengths, but is a decade and a half into a period of stagnation. The toxic combination of slow growth and high inequality was straining the living standards of low- and middle-income Britain well before the cost of living crisis struck. It is time to embark on a new path. This, the … Continued

Higher economic growth in the UK requires big changes. Tackling the persistent underperformance of Manchester and Birmingham, as well as the stagnation of London’s economy since the financial crisis, are some of the changes needed to improve national prosperity. One of the reasons for their poor performance is the British state’s internationally exceptional level of … Continued

The UK has major infrastructure challenges ahead. We need to decarbonise our energy and transport systems, adapt to a changing climate (temperature extremes, drought and heavier rain), keep up with our insatiable demand for data, and accept that we are finally reaching the limits of our Victorian-built sewers and railways. This requires a huge increase … Continued

The UK Government has an opportunity to mobilise far greater amounts of private investment for public policy priorities than is the case now. Blended finance, deployed well, offers a tried and tested pathway for public and private investors, with different outcome, risk and return expectations, to work effectively together. This paper provides examples from the … Continued

Higher education brings benefits to individuals, to the wider economy and to society. From America’s post War GI Bill to the transformation of Korea, more people getting more education is one of the most powerful tools which a government has to transform its economy. The OECD estimate that every extra year of education boosts long … Continued

Investing in human capital is a crucial aspect of building an economy that is both more productive and fairer, and any growth strategy must incorporate an agenda for increasing human capital and workforce skills within that. So how should we approach the task of developing a skills strategy that complements a broader economic strategy? In … Continued

This paper, part of the Economy 2030 Inquiry, tackles the key question of how to futureproof the UK’s macroeconomic policy framework. Looking beyond the immediate policy challenge of high inflation, it focuses on whether the current framework – largely set during the calmer economic times of the 1990s – is still fit for purpose. Since … Continued

Britain’s productivity shortfall is its foundational economic problem. Debate about this gap and how to fix it typically focus on raising productivity of existing firms, via two routes. First, innovation: investment, R&D and patenting as ways to inject new ideas into pre-existing firms. Second, diffusion: the cascading of those new technologies and improved management practices … Continued

Few would disagree that the UK has a significant productivity problem, or fail to recognise that the poor performance of the nation’s largest cities outside the capital contribute to that situation. As the Economy 2030 Inquiry has made clear, the productivity of our largest cities lags the UK average, bucking the global trend for bigger … Continued

New Zealand is geographically the most ‘distant’ country in the world. Its nearest neighbour lies 2,000km away. While having a land mass similar in size to the United Kingdom or Japan, it has only a fraction of their population (approximately 5 million). In these respects, it may be thought to be suis generis, with few lessons … Continued

After the success of the Commonwealth games in 2022, Birmingham is now in the news for the wrong reasons. Financial difficulties facing the City Council culminated in a formal declaration on 5 September 2023 that Britain’s largest local authority was, in effect, bankrupt. But the understandable short-term focus on the council’s financial woes must not … Continued

The UK needs stronger labour market institutions Decent work is a pre-requisite for delivering shared prosperity and improving the lives of the country’s 34-million-strong workforce. In this context, the UK labour market has a number of strengths – from high employment to a national minimum wage that is now among the highest in the world. … Continued

The United Kingdom has a good-jobs challenge. The British economy falls short on inequality metrics on the one hand, and average household disposable income levels on the other. Real pay fell at the fastest rate in 20 years in 2022 and estimates suggest that real household disposable income is set to fall by the highest … Continued

The UK has been living through a period of relative decline that has proved toxic for those on low-to-middle incomes. Against that backdrop, this report examines whether there is still a plausible path to steadily rising shared prosperity and, if so, what does it look like. It does this as part of the Economy 2030 … Continued

The UK is a low investment nation. Low business investment is a big driver of this. Low investment is one reason behind the UK’s weak productivity growth, which in turn is the main reason behind the stagnation in UK living standards. Policy makers understand this and have made attempts to fix it. This paper, part … Continued

In this essay, part of our Navigating Economic Change series, the authors explore how cities can reverse long-term economic underperformance and move towards a new trajectory, looking at seven cities across five countries that have faced severe economic shocks but managed to break away from the resulting cycles of decline and transition to a more successful development path.

In this essay, part of our Navigating Economic Change series, Anke Hassel and Kathleen Thelen explore strategies for mitigating some of the income, job and educational inequalities that rich democracies are currently confronting as a result of technological change and the growing gap between winners and losers in the new knowledge economy.

Britain is a low investment nation. Worse, it has now been one for decades. Total investment as a share of GDP has consistently been below the average of other rich countries for decades. This century, the UK has consistently (in all but two years) been in the bottom 10 per cent of countries in the … Continued