Applying the Robbins Principle to Further Education and Apprenticeships Steering economic change 24 October 2023 by Richard Layard and Sandra McNally and Guglielmo Ventura Britain does well at higher education, and badly for its non-graduates. The main problem is our failure to train more people when they are young. Shockingly, 30 per cent of 18 year olds are not in education or training – many more than in our competitor countries. Low skills for this group are a major … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Built to last Towards a sustainable macroeconomic policy framework for the UK 19 October 2023 by Simon Pittaway and James Smith 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 READ MORE
Universal Credit· Welfare Rates of change The impact of a below-inflation uprating on working-age benefits 14 October 2023 by Lindsay Judge and Louise Murphy NB – this briefing has been updated following the publication of the ONS prices data for September 2023. The CPI inflation figure for September (6.7 per cent) is the basis on which key working-age benefits are normally uprated in the following April. But with the public finances under real pressure, and prices expected to … Continued READ MORE
Macroeconomic policy Macroeconomic Policy Outlook: Q3 2023 5 October 2023 by Simon Pittaway and James Smith and Greg Thwaites 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 worry about UK inflation is that it looks exceptional: it is the highest headline inflation … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Ready for change How and why to make the UK economy more dynamic 25 September 2023 by Richard Davies and Nadim Hamdan and Greg Thwaites 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 READ MORE
Economy 2030· Incomes· Living standards· Economic growth From safety net to springboard Designing an unemployment insurance scheme to protect living standards and boost economic dynamism 21 September 2023 by Mike Brewer and Louise Murphy Losing your job in Britain is a very risky business. Low levels of out-of-work benefits are rarely an adequate safety net for those who experience job loss, and workers in the UK who move out of work are at greater risk of experiencing a large income loss than those in most other OECD countries. Some … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 A tale of two cities (part 2) A plausible strategy for productivity growth in Greater Manchester and beyond 19 September 2023 by Paul Brandily and Mike Brewer and Nye Cominetti and Adam Corlett and Lindsay Judge and Felicia Odamtten and Henry G. Overman and Cara Pacitti and Krishan Shah and Lalitha Try 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 READ MORE
Economy 2030 New Zealand Lessons on economic reform from a distant relative 18 September 2023 by Arthur Grimes 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 READ MORE
Living standards· Inequality & poverty· Welfare Half time The UK’s commitment to halve poverty by 2030 18 September 2023 by Adam Corlett On 18-19 September, representatives from around the world – including the Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden and the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly – will meet for a UN summit on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals are not just about development in poorer countries: the targets and the discussions around this summit have relevance … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 A tale of two cities (part 1) A plausible strategy for productivity growth in Birmingham and beyond 14 September 2023 by Paul Brandily and Mike Brewer and Nye Cominetti and Adam Corlett and Lindsay Judge and Felicia Odamtten and Henry G. Overman and Cara Pacitti and Krishan Shah and Lalitha Try 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 READ MORE
Intergenerational Centre Family matters How concerns for younger relatives bridge generational divides 13 September 2023 Report by Zack Grant, Jane Green & Geoffrey Evans of Nuffield Politics Research Centre, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, in collaboration with Molly Broome, Sophie Hale & Lord David Willetts of the Resolution Foundation. This new report, a collaborative project between the Resolution Foundation and Nuffield College, Oxford, investigates people’s attitudes towards intergenerational inequalities in … Continued READ MORE
Welfare Reassessing the Work Capability Assessment What might the proposed changes to the Work Capability Assessment mean for low-to-middle income families? 6 September 2023 by Louise Murphy Yesterday, the Government announced that it is consulting on changes to the Work Capability Assessment, the assessment used to determine how people with health conditions are treated within the benefits system. Coming shortly after the Health and Disability White Paper, this underlines that we are going to be talking a lot more about health- and … Continued READ MORE
Living standards The Living Standards Outlook – Summer 2023 Update 6 September 2023 by Adam Corlett Household incomes are always a crucial perspective on how living standards are changing, particularly during economic crises. And in democracies, changing living standards also matter for politics, particularly ahead of elections. As Ronald Reagan famously put it in 1980, the answer to “are you better off today than you were four years ago?” is often … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Putting good work on the table Reforming labour market institutions to improve pay and conditions 4 September 2023 by Charlie McCurdy and Hannah Slaughter and Gavin Kelly 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 READ MORE
Gotta get through this Energy bills this winter 24 August 2023 by Jonathan Marshall and Emily Fry Britain’s energy bill crisis is not over: Ofgem’s imminent confirmation of the Q4 2023 price cap is expected to show that annualised typical energy bills will be above £1,900 from October, close to double those before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and only a little below the effective level of £2,100 from last winter that resulted … Continued READ MORE
Net zero· Housing It’s getting hot in here How ever-warmer UK summer temperatures will have an outsized impact on low-income households and low-paid workers 15 August 2023 by Jonathan Marshall Although the UK’s summer of 2023 has been something of a washout so far, the country is getting hotter, with temperatures over 40oC – first experienced in the UK in 2022 – set to become the norm. Hotter weather will impact different people in different ways, so this Spotlight explores what it means for Brits … Continued READ MORE
Labour Market Outlook· Labour market Labour Market Outlook Q2 2023 14 August 2023 by Nye Cominetti and Nadim Hamdan and Hannah Slaughter The UK has seen more strikes in the past year than in any since the 1980s. These strikes have been concentrated in the public and transport sectors, where unionisation rates are highest. The public and public-funded sectors have seen a bigger pay hit than the private sector overall, but there are exceptions – highly unionised … Continued READ MORE
Wealth & assets Peaked Interest? What higher interest rates mean for the size and distribution of Britain's household wealth 17 July 2023 by Molly Broome and Ian Mulheirn and Simon Pittaway Over the past four decades, the total value of wealth owned by UK households has been on a seemingly-relentless upward path: rising from around three-times GDP in the mid 1980s to almost eight-times. The key driver of this rise in wealth has been falling interest rates and the associated increase in asset prices. But the … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Creating a Good-Jobs Economy in the UK Steering Economic Change 6 July 2023 by Vidit Doshi and Huw Spencer and Dani Rodrik 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 READ MORE
Economy 2030 Sharing the benefits Can Britain secure broadly shared prosperity? 4 July 2023 by Mike Brewer and Karl Handscomb and Cara Pacitti and Lalitha Try 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 READ MORE
Flexicurity and the future of work Lessons from Denmark 29 June 2023 by Anna Ilsøe and Trine Pernille Larsen Over recent decades, the Danish labour market has performed comparatively well. Denmark has exhibited not only a low unemployment rate, but also rising employment and high job mobility across shifting economic cycles. This success is often attributed to so-called Danish ‘flexicurity’: a jobs market model characterized by high levels of external numerical flexibility for employers … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030· Tax Tax planning How to match higher taxes with better taxes 28 June 2023 by Molly Broome and Adam Corlett and Greg Thwaites The UK’s tax take is rising, and is likely to stay high, but the system is not improving. The UK needs a tax strategy to support its economic strategy, using the tax system to boost shared growth. This paper, part of the Economy 2030 Inquiry, describes what a good tax strategy would look like and … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Beyond Boosterism Realigning the policy ecosystem to unleash private investment for sustainable growth 22 June 2023 by Paul Brandily and Mimosa Distefano and Krishan Shah and Greg Thwaites and Anna Valero 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 READ MORE
Housing The Mortgage Crunch 17 June 2023 by Simon Pittaway Recent signs that inflation is proving ‘stickier’ than hoped has raised the prospect of even more rate rises from Bank of England, and a deeper mortgage crunch for households. Higher than expected inflation and earnings in April has led financial-markets expectations of the peak to the current interest rate rise cycle to rise to nearly … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030· Brexit & trade Trading Up The role of the post-Brexit trade approach in the UK’s economic strategy 15 June 2023 by Shania Bhalotia and Swati Dhingra and Emily Fry and Sophie Hale After nearly half a century of EU membership, Britain needs a trade strategy. The stakes are high: such a strategy shapes what families and firms buy from abroad, and what gets produced domestically; influences our jobs, productivity levels and, ultimately, living standards; and contributes a major plank of Britain’s international policy at a time of … Continued READ MORE
