It’s Tax Freedom Day: It may be the latest it’s been since 2001 but you’re finally earning for yourself June 3, 2016 Ask a random person on the street how much tax they pay and they’ll usually guess around 20 per cent of their income. That’s the basic rate of income tax, and it’s easy to forget taxes like VAT, council tax, beer and wine duties, air passenger duty, motoring taxes and stamp duty. Even if you remind [...]
Brexonomics: The five most insidious anti-EU myths debunked June 3, 2016 Eurosceptics peddle a raft of myths about the economic costs of EU membership. These have little, if any, empirical basis, but Brexiteers cling to them doggedly however many times they are refuted by proper academic research. Let’s take a look at the five most insidious ones: One: we keep being told that quitting the EU [...]
With three weeks until the result, can we trust any of the EU referendum polls? June 3, 2016 John Curtice, senior research fellow at the NatCen Social Research and The UK in a Changing Europe initiative, says Yes. In many respects, the message of the polls has been consistent throughout this referendum campaign. Ever since the question that will appear on the ballot paper was settled last September, polls conducted over the internet have [...]
The only “logical” answer to Brexit: Declare London a city state June 2, 2016 I believe any rational assessment of the situation should lead to a vote to remain in the EU. There is almost universal consensus among economists and the major global economic institutions that a Brexit will result in an economic hit to the country. There is a small possibility that it might destabilise global financial markets. [...]
How fair is pay in the banking sector? June 2, 2016 When it comes to bankers’ pay, fairness is very much in the eye of the beholder. Looking in, the public struggle to accept bankers’ bulging pay packages. From within, bankers are seldom satisfied, largely because of a lack of transparency fostered by the banks. Unlike for other areas of financial services, such as carried interest for those [...]
Robo-advice can democratise finance by making investing easy and convenient June 2, 2016 The robots are here! But not in the Terminator sense. Think, rather, of Asimov’s creations. Or, for the less nerdy, Rosie from The Jetsons: benevolent machines, doing our hard work but better, faster and more reliably. Across almost all sectors, automation and digitisation are transforming daily lives. The world of investment is no exception. Robo-investing [...]
To IPO or not to IPO? Four things tech companies must consider June 2, 2016 Technology continues to be an agent of change and the explosion in size and complexity of technology-driven businesses has been reflected in their global growth and reach. With alternative sources of private funding increasingly available, and potentially higher valuations being achieved privately, the motivation to IPO may well be reduced. However, there will likely come a point in [...]
Why leaving the EU will undermine London’s global competitiveness June 2, 2016 London is at the forefront of the huge changes buffeting our society and our economy, as we confront and cope with the realities of globalisation. India and China, and the emerging economies of Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Brazil and others, are overturning Europe’s traditional dominance. In Africa, Senegal, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia all had growth [...]
Why the true impact of Brexit on the economy is dramatically less certain than economists claim June 2, 2016 Received wisdom is that, to understand the economics of Britain’s relationship with the EU, one needs to either look forward (with so-called CGE or computable general equilibrium models) or backward (with so-called gravity and/or synthetic counterfactual models). Unfortunately, there are serious problems with both. CGE models try to simulate the future, but that future depends [...]
You’ll probably live far longer than you think – and the implications are huge June 2, 2016 What is the most important number you can think of? Your bank balance? Your mortgage? US GDP or the FTSE 100? All of these are important but the one number you should be very focused on is a guess of your own life expectancy. Get that wrong and the chances are you will get a [...]