The entrepreneurial economy is taking off but we’re yet to realise its potential January 21, 2014 AT THE launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2013, Vince Cable announced that “10 per cent of the UK workforce is engaged in entrepreneurship activity.” Then he ploughed on with his speech, leaving the audience wondering precisely what this was supposed to mean. After decades of being politely sidelined, entrepreneurship is political and economic orthodoxy. Few [...]
Against the Grain: Google and the output gap: Why it’s time to ditch this outdated concept January 21, 2014 THE CONCEPT of the “output gap” is central to mainstream macroeconomics. It is not merely of academic interest, however. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has a specific requirement to estimate this gap, which it defines formally as “the difference between the current level of activity in the economy and the potential level it could [...]
The grandees of Davos 2014 may finally have a theme worth discussing January 21, 2014 I’VE LEARNED a new word: heterarchy. I came across it buried in this year’s Davos theme. Apparently it means multiple structures, overlapping, interacting, connecting and networking. Am I really climbing a Swiss mountain to learn about an arcane corner of the dictionary? The theme is set each year by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which [...]
Letters to the editor – 22/01 – Banking IT crisis, False optimism, Best of Twitter January 21, 2014 Banking IT crisis [Re: UK banks risk financial meltdown if the long-term IT crisis remains unresolved, yesterday] I agree with the identification of the problem, though not necessarily with the solution (“to create a national programme of IT transformation”). It’s not clear that a centralised approach to solving systemic problems is required. An alternative would be to agree [...]
How regenerating failed high rises can gift London thousands of extra homes January 20, 2014 A QUIET announcement, with potentially significant implications for London’s housing crisis, lay hidden in the detail of last year’s Autumn Statement: the government will “explore options for kick-starting the regeneration of some of the worst housing estates through repayable loans.” Is this just another excuse to spend taxpayers’ money? I hope not. It could be [...]
Why it’s time to stop feeding our addiction to ultra loose monetary policy January 20, 2014 WITH GDP still 2 per cent below its pre-crisis peak and consumer price index inflation falling back to its 2 per cent target, many argue that Britain should stick with extraordinarily loose monetary policy for longer. Just yesterday, the EY Item club urged the Bank of England to bolster its forward guidance policy, and to [...]
Migrant benefit reform: Doing the right thing for all of the wrong reasons January 20, 2014 YESTERDAY saw the government announce the latest in a line of restrictions on the benefits immigrants can claim. New jobless EU migrants will be denied access to housing benefit from April, and will only be able to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance for six months unless they have a “genuine” chance of work. This comes on top [...]
Letters to the Editor – 21/01 – EU reform, Heathrow debate, Best of Twitter January 20, 2014 EU reform [Re: EU reform is possible – and it can safeguard the position of the City of London, yesterday] Mark Boleat is too quick to praise a “reformist agenda” without considering the alternatives. We should not dismiss leaving the EU based on the results of a CBI survey of just 406 businesses across the [...]
More competition would be good but Miliband is proposing little that’s new January 19, 2014 ED MILIBAND appears to be in the process of reinventing the Labour Party as the consumer party. His central theme is the “cost of living crisis”. He tells us how he is on the side of consumers in gas and electricity, freezing prices, in banks forcing competition, and in general by having consumer bodies report [...]
City Matters: EU reform is possible – and it can safeguard the position of the City of London January 19, 2014 GEORGE Osborne has made it his New Year’s resolution to reform the European Union to reverse the continent’s economic decline. His remarks, made in a speech last week, highlight the high stakes in Britain’s membership debate, and he is fundamentally correct in his assertion that “it is in no-one’s interests for Britain to come to [...]