Based on the post-war record of UK economic expansion, we may be about to experience a sharp slowdown (see chart A). Latest figures show that the UK grew by 0.4% in the final quarter of 2017, down by 0.1% from an earlier estimate of 0.5%. In the year as a whole, the UK economy expanded …
Was this a Brexit Budget in Disguise?
This was the first Autumn Budget, and a bit like the climate one typically gets at this time of the year the economic outlook in it was a bit gloomy. Because of assumptions about lower productivity – in 16 of the last Budgets it has been forecast to return to its long-term rate of growth …
Productivity: the UK’s biggest economic challenge?
Latest figures show that UK productivity fell back in Q1 to the levels previously seen prior to the financial crisis in 2008. Quite frankly, it’s shocking to see that productivity hasn’t grown at all in almost a decade, and that we’re actually producing a bit less now per hour than we did then. The broad …
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