Posts Tagged economic growth
What is the relationship between debt and growth?
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics on 30/01/2012
Last Friday the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced that it had estimated the growth in American GDP in the fourth quarter of 2011. The BEA estimated that the American economy had grown at an annualised rate of 2.8 per cent. This shines a harsh light on the current economic growth, or economic contraction, of the British economy, which shrank by 0.2 per cent in the final quarter of 2011.
Crime, Poverty and Imprisonment
Posted by Nick Cowen in Crime on 28/09/2011
By David Fraser
The Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke, has claimed that recent falls in crime have occurred at a time of increased prosperity. He concluded that therefore the way to reduce offending rates further was to improve prosperity levels generally, and added that there was no link between imprisonment and crime. However, such arguments are not only contradicted by recent empirical research, but by decades of experience from the UK and other countries.
- Read the full comment here.
Fiddling while Rome burns
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics on 26/07/2011
Today the ONS released the latest quarterly GDP figures, indicating that the British economy had grown by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2011. The ONS estimated that growth could have been approximately 0.5 per cent higher if it wasn’t for the ‘special events’ of the royal wedding, Japanese earthquake, Olympic ticket sales and the unusually hot weather in April. It is highly questionable that all of these events had a significant, or any impact upon growth. Furthermore, focusing on the quarterly growth figure diverts attention away from long-term economic problems, evident in the underlying statistics.
A bigger pie or a bigger slice?
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics, Politics, Social Cohesion, Tax and Spend on 06/06/2011
Today saw the release, and discussion, of a number of interesting barometers, all purporting to shed light on some of the maladies afflicting Britain. While the TUC published its study on the stagnation of wages for low and middle earners, the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) released its analysis of Britain’s declining industrial competitiveness. Can these analyses, from across the political spectrum, be reconciled?
Markets: still a pretty good idea
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics, Politics on 19/04/2011
The financial crisis and ensuing recession has produced a wealth of different economic predictions and advice. Some critics of free market capitalism have used the crisis to suggest that free markets are fatally flawed and need restraint. Other proponents of state involvement in the economy have, worryingly, talked up the benefits of the ‘Chinese model’ of state-led capitalism. In contrast some governments, including our own, have pledged to remove barriers to growth, implicitly or explicitly earmarking some aspects of state. Wading into this debate is Brink Lindsey, Senior Scholar in research and policy at the Ewin Marion Kauffman Foundation in his new paper: ‘Frontier Economics: Why Entrepreneurial Capitalism Is Needed Now More Than Ever’. His hypothesis is unsurprising given the Kauffman Foundation’s commitment to entrepreneurship, yet it finds a degree of support in another paper, recently released by Barry Eichengreen, Donghyun Park and Kwanho Shin: ‘When Fast Growing Economies Slow Down: International Evidence and Implications for China’.
It’s growth, stupid
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics, Politics, Tax and Spend on 08/04/2011
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference. It provided an opportunity to hear the views of the business community and what the Government is doing to stimulate and facilitate economic growth. It also provided an opportunity to hear from the opposition, courtesy of Ed Miliband MP, about Labour’s proposals for economic growth.
