Category Archives: News

Britain is not growing in the way that the Coalition expected it to, or that people in the country need it to. We cannot continue on the same path, but nor can we “throw away the rule book”. Instead we need to identify ways to stimulate the economy now, a

We don’t do fiscal policy very well in this country. This is a general observation rather than a political point. The annual Budgets, financial statements, and periodic spending reviews are very good at the adding up. They are very bad at assessing risk a

At last. A paper on fiscal policy that tries to break down the polarised argument we’re having between fiscal credibility and growth. Ian is right to suggest that we might usefully think about how government spends rather than just the amount it spends, i

The political debate on fiscal policy in the UK has become increasingly polarised. The government and opposition both accept that there is a need to reduce the budget deficit, but the speed at which this should be done represents a key polemical differenc

George Osborne is at least as interested in the political as he is in the economic cycle. The Conservatives’ key campaign strategist, his priority is to get the economy into the sort of shape that will be required to win an outright election victory in th

It is valuable to step away from the debate about how much deficit or how fast to try and reduce it, and to consider the content of the deficit. Which public expenditures are likely to promote growth in the long and short term and so should be protected

It is clear that the fiscal impact of different forms of expenditure vary greatly. As Ian points out, even the OBR – who tend to stick as close as they can to the consensus (which is almost always, as Robert Chote often tells us, wrong about the medium to

Rt Hon Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills, has today given a speech to the Social Market Foundation outlining his plans for reforming executive pay.

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith, and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander have given keynote speeches at today's 'Risk and Reward' conference on social impact bonds.