At the 1992 General election, the Conservative Party won a stunning electoral victory – despite being in the middle of a self-imposed recession. Many point to this as an example of how the press can influence national debate and influence elections. The 1991/92 recession was a classic example of a boom and bust. It wasn’t …
Housing equity withdrawal (HEW) is new borrowing secured on dwellings that is not invested in the housing market (e.g. not used for house purchase or home improvements). From Q1 2007 this is called Housing equity withdrawal (HEW) rather than its old name of Mortgage Equity Withdrawal. (MEW) Source: Housing Equity Withdrawal at Bank of England. …
I try to keep politics out of this economics blog. Though in recent few days, I’m failing to do that. I do hope the past few weeks prove to be a rare period of political turmoil. This is just a personal view, and you’re welcome to ignore. UK democracy is a funny thing. Unless you …
There have been a couple of thoughtful pieces from Paul Krugman challenging the consensus that Brexit will have very high short-term economic cost. Krugman’s argument is: There is uncertainty, but uncertainty on itself is not enough to create a significant demand side shock. In fact, when the uncertainty is resolved, we could have a mini-boom …
The UK saw net migration of 330,000 in the last year. If net migration were to fall significantly – how would this affect the UK economy? Net migration is generally difficult to predict, but there are good reasons to assume this is likely to fall in future years. Net migration will likely fall because: Climate …
The EU has many achievements of which it can rightly claim. Long period of peace and prosperity, unrivalled in European history. Secured transition to democracy for countries such as Spain and post-Communist countries in Eastern Europe Free trade and free movement has helped improve economic growth and living standards. Working on European wide problems, such …
Negative bond yields (e.g. -0.04% on 2 year gilt) mean that those who hold the bond to maturity will receive less than the value of the bond. A negative bond yield is usually very rare. In normal circumstances, investors require some yield (interest) to give an incentive to buy government bond. There is no good …
In this recent post we saw some of the economic and political challenges of allowing free movement of labour within an economic block, such as the EU28. To what extent can the government / EU mitigate these negative impacts, whilst retaining free movement of labour? 1. Funding related to number of people. One issue of …