Economy 2030· Living standards· Incomes· Economic growth From safety net to springboard Designing an unemployment insurance scheme to protect living standards and boost economic dynamism 21 September 2023 by Mike Brewer and Louise Murphy Losing your job in Britain is a very risky business. Low levels of out-of-work benefits are rarely an adequate safety net for those who experience job loss, and workers in the UK who move out of work are at greater risk of experiencing a large income loss than those in most other OECD countries. Some … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 A tale of two cities (part 2) A plausible strategy for productivity growth in Greater Manchester and beyond 19 September 2023 by Paul Brandily and Mike Brewer and Nye Cominetti and Adam Corlett and Lindsay Judge and Felicia Odamtten and Henry G. Overman and Cara Pacitti and Krishan Shah and Lalitha Try Few would disagree that the UK has a significant productivity problem, or fail to recognise that the poor performance of the nation’s largest cities outside the capital contribute to that situation. As the Economy 2030 Inquiry has made clear, the productivity of our largest cities lags the UK average, bucking the global trend for bigger … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 A tale of two cities (part 1) A plausible strategy for productivity growth in Birmingham and beyond 14 September 2023 by Paul Brandily and Mike Brewer and Nye Cominetti and Adam Corlett and Lindsay Judge and Felicia Odamtten and Henry G. Overman and Cara Pacitti and Krishan Shah and Lalitha Try After the success of the Commonwealth games in 2022, Birmingham is now in the news for the wrong reasons. Financial difficulties facing the City Council culminated in a formal declaration on 5 September 2023 that Britain’s largest local authority was, in effect, bankrupt. But the understandable short-term focus on the council’s financial woes must not … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Putting good work on the table Reforming labour market institutions to improve pay and conditions 4 September 2023 by Charlie McCurdy and Hannah Slaughter and Gavin Kelly The UK needs stronger labour market institutions Decent work is a pre-requisite for delivering shared prosperity and improving the lives of the country’s 34-million-strong workforce. In this context, the UK labour market has a number of strengths – from high employment to a national minimum wage that is now among the highest in the world. … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Creating a Good-Jobs Economy in the UK Steering Economic Change 6 July 2023 by Vidit Doshi and Huw Spencer and Dani Rodrik The United Kingdom has a good-jobs challenge. The British economy falls short on inequality metrics on the one hand, and average household disposable income levels on the other. Real pay fell at the fastest rate in 20 years in 2022 and estimates suggest that real household disposable income is set to fall by the highest … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Sharing the benefits Can Britain secure broadly shared prosperity? 4 July 2023 by Mike Brewer and Karl Handscomb and Cara Pacitti and Lalitha Try The UK has been living through a period of relative decline that has proved toxic for those on low-to-middle incomes. Against that backdrop, this report examines whether there is still a plausible path to steadily rising shared prosperity and, if so, what does it look like. It does this as part of the Economy 2030 … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030· Tax Tax planning How to match higher taxes with better taxes 28 June 2023 by Molly Broome and Adam Corlett and Greg Thwaites The UK’s tax take is rising, and is likely to stay high, but the system is not improving. The UK needs a tax strategy to support its economic strategy, using the tax system to boost shared growth. This paper, part of the Economy 2030 Inquiry, describes what a good tax strategy would look like and … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Beyond Boosterism Realigning the policy ecosystem to unleash private investment for sustainable growth 22 June 2023 by Paul Brandily and Mimosa Distefano and Krishan Shah and Greg Thwaites and Anna Valero The UK is a low investment nation. Low business investment is a big driver of this. Low investment is one reason behind the UK’s weak productivity growth, which in turn is the main reason behind the stagnation in UK living standards. Policy makers understand this and have made attempts to fix it. This paper, part … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030· Brexit & trade Trading Up The role of the post-Brexit trade approach in the UK’s economic strategy 15 June 2023 by Shania Bhalotia and Swati Dhingra and Emily Fry and Sophie Hale After nearly half a century of EU membership, Britain needs a trade strategy. The stakes are high: such a strategy shapes what families and firms buy from abroad, and what gets produced domestically; influences our jobs, productivity levels and, ultimately, living standards; and contributes a major plank of Britain’s international policy at a time of … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Economic policy in the turbulent 2020s after the sluggish 2010s Transitioning from crisis management to structural reform 12 June 2023 by Catherine L. Mann READ MORE
Economy 2030· Net zero Where the rubber hits the road Reforming vehicle taxes 1 June 2023 by Jonathan Marshall and Adam Corlett This briefing note examines the future of motoring taxes, which need extensive reform given the necessary and welcome rise of electric vehicles. We detail a suite of policies that will protect revenues and lower income households, reduce congestion, and facilitate the transition to zero-carbon motoring. READ MORE
Economy 2030 Lessons from successful ‘turnaround’ cities for the UK Navigating Economic Change 15 May 2023 In this essay, part of our Navigating Economic Change series, the authors explore how cities can reverse long-term economic underperformance and move towards a new trajectory, looking at seven cities across five countries that have faced severe economic shocks but managed to break away from the resulting cycles of decline and transition to a more successful development path. READ MORE
Economy 2030· Labour market· Low pay Low Pay Britain 2023 Improving low-paid work through higher minimum standards 19 April 2023 by Nye Cominetti and Charlie McCurdy and Greg Thwaites and Rui Costa After a decade and a half of relative economic decline, Britain needs a new economic strategy. And good work must be at its heart – an explicit goal, not a hoped-for by-product of growth. This is a necessary precondition for a strategy that offers a credible promise of shared prosperity in the years ahead, strengthening … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Institutional reform for Inclusive Growth Lessons from Germany and Sweden 13 April 2023 by Anke Hassel and Kathleen Thelen In this essay, part of our Navigating Economic Change series, Anke Hassel and Kathleen Thelen explore strategies for mitigating some of the income, job and educational inequalities that rich democracies are currently confronting as a result of technological change and the growing gap between winners and losers in the new knowledge economy. READ MORE
Economy 2030 Cutting the cuts How the public sector can play its part in ending the UK’s low-investment rut 30 March 2023 by Felicia Odamtten and James Smith Britain is a low investment nation. Worse, it has now been one for decades. Total investment as a share of GDP has consistently been below the average of other rich countries for decades. This century, the UK has consistently (in all but two years) been in the bottom 10 per cent of countries in the … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030· Brexit & trade Open for business? UK trade performance since leaving the EU 28 February 2023 by Sophie Hale and Emily Fry The overwhelming consensus was that Brexit – which raised trade barriers with the EU – would make the UK less open, less competitive and reduce the size of the economy. The fact that the UK is the only G7 country yet to regain its pandemic level of GDP seemed to corroborate these gloomy predictions. But … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 The heat transition Lessons from other Northern European countries on decarbonising heating 8 February 2023 by Renée Bruel and Jan Rosenow In this essay, part of our Navigating Economic Change series, Renée Bruel and Jan Rosenow look at what the UK can learn from other European countries when it comes to decarbonising heating. READ MORE
Economy 2030· Productivity & industrial strategy· Economic growth Minding the (productivity and income) gaps Decomposing and understanding differences in productivity and income across countries 3 February 2023 by Krishan Shah and Greg Thwaites This week’s round of international economic forecasts (from the IMF, Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and Bank of England) has seen a renewed focus on the UK’s relative economic decline. But while gloomy forecasts about the coming years dominate headlines this expected weak economic growth comes on the back of 15 years of the UK … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030· Net zero Hitting a brick wall How the UK can upgrade its housing stock to reduce energy bills and cut carbon 12 December 2022 by Asaad Anis-Alavi and Lindsay Judge and Jonathan Marshall and Charlie McCurdy and Daniel Tomlinson This briefing note considers how policy makers should square up to one the hardest part of the net zero challenge: insulating the nation’s homes. It highlights an overlooked problem, the 9 million walls that need insulating at considerable costs, and proposes a series of new regulations to ensure progress is made by 2035, lowering carbon emissions and cutting energy bills in the process. READ MORE
Economy 2030· Skills Train in Vain? Skills, tasks, and training in the UK labour market 5 December 2022 by Nye Cominetti and Rui Costa and Andrew Eyles and Kathleen Henehan and Sandra McNally Human capital and skills are important for improving the UK’s labour market and economic performance. This note assesses how the skills needed in the UK labour market have changed over past decades, and how well placed our system of training – and particularly on-the-job training – is to help us adapt to these changes. Some … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Adopt, adapt and improve A brief look at the interplay between labour markets and technological change in the UK 10 November 2022 by Rui Costa and Yuanhang Yu Worries that jobs will be lost to automation are not new, but have been heightened since the release of Frey and Osborne’s 2013 study, which warned that nearly half of jobs in the US were at ‘high risk’ of automation. Nearly a decade on, this short briefing note looks at both the current and longer-term … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Navigating Economic Change Lessons from abroad and history 12 October 2022 As the UK is buffeted by the economic shocks and challenges of the 2020s, the Resolution Foundation and LSE Economy 2030 Inquiry is publishing a series of essays examining how policy makers from a range of advanced economies, including the UK in the recent past, have managed periods of disruptive economic change. READ MORE
Economy 2030· Macroeconomic policy As good as it gets? The forces driving economic stagnation and what they mean for the decade ahead 18 July 2022 by James Smith With inflation at levels not seen since the early 1980s, it is clear that the UK is in the midst of a huge hit to real incomes. But the seeds for the devastating impact of the cost of living crisis were sown by a slump in growth that is unprecedented in the post-war period and … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Stagnation nation Navigating a route to a fairer and more prosperous Britain 13 July 2022 The interim report of The Economy 2030 Inquiry The UK has great strengths, but is over a decade into a period of stagnation. The toxic combination of slow growth and high inequality was posing challenges for low-to-middle income Britain’s living standards even before the post-pandemic cost of living crisis struck. The task of the 2020s … Continued READ MORE
Economy 2030 Power plays The shifting balance of employer and worker power in the UK labour market 7 July 2022 by Ufuk Altunbuken and Pawel Bukowski and Stephen Machin and Hannah Slaughter This briefing note, part of the Economy 2030 Inquiry, looks at shifts in the balance of worker and employer power in recent decades. It assesses the implications of these shifts for both the level and distribution of wages and highlights worker power as an important part of the UK’s economic strategy in the decade ahead. READ MORE
