The main rate of inflation in the UK, the Consumer Price Index, fell from July’s 40-year peak of 10.1% to 9.9% in August. This reflects the impact of sharp declines in the global price of oil over the summer, which fed into the falling price of motor fuel. However, food prices are continuing to rise, […]
Inflation down slightly, but the crisis continues Read More »
The UK’s official inflation rate has hit 4.8%, up on the previous month and its highest rate since September 2008. Driving the rate are big increases, over the year, in the price of gas and electricity. The largest contribution to the change from last month, however, comes from “food and non-alcoholic beverages”. Talk over the
The economic mainstream is getting inflation wrong Read More »
The policy is uniquely flawed, with multiple faults. Of course, if government throws over £60 billion of subsidies to a minority of firms and workers, that will be popular with the recipients. But a scheme should be judged by what it does for the many, not the few, and for its opportunity cost.
Labour should not back another Job Furlough Read More »
PEF Council member Prof. Stephany Griffiths-Jones is a member of Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s group of economic advisors. With Boric winning a resounding victory in the Chilean Presidential elections, we reproduce here a translation of Stephany’s recent interview for CTIX magazine Chile. Conducted before the second round of the election, Stephany discusses the left’s economic
The UK’s official measure of inflation, the Office for National Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in slightly lower than widely anticipated, falling from 3.0% in August to 2.9% in September. This is good news, not so much for the (slight to non-existent) impact it implies for most people’s living standards, but because it will
Inflation, interest rates, locusts Read More »
Quantitative easing risks generating its own boom-and-bust cycles, and can thus be seen as an example of state-created financial instability. Governments must abandon the fiction that central banks create money independently from government, and must themselves spend the money created at their behest.
Where Has All the Money Gone? Read More »
The pandemic has exposed how dependent on care we are not only as individuals, but as a society. But our care system, already struggling well before the outbreak of the coronavirus, has failed to cope. Care work is poorly-paid and insecure, whilst the entire system suffers from chronic underfunding. Government promises to fix the system
New PEF publication – Care and the Pandemic Read More »
see film clips of PEF Council members explaining the purpose of PEF’s new book, The Return of the State
The Return of the State – Council members explain the purpose of the book Read More »
Early reports suggest that the reopening of indoor hospitality in England has driven a hiring surge as employers try to meet the expected demand across the sector. Job search website Adzuna has reported a trebling in the advertised vacancies since March but the impact of unlocking – and a much-anticipated surge in consumer spending –
More vaccines, more vacancies, but trouble ahead Read More »
UK government figures out today show a 1.5% shrinking in the size of the economy in the first three months of the year – huge by pre-covid standards, but better than was widely expected, with rapid growth in March as schools reopened and some economic life resumed. That last month is likely to be a
A shrinking economy in the first quarter, but the summer sugar rush is coming Read More »
