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It is certainly true that UK productivity has hardly grown in the years since the Financial Crisis. It is also the case that the UK has performed worse than other developed economies. However, the reason for this relative under-performance does not lie with “total factor productivity” (the portion of outputs not explained by the amount of inputs used in production). In considering what strategies are … Continue reading UK Productivity – JKP 2024
The word money emerged from the Latin ‘Moneta’, borrowed from the temple of Juno Moneta, the site of the then mint of Ancient Rome. It was Juno who constituted the Roman society’s paradigm of wealth. In this society where transactions were already conducted over monetary means, money was considered a true representation of its intrinsic value. That is, its worth was justified by the materials it was minted … Continue reading From Barter to Bills: The Evolution of Money
In times of economic uncertainty, why do wages and prices often remain ‘rigid,’ even as demand drastically falls or spikes? This phenomenon, known as ‘stickiness,’ is a central concept in Keynesian economics. The father of this section of economics, John Maynard Keynes, argued that without government intervention, mainly fiscal or monetary policies, the rigidity of prices can ’trap’ economies in high unemployment and slow growth … Continue reading Sticky Wages and Prices
The world of fine art presents a curious economic paradox: pieces that might seem to hold little intrinsic value often fetch astronomical sums, confounding the traditional relationship between cost and value. This disparity reflects the influence of social and cultural forces that determine the price of art in ways that deviate from standard economic principles. This article will investigate the factors that affect the art … Continue reading The Pricing of Fine Art
It is no secret that the U.K. economy is not in a great state: A recession (three consecutive quarters of economic contraction) was declared after the last fiscal quarter of 2023, following a decade of borderline economic stagnation, and with annual GDP growth (a measure of all the goods, and services produced) no greater than the two per cent pre-COVID[1] rate. The picture painted by the … Continue reading UK Productivity – JKP 2024
Labour currently face a catch-22 situation: they need to encourage growth in a country that recently exited a recession, while also filling in the £22 billion fiscal ‘black hole’. But how will they approach fiscal policy in this upcoming Autumn Budget? Will Labour continue their approach of making ‘hard decisions’ or will they take a tamer approach on the 30th of October? As always, the government has … Continue reading Labour’s Autumn Budget: Balancing Growth with Fiscal Reality
Amidst the complexities of the UK economy, productivity stands in the way of sustained economic growth. The UK’s productivity has barely grown since the financial crisis. One method of measuring this is through using total factor productivity (TFP). Since 2007, just before the financial crash the following year, the TFP of the UK has only increased 1.7%, compared to the 27% increase from the 16 years preceding … Continue reading What strategies would be most effective for improving UK productivity? – JKP 2024
In the 1950s, St Lucian economist Sir William Arthur Lewis theorised the ‘Dual Sector Model’ or the ‘Lewis Model’. The model examines structural change within developing economies which results in rapid periods of economic growth. The Lewis model centres upon a dualistic economy, which is split into the agricultural “subsistence” sector and the industrial “modern” sector. This divide can be simplified to those working in … Continue reading The Lewis Model of Development
Productivity is defined as the amount of output produced per unit of input. The most commonly used notion is labour productivity which denotes output per working hour. It has been widely acknowledged that the UK has suffered from a productivity problem: a 0.3% decrease in GDP per hour compared to 2022 and a decrease of 24% from the forecasted trend pre-financial crisis, ranking the UK bottom of all … Continue reading What strategies would be most effective for improving UK productivity? – JKP 2024
The launch of Uber in 2009, heralded the birth of the so called “Gig Economy” involving the exchange of labour and resources through a digital platform that could actively match buyers (riders in the case of Uber) with sellers (the drivers). On such platforms, workers perform smaller jobs, commonly referred to as ‘gigs’, instead of, or perhaps on top of, a full-time job and are … Continue reading Does the gig economy support sustainable economic growth?
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