No amount of political Budget gloss will cover the cracks of the UK’s productivity problem, but the role of place in the industrial strategies offers a glimmer of hope
No amount of political Budget gloss will cover the cracks of the UK’s productivity problem, but the role of place in the industrial strategies offers a glimmer of hope. Continue reading “Government finally shows signs of spatial awareness in its industrial strategy”
But the Commission’s final report misses an opportunity to put sub-regional devolution at the heart of a new approach to strategic economic management.
But the Commission’s final report misses an opportunity to put sub-regional devolution at the heart of a new approach to strategic economic management.
“Rise up with me against the organisation of misery,” rallied Sir Michael Marmot in his 2010 landmark review of health inequalities in the UK. Quoting Pablo Neruda lends poetic grace to the weight of Marmot’s quantitative evidence as to the ‘social gradient’ of health. Poor people die younger and get ill earlier. In their lifetime, people living in the most deprived areas of the country are likely to experience levels of ill health not seen amongst individuals in the least deprived areas for another 20 years. Health inequalities are inextricably linked to social and economic inequalities. As the World Health Organisation (WHO) put it starkly, “social injustice is killing on a grand scale”.
Continue reading “Fresh vision as the Industrial Strategy Commission moves beyond sector deals”
The British people have spoken loud and clear by returning a hung parliament. They have rejected a hard Brexit and a drift towards nationalism. But they have also rejected a return to the neoliberalism of the 1980s and the socialism of the 1970s.
The British people have spoken loud and clear by returning a hung parliament. They have rejected a hard Brexit and a drift towards nationalism. But they have also rejected a return to the neoliberalism of the 1980s and the socialism of the 1970s. Continue reading “The British electorate moves beyond neoliberalism, nationalism and socialism”
An industrial strategy should address the persistent overvaluation of sterling and the failure to develop an appropriate system of technical education
Executive summary
On the eve of the EU referendum vote, according to numerous measures the British economy was performing exceptionally well. Unemployment was low and employment participation rates were at all-time highs, with continued low inflation. GDP growth since the financial crisis was only marginally behind Canada and the US, but well ahead of Germany and France.
Continue reading “Report: Rebalancing the UK economy – A post-Brexit industrial strategy”
Does inequality matter? The former business secretary, Vince Cable, challenges the view that there is a trade-off between growth and equality, or that equality of opportunity is sufficient
Summary
Inequality is hardly a new issue. But the evidence on the extent of inequality and how it impacts our economy has moved on dramatically in recent years. The rise of populist politicians has also laid bare how globalisation has negatively impacted parts of society.
Writing in European magazine E!Sharp, Thomas Aubrey cites research showing falling levels of trust in business across Europe
Writing in European magazine E!Sharp, our director Thomas Aubrey cites research showing that the gap in trust in business between the elites or “informed public” – defined as those with a college education and a top quartile income – and the rest of the mass population has been widening over the last few years.
Continue reading “Improving trust in business across Europe”
Writing in City AM, Vince Cable, Andrew Cooper and Stephen Kinnock call for more action to restore trust in capitalism
Writing in City AM, three of the members of the Centre for Progressive Capitalism’s cross-party advisory board call for more action to restore trust in capitalism. Continue reading “Restoring trust in capitalism means moving beyond ideology”
Our exclusive survey finds that the public think the UK’s economic system is stacked in favour of the wealthy
Our exclusive survey finds that the public think the UK’s economic system is stacked in favour of the wealthy
To mark the launch of the Centre for Progressive Capitalism, we recently commissioned Populus to survey the public on their views on the UK’s economic system. Populus surveyed 2,053 respondents online between 24th and 28th March 2016. The findings provide a stark illustration of the lack of trust in the economic system and in both government and business, as well as people’s fears about the future for young people.
Continue reading “New survey reveals the lack of trust in our economic system”
Pre-distribution is about correcting market failures before they have even occurred
Predistribution is about correcting market failures before they have even occurred. In that sense, the concept can be seen as returning market theory back to its roots
Inequality is currently perhaps the major preoccupation in public debate and academic scholarship, due to the unprecedented concentration of wealth that has emerged in the last decades. The question is, what is to be done? Two converging lines seem dominant. One is the idea of predistribution, advanced by the American political scientist Jacob Hacker, namely “the way in which the market distributes its rewards in the first place.” As he has shown with Paul Pierson, legislative drift as well as capture have allowed policies that systematically favor financial and political elites. The other is the imposition of higher tax rates, especially on top income brackets, which the French economist Thomas Piketty and his collaborator, Emmanuel Saez, have shown cannot be assumed to negatively affect growth.
