Question 3: Given the desired amount of deficit reduction, the Autumn Statement on balance:
Answer:
Should have relied more on tax increases
Confidence level:
Extremely confident
Comment:
Public services have already been cut to the bone. We are going to have to realise as a nation that if we want better public services we need to pay for them through higher taxes.
Question 2: Relative to the Autumn statement, would the UK be better off reducing public debt
Answer:
Substantially slower
Confidence level:
Extremely confident
Comment:
Again, the need at the moment is to loosen fiscal policy so as to help struggling households deal with the cost-of-living crisis.
Question 1: How necessary was it for the UK government to lower its deficit through tax increases or spending cuts in November 2022?
Answer:
Absolutely necessary
Confidence level:
Extremely confident
Comment:
The point was not whether or not they had to lower the deficit but whether they couldn't have left even more of that tightening to a time in the future, given the need to actually loosen fiscal policy to help support struggling households at the moment.
Question 3: Should a windfall tax be used to (fully or partially) finance support to households?
Answer:
No
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
Although windfall taxes are economically efficient, if energy companies expect their profits to be subject to a windfall tax whenever prices rise, they will be disincentivised from investing. And this is particularly important as we want them to be leading investment into the green technologies that will help the UK move towards net zero.
Question 2: Which of the following is the best way to address the impact of rising energy costs on household finances?
Answer:
Conditional/targeted transfers
Confidence level:
Very confident
Comment:
There are two issues here. We should let the price mechanism work to determine overall demand for energy, which is why I would not support a cap. And we should deal with the issue of the poorest households being hit particularly badly via redistribution.
The CFM surveys informs the public about the views held by prominent economists based in Europe on important macroeconomic and public policy questions. Some surveys focus specifically on the UK economy (as the CFM is a UK research centre), but surveys can in principle focus on any macroeconomic question for any region. The surveys shed light on the extent to which there is agreement or disagreement among these experts. An important motivation for the survey is to give a more comprehensive overview of the beliefs held by economists and in particular to include the views of those economists whose opinions are not frequently heard in public debates.
Questions mainly focus on macroeconomic and public policy topics. Although there are some questions that focus specifically on the UK economy, the setup of the survey is much broader and considers questions related to other countries/regions and also considers questions not tied to a specific economy.
The surveys are done in collaboration with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
Addressing UK public finances after the mini-budget crisis
Question 3: Given the desired amount of deficit reduction, the Autumn Statement on balance:
Question 2: Relative to the Autumn statement, would the UK be better off reducing public debt
Question 1: How necessary was it for the UK government to lower its deficit through tax increases or spending cuts in November 2022?
Assisting Households Facing Rising Energy Costs
Question 3: Should a windfall tax be used to (fully or partially) finance support to households?
Question 2: Which of the following is the best way to address the impact of rising energy costs on household finances?
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