Stephen Millard's picture
Affiliation: 
National Institute of Economic and Social Research
Credentials: 
Visiting Professor, Durham University Business School

Voting history

Causes for Weak Long-Run UK Growth

Question 2: Which of the following policies would do the most to boost UK GDP in the medium term (over the next decade)?

Answer:
Public investments and R&D subsidies
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
I think the answer here is really 'all of the above'. It's not clear that one policy on its own will be enough to improve our growth prospects: there is no 'silver bullet'. Rather, it will be important to enact a set of policies addressing all of the different problems discussed in the above text.

Question 1: Which of the following will be the most important constraint on UK potential output in 2023, relative to its pre-2019 trend?

Answer:
Labor force participation
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
All of the options will matter for 2023 to some degree. In the longer run, (hopefully) the war will end and people will return to the labour force, leaving policy uncertainty, Brexit and workforce skills the most important issues holding back UK growth.

Addressing UK public finances after the mini-budget crisis

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.

Pages