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Dipper,
Were there many photographs of Gordon Brown or Tony Blair with Scandinavian social democrats ?
Origins of Corbynphobia
Why is there so much passionate, visceral hatred of Jeremy Corbyn? From an economic point of view, it seems a puzzle. His stated economic programme is modest. As James Meadway says, to large extent, “Corbynomics is Make Britain Normal Again” – to make us more like an ordinary European social dem...
"... only very deep trading agreements that go far beyond mere low tariffs (such as the EU’s single market) significantly boost trade."
The single market might boost trade, but does it significantly boost GDP per capita ? According to Table 7 in this - https://tinyurl.com/yc7odmw9able - it's made a difference in the UK of 1.3% after 25 years. Is that "significant" ?
Picking your own facts
The government’s own research says that leaving the EU will make us poorer in every scenario modelled, except presumably the fairies and unicorns option favoured by the government. Rightists have responded to this by claiming that economists know nothing. For example, Iain Martin tweeted that lo...
The self-employed seem to be largely ignored in these debates about minimum / living wages......
Costs of the living wage
The living wage could put some people out of work even if it has only small effects upon aggregate employment. I say so because of a new paper by Jan Kabatek which studies the effect of the Dutch minimum wage, which increases with age for workers up to the age of 23. Mr Kabatek shows that worker...
And if you agree with Richard Koo's "balance sheet recession" stuff, presumably anything that's likely to boost asset prices is worth a try ?
In defence of Help to Buy
Pretty much everyone, including me, agrees that Help to Buy is a lousy idea. So, in the spirit of a lawyer defending a psychopath, let me try to defend it. In part, Help to Buy is a deficit-reduction strategy. Insofar as the scheme encourages the private sector to run a smaller financial surplu...
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Nov 18, 2013
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