Duncan Weldon's Archive

Duncan Weldon

I work as a Senior Policy Officer in the Economic and Social Affairs Department covering macroeconomics and regional policy. I’ll be blogging about fiscal policy, monetary policy, international macroeconomics, the banking & finance sector, taxation, public spending, inflation, the labour market and regional economic development.

Before joining the TUC I had a fairly varied career taking in the Bank of England, fund management, the Labour Party and an international trade union confederation.

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Economic Reports
Two years on – time for the Government to think again

24th May 2012 — Filed under: Economic Reports

Duncan Weldon

Today we learned that GDP actually fell by a bit more in the first quarter than previously believed, -0.3% rather than -0.2%.

But important as the severity of the double-dip is, the wider issue is the longer term stagnation of the UK economy. Today’s figures make clear that we have essentially no growth in the past 18 months.

It’s against this background that today’s FT features a whole range of ideas to boost growth – from boosting infrastructure spending (favoured by NIESR’s Jonathan Portes) to the a ‘balanced budget expansion’ (as argued for by the SMF’s Ian Mulheirn) to more inventive and expansionary monetary policy (the preferred Plan B of the IMF).

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Economics
Monetary and fiscal stimulus are not the same thing

22nd May 2012 — Filed under: Economics

Duncan Weldon

I’m still working my way through the IMF’s thoughts on the UK economy. But so far I’m inclined to agree with Larry Elliot’s take at the Guardian:

The IMF says plan B should involve the Bank of England cutting interest rates from their already record-low level of 0.5% and chucking some more newly minted money at the economy through the process known as quantitative easing. Only if that fails to do the trick does the Fund think the chancellor should resort to fiscal policy – decisions affecting tax and spending – to boost demand. As far as the Fund is concerned, deliberately increasing borrowing in an attempt to stimulate demand is plan C not plan B.

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Economics
Cost of Living: Time to write a letter to the poorest?

22nd May 2012 — Filed under: Economics

Duncan Weldon

Today’s inflation figures brought another welcome fall in the pace of price increases. But as earnings growth continues to slow, lower inflation is not feeding through into rising real wages.

As previously noted, the TUC has started tracking the different rates of inflation faced by the poorest 10% of households and the richest 10%. (The post linked to explains the methodology).

As can be seen in the chart below, the poorest 10% have faced higher inflation than the richest since August 2011. This is because they spend a greater proportion of their income on essentials such as food and utility bills, items where prices have been rising faster.

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Economics
The Unequal Impact of Inflation

11th May 2012 — Filed under: Economics

Duncan Weldon

Research we’ve published today shows that over the past year high inflation has hit the poorest much harder than the high earners.

A variety of factors both domestic (such as the hike in VAT) and global (a rising oil price following the Arab Spring) pushed inflation higher in 2011, but as different households spend a differing proportion of their income on different items, the impact of rising prices has been far from uniform.

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Economics
Beyond Austerity: A Growth Plan for Europe

4th May 2012 — Filed under: Economics

Duncan Weldon

I’ve spent the last couple of days in Rome at the excellent ‘Beyond Austerity’ conference, not to be confused with the TUC’s own upcoming (and highly recommended) ‘After Austerity’ conference.

Most of the papers from Beyond Austerity are available here and are well worth a look.

I can’t really do justice to two days of discussions in one blog post (and another post specifically on banking and financial regulation will follow next week) but I thought it might be interesting to try and summarise the key points of what a European growth agenda might look like.

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Economics
UK & US Policy Compared

26th April 2012 — Filed under: Economics

Duncan Weldon

Yesterday’s GDP figures have reopened the debate on the UK versus the US recoveries and the effectiveness of different policy responses.

Some commentators are loath to blame the government’s austerity programme for the stagnation of the economy over the past 15 months. Instead they point to factors such as the Eurozone crisis and an external inflation shock that depressed household incomes. Now of course the Eurozone crisis will have impact on UK exports – but there was little evidence of this in 2011 where net trade actually added to growth whilst the domestic economy contracted. Equally the inflation shock has certainly had an impact, but it seems clear to me that the government’s fiscal policies have also been a drag on growth.

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Economics
What level of growth would be a ‘success’?

24th April 2012 — Filed under: Economics

Duncan Weldon

Tomorrow we get GDP figures for the first quarter. Given this it seems like a good time to look (once again) at what is happening to national income per head.

2011 is widely accepted as a bad year for the UK economy – it was characterised by low growth overall, falling domestic demand, a squeeze on living standards and rising unemployment.

But in many ways it was actually even worse than is widely acknowledge – GDP per capita (i.e. growth once we account for population change) actually fell.

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Economic Reports
Labour Market Report

23rd April 2012 — Filed under: Economic Reports

Duncan Weldon

The TUC’s latest Labour Market Report is available here. Whilst the headline fall in unemployment is welcome, the latest jobs figures show that employment growth is being drievn by part-time and precarious work and accompanied by falling real wages. The ‘recovery’ so far is very weak indeed.

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Economics
Mortgage rates & the aims of policy

20th April 2012 — Filed under: Economics

Duncan Weldon

George Osborne’s Budget statement:

Mr Deputy Speaker, our commitment to reduce the deficit is keeping interest rates low.

In this Budget, we take measures to ensure that the benefits of those low market interest rates are felt across our economy.

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Economics
The Labour Market in One Chart

19th April 2012 — Filed under: Economics

Duncan Weldon

Yesterday I wrote that the ‘recovery’ in the labour market was driven part-time and precarious work and marked by falling real wages. The chart below sums up many of the outstanding issues:

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Duncan Weldon's Archive

Duncan Weldon

Two years on – time for the Government to think again

Monetary and fiscal stimulus are not the same thing

Cost of Living: Time to write a letter to the poorest?

The Unequal Impact of Inflation

Beyond Austerity: A Growth Plan for Europe

UK & US Policy Compared

What level of growth would be a ‘success’?

Labour Market Report

Mortgage rates & the aims of policy

The Labour Market in One Chart

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