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Articles by Paul Mortimer-Lee
Assessing the Impact of President Trump's "Liberation Day" Tariffs
President Trump has levied a 10 per cent tariff on predominantly non-commodity goods imported from the United Kingdom, in addition to a 25 per cent tariff on steel, aluminium, and automobiles. These tariffs are only a fraction of the global “Liberation Day” tariff bundle which places non-commodity tariffs on some 90 nations including the European Union (20 per cent), China (34 per cent), and even the uninhabited Heard Island and McDonald Islands (10 per cent).
Topic Hub: UK Bond Markets
The UK bond market, also known as the “gilt market”, is where the UK government and other entities issue debt securities. Not only does it play a vital role in funding the UK government, it also provides valuable economic signals, and has an impact on the stability of the broader financial system.
Topic Hub: Quantitative Easing
The Bank of England first introduced quantitative easing (QE) in March 2009 in response to the Global Financial Crisis. Up to November 2020, the Bank had purchased £895 billion worth of bonds in total. In February 2022, they began reducing that stock of bonds, known as quantitative tightening (QT).
Linking Geopolitics to the Macroeconomy
No one would dispute that economic policy matters—be it fiscal, monetary, microeconomic policies, or the latest fashion, industrial strategies. Most would also subscribe to the view that for individual countries, the stability and quality of the legal, political, and economic systems matter for macroeconomic performance, even if the exact link is uncertain.
UK Investment Past and Prospects: A Framework for Analysis
By various assessments, UK investment has been weak for decades and has been the most sluggish of the advanced economies since the global financial crisis, worsening further since Brexit and Covid. Anaemic business investment is one source of the sluggish productivity growth that limits improvements in living standards in the UK. We need fresh research to assess the past and offer perspectives on how to support UK business investment in the future.
The Outlook for the UK Economy
The three shocks of Brexit, Covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – which we must never forget represents a humanitarian tragedy – have all contributed to reducing the living standards of UK households, by which I mean a substantial fall in real incomes.
UK Wage and Price Inflation and the Middle East Conflict
So, what does the data suggest is going on with wage and price inflation at the moment? As I noted in last week’s Wage Tracker, the latest ONS wage data indicate that the annual growth rate of average weekly earnings, including bonuses, was 8.1 per cent in the three months to August. Excluding bonuses, average pay growth was 7.8 per cent– representing one of the highest annual regular pay growth rates recorded since comparable records began in 2001.
Central banks must brace for another energy shock
Tweet Facebook LinkedIn Save this article Send to Print this page The humanitarian cost of conflict between Israel and Hamas makes other issues pale by comparison, and our hopes and prayers are with the victims. Yet the wider economic ramifications will affect billions of people globally. There is a concrete risk if the situation deteriorates that Middle Eastern energy producers could physically restrict supplies to supporters of Israel and cut production to push up prices.
Exploring Recent Revisions to GDP
GDP involves putting together a lot of information from different sources: from business surveys to tax returns. Some of the information only comes in after a considerable time: for example, income tax returns for year 2022/3 will not all be in until January 2024 whilst corporate tax can be 9 months after the end of the companies tax-year. Once all of the data is in, there is a process of “balancing” the estimates so that income, output and expenditure are consistent.
Economic costs of the Russia‐Ukraine war
REFERENCES , , , , , , , , & (2022). What if? The economic effects for Germany of a stop of energy imports from Russia. ECONtribute Policy Brief No. 028. , , & (2022). Sanctions and the international monetary system, VoxEU.org, 5 April. https://voxeu.org/article/sanctions-and-international-monetary-system , , & (2022). Cutting Russia's fossil fuel exports: Short-term pain for long-term gain. The World Economy, 1–30.https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13301 , , & (2018).
Improved Trade Balance with the European Union Raises Challenging Brexit Questions
There has been a significant improvement in the UK’s net trade performance with the European Union (EU) since the 2016 Brexit vote. The previous negative trend in the real net trade balance with EU has not only stopped but is improving. Main points In 2015 and 2016, the overall trade balance was in deficit by £30 billion and £33billion, respectively. In 2017 and 2018, the deficit was slightly smaller, at £26 billion and £28 billion, with a fall to under £21 billion in 2019.
And Now, On US Inflation?
My earlier blog On US inflation now, issued in September at the peak of the third wave of Covid, proposed a three-part trigger for the Federal Reserve to begin withdrawal of pandemic monetary stimulus: personal savings rates below pre-pandemic levels underlying nominal wage growth destabilizing; and above-target inflation appearing in trimmed mean PCE, excluding base effects.
Furlough was vital in lockdown—but it’s time to end it - Prospect Magazine
Job vacancies in the UK are at a record high. Photo: Washington Imaging / Alamy Stock Photo The government’s furlough scheme has been a saviour for many employees and firms, supporting nearly 12 million jobs since its introduction in March 2020, at the time of the first lockdown. However, its task of sandbagging against a potential tidal wave of redundancies is done.
CPI Inflation, July 2021
Main points The CPI inflation rate was 2.0% in June 2021, down from 2.5% in June. This decrease of -0.5% was due to the old inflation dropping out (May-June 2020), often referred to as a “base effect”. There was no new inflation between June and July 2021, with the price index remaining constant. The new monthly inflation rate for June-July of 0% follows on after three successive months of high monthly inflation (at 0.5-0.6% for March-April, April-May and May-June).
Effective COVID-19 policy is not only about public health, but also about economics
The COVID-19 crisis has upended the lives of many, causing almost 200M global infections to date, over 4M deaths and untold damage to the livelihoods of millions. Although the recent vaccine rollout in some parts of the world offers some room for optimism, the epidemic is still far from defeated and many in the developing world are still at significant risk of infection.
The UK’s Brave New World
One reason for the UK leaving the EU was the promise of ‘taking back control’ of trade policy. The UK would give up its influence and vote on EU policies in return for the freedom to negotiate its own trade agreements with countries around the world. It is more than four decades since the UK last took the lead in trade negotiations. Back then, exports were mostly domestic manufactured goods where a pound of exports meant a pound of local profits and wages.
How did we get here?
A short and unreliable account of immigration to the UK[1] 09 September, 2015 27 min read A short and unreliable account of immigration to the UK[1] [Important note and caveat. I wrote this short paper in 2000, as an internal background note to the PIU/Home Office research project “Migration: An Economic and Social Analysis“.
Issues in the Design of Fiscal Policy Rules
Theory suggests that government should as far as possible smooth taxes and its recurrent consumption spending, which means that government debt should act as a shock absorber, and any planned adjustments in debt should be gradual. This suggests that operational targets for governments (e.g. for 5 years ahead) should involve deficits rather than debt, because such rules will be more robust to shocks.
The deficit is falling..
[Updated 17.00 with HMT response: see end] The deficit is falling! Today’s figures show that the budget deficit for 2012-13 (public sector net borrowing, excluding some of the more obvious distortions) was £120.6 billion – £0.3 billion lower than in 2011-12. So maybe the Chancellor’s cunning plan – to reduce last year’s deficit by not paying some of the UK’s bills until this year, also known as “the cheque is in the post” strategy, has worked.
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