Winners and losers of the past five years
In his evidence to the Treasury Select Committee on the Summer Budget 2015, George Osborne opined that:
…distributional analysis is helpful. It helps inform the debate, and … shows how money is allocated by Government around the different income quintiles of society.
HM Treasury’s draft results have now been published. They show that low income households suffered the smallest pre-tax fall in income Read more →
The male wage premium
Wage inequality between men and women has split opinion in the UK after the Government last week announced that all large firms would have to publish the gap in average earnings between their male and female employees. In light of that debate, today’s HESA data on the pay of recent graduates is interesting. It shows that female graduates are slightly more likely than male graduates to be in work a year after graduating, but they earn considerably less.
Of course, that’s not necessarily a causal link Read more →
RIP Seamus Hogan
I just heard that Seamus Hogan died unexpectedly last week. Seamus is one of the people I admired most and a role model for any young economist. He always had time to talk through any problem and help out, even for the greenest of young graduates. His loss will be keenly felt by all those who knew him.
The cynicism of age isn’t universal
The ONS finds that older people are far more trusting of others than the young, they just don’t trust the Government. Does this account for Churchill’s apocryphal line?
If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.
George Osborne explains Summer Budget 2015
The first reckoning for any Budget is when the Office for Budget Responsibility releases its estimates of the fiscal and economic impact of the measures. The second is when the Chancellor appears in front of the Treasury Select Committee and explains the reasoning behind the Budget. George Osborne’s Summer Budget appearance happened yesterday and shed light on a number of his more controversial fiscal policies. This is my summary of his answers, presented without comment. Read more →