It will have escaped no one’s notice that the UK is in an employment crisis. In the OBR’s Central Estimate, unemployment is set to rise to record levels, surpassing even the peak of joblessness in the 80s. At the same time, social distancing measures have hit productivity hard. It’s not their fault, but a waiter […]
Uber can stay in London, for now. The ride-sharing app is once again ‘fit and proper’ to operate, after winning an appeal against TfL’s decision to revoke their license. We’ve been here before. In 2017 when TfL banned Uber for the first time, they were overruled by the courts. Back then, Uber was granted a […]
“When will I use this in real life?” As schoolchildren return to the classroom, teachers will have to respond to a familiar question. They often have a good answer, but in a world where ways of working have changed dramatically over the past decade, and over the past several months, it’s a question policymakers should […]
When the pandemic hit, Rishi Sunak took radical action to freeze the economy into place, protecting jobs and keeping businesses afloat. It was the right response at the right time and won him praise from across the political spectrum. As I argued at the time, this isn’t a normal recession. Many good and otherwise profitable […]
At today’s Budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s focus will be on containing the economic impact of coronavirus. The top priority will be preventing otherwise profitable businesses from going bust and damaging long-run productivity. But it will be a missed opportunity if the short-term measures to keep SMEs afloat aren’t matched with policies to enable them to […]
Expect skills to feature at the next Budget. Within government, boosting human capital is seen as a key part of their plan to ‘level up’ Britain. It is likely to mean more funding for both FE colleges and early-years education. But it would be a mistake to assume tax-and-spend is the only answer. Innovative entrepreneurship […]
I can’t remember the last time I paid in cash. The rise of low-cost smartphone-enabled point of sales providers like SumUp, Square and iZettle have enabled even the smallest retailers to accept card payment. In London, the £5 minimum card payment is largely a distant memory. Some street food markets, which might have been the […]
If you were to ask most policy wonks what the Chancellor, Sajid Javid, should do to fix the UK’s tax system in the next budget, you’ll probably get the same answer. After conceding that merging NI and Income Tax or abolishing VAT zero-ratings is just too politically difficult, they’ll probably recommend scrapping Entrepreneurs’ Relief. Entrepreneurs’ […]
Entrepreneurship policy might not grab the headlines when each party sets out its stall in an election, but if you get it right, it’s a heck of a lot easier to do everything else. Entrepreneurial endeavours have taken humanity from subsistence to relative affluence and it is entrepreneurs who will raise the living standards of […]
Over the past decade, the British people have become more entrepreneurial. Fifteen years ago, Brits were just as likely to be engaged in early-stage entrepreneurial pursuits as Germans and the French. Today, Britain has become a ‘mid-Atlantic’ economy. We may not be as entrepreneurial as Americans, but we’ve broken ahead of Germany and France. One […]
At a time of rising pessimism about the UK economy, a vibrant startup scene attracting record levels of venture capital investment is a rare bright spot. A new report from The Entrepreneurs Network reveals how immigrant entrepreneurs are the driving force behind many of the UK’s biggest startup success stories. While the media coverage of […]
Why has productivity growth been so stagnant over the past decade or so? In the UK, policymakers have mostly bought a story, put forward by Bank of England Chief Economist Andy Haldane, that blames a long-tail of underperforming firms as the underlying cause. Yet the conventional wisdom is unsatisfactory for two reasons. First, while it […]
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” – Friedrich Hayek Alain Bertaud is a rarity – an urban planner aware of his professions’ limitations. In Order Without Design, he uses insights from urban economics alongside his own professional experience (working […]
Beware simple solutions to complicated problems. A tweet from a16z’s Benedict Evans sums it up: “The slogan ‘Break up Amazon!’ (or Google or Facebook) reminds me of ‘Brexit’ – it sounds simple until you ask, well, ‘into what?’”. Simple slogans are, however, effective politics. It should come as no surprise then to see a chorus […]
When you tax something, you get less of it. That’s why when governments want to raise revenue to fund public services, they need to pay close attention to how taxes affect behaviour. In general, they would be wise to tax ‘bads’ (e.g. tobacco, pollution, and congestion) before taxing ‘goods’ (e.g. work, investment, and R&D). If […]
“Economic progress, in capitalist society, means turmoil” wrote Joseph Schumpeter. Society can’t move forward if we don’t make space for new ideas. If we want creation then we must accept the destruction that comes with it. You can’t have capitalism without failure. In fact, business failure rates are highest in the places where it’s easiest […]
This week CapX is republishing some of our favourite articles of the year. This piece first appeared on July 3. Tesco teaming up with Carrefour is the latest in a series of mergers, acquisitions and partnerships announced following Amazon’s bold foray into the grocery sector. The prospect of intense price competition from the online retailer […]
Thumbing through the Government’s Immigration White Paper, I couldn’t help thinking of the classic short story The Monkey’s Paw. In the macabre tale, a family acquires possession of a cursed mummified monkey paw. The paw has the power to grant wishes but always with disastrous consequences attached. There are proposals within the White Paper that […]
This week, the government announced that they were suspending the Tier 1 Investor visa scheme over money-laundering concerns. Known informally as the “golden visa”, foreigners who invest £2 million in the UK gain the right to live and work here and can apply for permanent residency after five years (or sooner if they invest more). […]
The question is when, not if, “Big Tech” will “get regulated”. I can’t remember the last time I flicked through a newspaper and didn’t stumble on a columnist condemning the “arrogant” FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) and demanding that regulators bring them to heel. (As an aside, I can’t think of logical reason to […]
