Andy Haldane has been given a golden opportunity to influence the so far ill-defined levelling up agenda. How can he make the most of it?

Dan Corry offers his opinion on the appointment of Andy Haldane, the former Bank of England chief economist as head of the government’s levelling up taskforce. He writes that Haldane will want to define what levelling up really is, the period of time during which results can be achieved, and the role of social infrastructure and civil society in areas that are falling behind

UK economic performance since 1997: growth, productivity and jobs

A common view is that the performance of the UK economy between 1997 and 2010 under Labour was very weak and that the current economic problems are a consequence of poor policies in this period. In this report, we analyse the historical performance of the UK economy since 1997 compared with other major advanced economies and with performance prior to 1997, notably the years of Conservative government, 1979-97. We focus on measures of business performance, especially productivity growth. This is a key economic indicator as in the long run, productivity determines material wellbeing - wages and consumption. Productivity determines the size of the 'economic pie' available to the citizens of a country

UK Economic Performance Since 1997: Growth, Productivity and Jobs

A common view is that the performance of the UK economy between 1997 and 2010 under Labour was very weak and that the current economic problems are a consequence of poor policies in this period. In this report, we analyse the historical performance of the UK economy since 1997 compared with other major advanced economies and with performance prior to 1997, notably the years of Conservative government, 1979-97. We focus on measures of business performance, especially productivity growth. This is a key economic indicator as in the long run, productivity determines material wellbeing - wages and consumption. Productivity determines the size of the "economic pie" available to the citizens of a country.Income, productivity, UK economic performance, government economic policy, Great Recession, business

The UK’s sustained growth between 1997 and 2008 was fuelled by the importance of skills and new technology: rather than just austerity, the government should focus on building human capital and innovation to support long-term growth.

Some commentators have argued that the prosperity boom experienced under the last Labour government was a ‘free ride’ which benefited from the earlier policies of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives, and that Labour did little to improve the economy, leaving it in a more vulnerable state when the global recession came. New research from Anna Valero, John Van Reenen and Dan Corry takes an in-depth look at the UK’s GDP and productivity growth between 1997 and 2010, and finds that many of Labour’s policies were beneficial for economic growth, and that this growth was not all an unsustainable ‘bubble’, but was based on some real productivity increases fed by growth in new skills and technology. However, in some areas, such financial regulation Labour’s policies clearly failed. Using this evidence, the authors recommend the chancellor slows fiscal consolidation, and more importantly, develops an explicit growth strategy around human capital, infrastructure and innovation.

Giving civil society a boost: a progressive path to the ‘shared society’

Earlier this year, the Prime Minister spoke about her ‘shared society’ vision. But a slogan itself will not shift us closer to a genuinely progressive civil society. Dan Corry and Gerry Stoker set out a programme of reform and explain how it could really change the way British society works

Post-Brexit Industrial Strategy: a curious complacency hovers over the General Election

Unlike during the 2015 campaigns, the state of the economy is not at the forefront of this general election. Neither is one of the UK’s biggest economic problems: productivity. Peter Kenway and Dan Corry write that solving this problem should be the primary goal of the institutions responsible for industrial strategy

Not left behind? Five questions that need answering before the Copeland and Stoke by-elections

There will be two by-elections this month, yet the focus is more on who will win than on what policies they will adopt if they do win. Peter Kenway, Dan Corry, and Steve Barwick outline the main problems facing Stoke and Copeland, and set some key questions that will make for a more substantive debate

Ionic Interactions in Biological and Physical Systems: a Variational Treatment

Chemistry is about chemical reactions. Chemistry is about electrons changing their configurations as atoms and molecules react. Chemistry studies reactions as if they occurred in ideal infinitely dilute solutions. But most reactions occur in nonideal solutions. Then everything (charged) interacts with everything else (charged) through the electric field, which is short and long range extending to boundaries of the system. Mathematics has recently been developed to deal with interacting systems of this sort. The variational theory of complex fluids has spawned the theory of liquid crystals. In my view, ionic solutions should be viewed as complex fluids. In both biology and electrochemistry ionic solutions are mixtures highly concentrated (~10M) where they are most important, near electrodes, nucleic acids, enzymes, and ion channels. Calcium is always involved in biological solutions because its concentration in a particular location is the signal that controls many biological functions. Such interacting systems are not simple fluids, and it is no wonder that analysis of interactions, such as the Hofmeister series, rooted in that tradition, has not succeeded as one would hope. We present a variational treatment of hard spheres in a frictional dielectric. The theory automatically extends to spatially nonuniform boundary conditions and the nonequilibrium systems and flows they produce. The theory is unavoidably self-consistent since differential equations are derived (not assumed) from models of (Helmholtz free) energy and dissipation of the electrolyte. The origin of the Hofmeister series is (in my view) an inverse problem that becomes well posed when enough data from disjoint experimental traditions are interpreted with a self-consistent theory.Comment: As prepared for Faraday Discussion, Pavel Jungwirth Organizer, 3 - 5 September 2012, Queens College Oxford, UK on Ion Specific Hofmeister Effects. Version 2 has significant typo corrections in eq. 1 and eq. 4, and has been reformatted to be easier to rea