Investment

It’s time to transform the UK economy

philmullan Covid-19, Creative destruction, Economic policy, Innovation, Investment, State intervention

It is said that crises provide fertile ground for innovation. This is only partly true. The acute pressures, the falling away of pre-crisis norms and the sidestepping of regulations, liberate individuals and teams of people to come up with great ideas about how to do things differently. This fresh thinking can originate better, more effective and efficient ways of conducting existing productive activity, or it can conceive brand new products or services that improve people’s lives.

Certainly in this pandemic and the lockdown crisis, we have already seen lots of inventive deliberation.  But where the saying falls short is that devising creative ideas is not enough for innovation. Innovation represents the implementation of that creativity for social benefit. While crises can be great times for ingenious thought, novel ideas only become innovations when they are applied and are replicated to bring change, improvement and progress to people’s lives.

This conception of innovation brings out the biggest obstacle to seeing much of it happening in the medium-term future. We are not just in a period of crisis, but a crisis within an existing state of economic depression. Depression is not simply an extension to recession, in the way it is being discussed today. It is a protracted phase of economic sclerosis that has become self-reinforcing.

Read the full article here.

Beyond the zombie economy

philmullan Creative destruction, Economic growth, Economic policy, Investment, Productivity, Zombie economy

The UK’s productivity problem not only long precedes the Brexit discussions. It also long precedes the 2008 financial crisis. Longer-term studies actually reveal that the decline in productivity growth, not just in Britain but across mature industrialised countries, has been pretty relentless since the 1970s. That its slowdown began so long ago means the problem is deep-seated and therefore justifies a substantial strategic response. This is usually presented as an activist industrial policy.

But the big paradox about industrial policies is the contrast between the extensive cross-party consensus on this issue and the lack of headway in reviving investment and productivity. Read the full article here.

 

Free market vs nationalisation? It’s a delusional divide

philmullan Economic policy, Investment, Politics, State intervention

This autumn’s UK party conferences triggered reminiscences about the old political debates from the 1970s and 1980s. Jeremy Corbyn wowed his new Labour Party supporters with a call for full-scale nationalisation, including of the rail, mail, water and energy companies. In response, senior Tories used their conference speeches to assert the merits of the ‘free market’, under the inspiring mantra of ‘no return to the 1970s’. Theresa May used her infamous leader’s speech to declare that ‘the free-market economy, for so long the basis of our prosperity’, is under threat, and needs defending.

As a great 19th-century thinker remarked, history repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, and second as farce.

Read the full article here.

A successful industrial strategy requires letting zombie firms die

philmullan Economic policy, Investment, Politics, State intervention

As the government considers its industrial strategy white paper, due later this year, it must first break free from blinkered thinking.

While doubtless well intentioned, the familiar policies under discussion so far – additional public infrastructure investment, more state-funded research, and skills enhancement, with a particular focus on management training – are not sufficient to bring about a new industrial revolution.

The flaw in this approach is that none are new practices – and even as they have been operating, Britain’s productivity trap has been getting worse. Repeating what hasn’t been working is not a good route.

Read the full article here.