Publications
Publication date: 17 Jun 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Main points
We comment on the structure and composition of the widely anticipated wave emerging in the UK. The advancing pattern is consistent with a race between, on the one hand, local surges that spill over geographically due to higher transmissibility of the now dominant Delta variant, and on...
Publication date: 16 Jun 2021
| Publication type: NIESR CPI Tracker
Lockdown unwinding boosts underlying inflation
Main points
Underlying inflation increased from 0.9 per cent in April to 1.2 per cent in May, displaying a smaller rise than headline consumer inflation which rose by 0.6 percentage points, reaching 2.1 per cent in May. The trimmed mean, which...
Publication date: 15 Jun 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Wage Tracker
Temporary rise in average wages, but underlying wage growth to stay around 2½ per cent
Main points
The labour market is continuing to recover from the pandemic, with employment, vacancies and wages all increasing. The recovery driven by improved confidence and the reopening of sectors of the...
Publication date: 11 Jun 2021
| Publication type: NIESR GDP Tracker
Strong start to second quarter driven by re-opening
Figure 1 - UK GDP
Main points
Another month of rapid service sector growth in April was driven by the re-opening of sectors affected by Covid-19 restrictions, resulting in a 2.3 per cent growth in monthly GDP almost in line with our May Tracker...
Publication date: 11 Jun 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Discussion Paper
| JEL Classification: C11, C51, E30
| NIESR discussion paper number: 530
Abstract
This paper proposes and estimates a new Two-Sector One-Agent model that features large shocks. The resulting medium-scale New Keynesian model includes the standard real and nominal frictions used in the empirical literature and allows for heterogeneous COVID-19 pandemic exposure across...
Publication date: 4 Jun 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Term Premium Tracker
Issue 1
Government Bond Term Premium Tracker
UK treasury yields rise due to an increase in the term premium
Main points
Despite continued support from the Bank of England through low interest rates and quantitative easing, the UK 10-year bond yield has risen since last summer. As economic...
Publication date: 3 Jun 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 16
Main points
With this edition we refocus the tracker on local surges in infection to address the question whether sudden increases observed are local spikes or are indicative of the start of a new wave. Given the divergence among local areas in case rates, and surge testing in areas with high...
Publication date: 27 May 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 15
Main points
We report estimates of the R number and forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions, and deaths due to Covid-19 using data that was publicly available as of 25th May 2021. In light of the low case rates (see below) this tracker will now be produced at fortnightly...
Publication date: 20 May 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 14
Main points
We report estimates of the R number and forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions, and deaths due to Covid-19 using data that was publicly available as of 18th May 2021.
Figure 1 shows that the Reproduction number, R, for England. R is the average number of secondary...
Publication date: 20 May 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Discussion Paper
| JEL Classification: C81, D31, E52, E58
| NIESR discussion paper number: 529
Abstract
In this paper we investigate the effect of standard and non-standard monetary policy implemented by the ECB on income inequality in Italy. We use a novel database based on the survey micro level data on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC, Istat) in a repeated cross-section experiment...
Publication date: 19 May 2021
| Publication type: NIESR CPI Tracker
Underlying inflation at 6-month high
Main points
Underlying inflation increased to a six-month high in April. The trimmed mean, which excludes 5 per cent of the highest and lowest price changes, recorded 0.9 per cent in April, up from 0.6 per cent in March 2021 (figure 1).
18.3 per cent of goods...
Publication date: 18 May 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Wage Tracker
No sign of persistent wage inflation despite lower unemployment and higher vacancies
Main points
NIESR’s wage tracker predicts that average weekly earnings growth will be 5.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2021, after 4.0 per cent in the first quarter. The increase is explained by both...
Publication date: 13 May 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 13
Main points
We report estimates of the R number and forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions, and deaths due to Covid-19 using data that was publicly available as of 11th May 2021.
Figure 1 shows that the Reproduction number, R, for England. R is the average number of secondary...
Publication date: 12 May 2021
| Publication type: NIESR GDP Tracker
Construction and education recovery to be followed by retail and hospitality
Main points
First quarter GDP growth of 1.5 per cent was in line with our April Tracker forecast. Today’s ONS data reported month-on-month growth of 2.1 per cent in March, reflecting the re-opening of schools, the...
Publication date: 10 May 2021
| Publication type: National Institute Global Economic Outlook
| Theme: Macroeconomics
A preview of NIESR's Spring Global Economic Outlook can be found below. The full outlook is only available to subscribers. If you are interested in subscribing to this publication, please subscribe here.
Preview
Global economic activity has rebounded from the sharp fall in the first half of last...
Publication date: 10 May 2021
| Publication type: National Institute UK Economic Outlook
| Theme: Macroeconomics
No. Number 2 Vol. Series A
| Publisher: NIESR, London
Our central forecast for economic growth in 2021 has been revised up to 5.7 per cent from 3.4 per cent in February. The immediate economic effects of the virus, which have been concentrated in the low-waged service sector, are expected to wane, while remaining negative consequences of Brexit will...
Publication date: 7 May 2021
| Publication type: Quarterly UK Economic Outlook Preview
This is a preview from the Quarterly UK Economic Outlook, May 2021.
This box focuses on adjustments of firms' product trade portfolio, i.e. the number of products exported and inputs imported, and it looks at the literature on past crises and UK data to infer how UK businesses may be adjusting...
Publication date: 7 May 2021
| Publication type: Quarterly UK Economic Outlook Preview
This is a preview from the Quarterly UK Economic Outlook, May 2021.
Business creation is an important indicator to monitor especially in the face of large shocks such as Covid-19. In this analysis, we use data from Companies House to calculate new company registrations by sector and geographical...
Publication date: 6 May 2021
| Publication type: Quarterly UK Economic Outlook Preview
This is a preview from the Quarterly UK Economic Outlook, May 2021.
The increase in government debt will translate into an increased sensitivity of any debt service costs to interest rate changes but the level of service costs remains low.
To place interest rate rises of the order cited by the...
Publication date: 6 May 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
| Report number: 12
Main points
We report estimates of the R number and forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions, and deaths due to Covid-19 using data that was publicly available as of 4th May 2021.
Figure 1 shows that the Reproduction number, R, for England. R is the average number of secondary...
Publication date: 6 May 2021
| Publication type: Quarterly UK Economic Outlook Preview
This is a preview from the Quarterly UK Economic Outlook, May 2021.
Expectations about the decisions that central banks will take in the future matter. Any change in the level of the short-term policy rate or the stock of asset purchases will have a negligible impact on asset prices and ultimately...
Publication date: 29 Apr 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 11
Main points
We report estimates of the R number and forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions, and deaths due to Covid-19 using data that was publicly available as of 27th April 2021.
SAGE has declared that due to the “increasing localised nature to managing the epidemic,...
Publication date: 26 Apr 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Occasional Paper
| Report number: 61
Prologue by Jagjit Chadha
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research has focussed on furthering our understanding of fiscal policy throughout most of its life. And so I was delighted when the Nuffield Foundation gave us the opportunity to ask some hard questions about our current fiscal...
Publication date: 22 Apr 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
| Report number: 10
Main points
We report estimates of the R number and forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions, and deaths due to Covid-19 using data that was publicly available as on 20th April 2021.
SAGE has declared that due to the “increasing localised nature to managing the epidemic,...
Publication date: 21 Apr 2021
| Publication type: Report
Introduction
Concerns have been raised in recent years about the oral language development of young children, particularly in areas of disadvantage. Estimates suggest that up to 50% of young children from deprived backgrounds have speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). These concerns have...
Publication date: 21 Apr 2021
| Publication type: NIESR CPI Tracker
Highest underlying inflation since October
Main points
Following the multi-year low point in February, underlying inflation increased to its highest level since October 2020. Our measure of underlying inflation recorded 0.6 per cent in the year to March 2021, up from 0.2 per cent in February 2021...
Publication date: 20 Apr 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Wage Tracker
The economy created more jobs than it lost during the third national lockdown
Main points
NIESR’s wage tracker predicts that average weekly earnings growth will grow at 5.2% in the second quarter of 2021, after increasing by 4.5% in the three months to February. Forecasts for private and public...
Publication date: 19 Apr 2021
| Publication type: Business Conditions Forum Summary
Agenda:
The discussion at this meeting was centred around trade and the latest economic developments. The discussion ended with a poll asking participants whether they thought restrictions would be lifted as per the government’s plan and whether there might be any new wave(s) of Covid-19.
Publication date: 15 Apr 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 9
Main points
We report estimates of the R number and forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions, and deaths due to Covid-19 using data that was publicly available as on 13th April 2021.
SAGE has declared that due to the “increasing localised nature to managing the epidemic,...
Publication date: 15 Apr 2021
| Publication type: Policy Paper
Issue 26
| Report number: 26
Abstract
Vaccination against the COVID-19 virus began in December 2020 in the UK and by the end of March 2021 were running at 5% population/week. High Levels of social restrictions were implemented for the third time in January 2021 to control the second wave and the resulting in increases in...
Publication date: 13 Apr 2021
| Publication type: NIESR GDP Tracker
Spring sees green shoots of economic recovery
Main points
Indications of further recovery during March mean that GDP is likely to have fallen by around 1.5 per cent in Q1 quarter-on-quarter.
Assuming that the vaccination and re-opening programmes continue to run to schedule, our first...
Publication date: 8 Apr 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 8
Main points
We report estimates of the R number and forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions, and deaths due to Covid-19 using data that was publicly available as on 6th April 2021.
Data on Covid-19 cases are reported by the government by ‘specimen date’ and by ‘published date...
Publication date: 1 Apr 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 7
Main points
We report estimates of the R number and forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions and deaths due to Covid-19 using publicly available data on 30th March 2021
Data on Covid-19 cases are reported by the government by ‘specimen date’ and by ‘published date’. Specimen cases...
Publication date: 25 Mar 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 6
Main points
We produce timely estimates of the R number and report forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions and deaths due to Covid-19 using publicly available data on 23rd March 2021.
Following government definitions data on cases can be represented by specimen date or by...
Publication date: 25 Mar 2021
| Publication type: Policy Paper
| JEL Classification: E52, E58, E63, H63.
| Report number: 25
Abstract
The coronavirus pandemic has led to a large increase in the U.K.’s government debt, and the Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that a rise in interest rates might imperil debt sustainability. If the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee were obliged to raise short-term...
Publication date: 24 Mar 2021
| Publication type: NIESR CPI Tracker
Non-essential retail prices drag down inflation
Main points
After increasing steadily for three months, underlying inflation has moderated to the lowest level recorded in four years. Our measure of underlying inflation recorded 0.2 per cent in the year to February 2021, down from 0.5 per cent...
Publication date: 23 Mar 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Wage Tracker
The vaccination programme gives the first shots of hope to the labour market, but unemployment to trend up
Main points
NIESR’s wage tracker predicts that average weekly earnings growth will stay broadly unchanged at 4.8% in the first quarter of 2021, compared to 4.7% in the previous quarter.
The...
Publication date: 18 Mar 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 5
Main points
We produce timely estimates of the R number and report forecasts for new cases of Covid-19, hospital admissions and deaths due to Covid-19 using publicly available data on 16th March 2021.
Figure 1 shows that the Reproduction number, R, which is the average number of secondary...
Publication date: 16 Mar 2021
| Publication type: National Institute Economic Review
| JEL Classification: E52; E58; E63
| Journal: National Institute Economic Review
Issue 255
| Publisher: Cambridge University Press
This paper describes how the large budget deficits of 2020 in the United States and the United Kingdom were financed, how central banks are in practice managed not just short-term interest rates but also yields on government bonds, and how their ability to resist a post-coronavirus surge in...
Publication date: 16 Mar 2021
| Publication type: National Institute Economic Review
| JEL Classification: D24; O47
| Journal: National Institute Economic Review
Issue 255
| Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Over the past 15 years, productivity growth in advanced economies has significantly slowed, giving rise to the productivity paradox of the New Digital Economy – that is, the notion of increased business spending on information and communication technology assets and digital services without a...
Publication date: 16 Mar 2021
| Publication type: National Institute Economic Review
| JEL Classification: C23; C26; E31
| Journal: National Institute Economic Review
Issue 255
| Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Modern economic theory gives an important role to expectations as an influence on outcomes. This paper reviews evidence on how well measures of expectations conform to outcomes. It confirms earlier results that measures taken from financial markets perform poorly as predictors of outcomes. Looking...
Publication date: 16 Mar 2021
| Publication type: National Institute Economic Review
| JEL Classification: O18; O33; R11
| Journal: National Institute Economic Review
Issue 255
| Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Across the United Kingdom public (and private) resources have been targeted on improving broadband infrastructure. While this has served to provide new opportunities for households and firms, there has been some debate around the ability of firms to take full advantage of the opportunities that...
Publication date: 16 Mar 2021
| Publication type: National Institute Economic Review
| JEL Classification: R5; O10; O15; O12; D03
| Journal: National Institute Economic Review
Issue 255
| Publisher: Cambridge University Press
This paper examines the implications for regional policy of new research on the role played by a failure in the ‘capacity to aspire’ [Appadurai, A. (2004), ‘The capacity to aspire’, in Rao, V. and Walton, M. (eds), Culture and Public Action, Washington, DC: World Bank.] in perpetuating disadvantage...
Publication date: 16 Mar 2021
| Publication type: National Institute Economic Review
| JEL Classification: D81; D91; H83
| Journal: National Institute Economic Review
Issue 255
| Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Much of public policy has in recent decades been driven by the idea of evidence-based policy – policy rooted in the principles of social science and, more specifically, empirical validation based on social and behavioural science. This article argues that evidence-based policy, while helping to...
Publication date: 16 Mar 2021
| Publication type: National Institute Economic Review
| JEL Classification: P10; P14; O15
| Journal: National Institute Economic Review
Issue 255
| Publisher: Cambridge University Press
This article assesses whether economic injustices that took place in the past still have significant implications for the material welfare of people many years later. That issue is central to the question of how fair is the distribution of wealth and income today. It is also relevant to issues of...
Publication date: 12 Mar 2021
| Publication type: NIESR GDP Tracker
Brexit and Covid put winter economy in deep freeze
Figure 1 - UK GDP
Main points
January’s smaller than expected fall in GDP means that we now estimate a contraction of 2.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2021. This would leave GDP in the...
Publication date: 11 Mar 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 4
Main points
The NIESR estimates use a new time series model to project new cases of Covid-19 and produce timely estimates of the R number. In addition, we also produce forecasts of hospital admissions and deaths due to Covid-19. The forecasts reported here were made using publicly available data...
Publication date: 10 Mar 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Discussion Paper
| JEL Classification: D7, D84, D91, H12, I12
| NIESR discussion paper number: 528
Abstract
How does a political leader’s messaging during a pandemic influence social distancing by citizens? We model the strategic choice of narrative in a beauty contest setting where the leader seeks to eliminate the disease. The leader’s resolve to eliminate the disease affects her narrative in...
Publication date: 4 Mar 2021
| Publication type: NIESR Covid-19 Tracker
Issue 3
Reproduction Number (R) and Forecasts of New Cases: Admissions and Deaths to Reduce Rapidly
Main points
The NIESR estimates use a new time series model to project new cases of Covid-19 and produce timely estimates of the R number. In addition, we also produce forecasts of hospital admissions...
Publication date: 1 Mar 2021
| Publication type: Report
Overview
Building on our recent NIESR report on Public Understanding of Economics and Economic Statistics, we conducted an additional 20 semi-structured interviews with members of the UK public. We explored public perceptions of the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and assessed what...
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