Labour have a huge
set of spending proposals, many of which are unequivocally good like
extra spending on the NHS, some are open to debate like abolishing
student loans, and only one that I think is foolish (keeping the
state pension age at 66). It would be good if all the debate was
about these spending pledges. However the standard excuse for why you
cannot have these things has always been about paying for them.
There are actually
two issues here. The first concerns current spending, around £80
billion each year or about 4% of GDP, and public investment, expected
to rise by about £50 billion a year or over 2% of GDP. Labour's
current spending increase is financed £ for £ mainly by higher
taxes on corporations, capital gains and high earners, while the
investment is financed through borrowing. Let me take each in order,
The figure for the
increase in current spending and taxes is large. I personally would
not call it colossal but it is large. I would argue that reflects the
extent of the squeeze we have seen on the public sector since 2010.
But what about the argument that it makes the share of government
current spending in GDP the highest since the 1970s? A much better
comparison is to look at other countries, as the Resolution
Foundation has done here.
What Labour’s
plans do is to move the UK from the bottom of the league table in
terms of the size of the state to somewhere around the middle.
I think this is a
key part of the Corbyn project. Under Thatcher, but particularly
since Cameron and Osborne, the UK has pretended it can have a state
only a bit bigger than the US. But of course the US does not have a
universal health service free at the point of delivery. So a key goal
of this manifesto is to move us from the bottom to the average in
terms of size of states. Another way of putting it is that the UK
will become closer to the European average, and further away from the
US/Canada level.
The reason why
comparisons with the UK’s past are misleading can be summed up with
three letters: the NHS. For reasons I have talked about in the past,
spending on health has been increasing as a share of GDP since WWII.
Every time the Conservatives try to halt this we get growing waiting
times. That means that the share of the state in GDP is bound to rise
over time, unless there is some offsetting component of public
spending. In the 90s there was - lower military spending following
the end of the Cold War - but now there is nothing. So the size of
the state is bound to rise over time.
Who is going to pay
for getting us to the average of European countries. Under Labour’s
plans it is the rich and corporations. I think Paul Johnson in his
initial TV comments on the manifesto confused two things, and as a
result said some things which were very open to misinterpretation.
(Initial reactions to complex documents are often hard to get right,)
There is no ‘black hole’ in Labour’s costings. The IFS say
the corporation tax numbers are realistic, and I know Labour have
tried hard to make them so. Johnson’s point is that companies are
not people, and some people will pay this tax. The question is who.
On this issue it has
to be said that there is no settled view from the empirical evidence.
At one end you have the studies presented
in a recent IPPR report (p11). This suggests that most of corporation
tax changes fall on shareholders. Now some of those shareholders will
indeed be pension funds, but that might influence those who hold those
funds rather than those who hold none. Other evidence suggests a
50/50 split between shareholders and workers, and some suggest
workers end up paying an even greater share. The honest answer is we
do not know what the incidence will be.
There also seems to
be a legitimate difference of opinion over the longer term impact of
higher corporation tax. The IFS say it will reduce investment and
therefore profits. My own view is that corporation tax plays a pretty
small roll in investment decisions. The most important factor for
investment in non-traded goods is the future level of demand, and
here Labour’s strategy is very positive. For exporting firms that
are more mobile, factors like the skill base, ease of exporting and
political stability play a big role, which is why leaving the EU is
so costly.
I have no doubt that
a few of the tax increases proposed by Labour will not yield as much
as they hope. But most analysis misses the elephant in the room, and
that is Brexit. I think it is highly likely Brexit will not happen
under Labour, and even if it did it would be far less costly than
either the Tories plans, or the effects embodied in the OBR base
numbers that many people use. For this reason the LibDems have talked
about a ‘Remain bonus’ (in the incredible event they could form a majority government). Labour will also get this bonus.
As to the investment
part of the programme, the key issue is once again whether the
investment is needed and well spent. We should not be talking about
whether it is safe to borrow it. There is virtually no chance that
this money will not be available at low long term real interest
rates. No one should be scared of investing in
the future of our economy and the planet, whether its by adding 2% or
more to the deficit.
Much more
interesting than the ‘do the numbers add up’ question is thinking
about the macroeconomic impact of Labour’s plans. If you read some
people there will be an immediate run on sterling as capital takes
its money out of the UK. Of course if enough people believe this
nonsense it might happen, for a day or two. But the one area where
Labour are not radical is macroeconomic policy design. We will have
Bank of England independence and a solid state of the art fiscal
rule. As soon as that becomes clear any depreciation will be more than
reversed, and I suspect there will be an appreciation from day 1.
Sterling will appreciate on the expectations of an end to a hard
Brexit and rising interest rates.
Why will interest
rates rise? The large increase in public
investment alone represents a large fiscal expansion. So does the
increase in current spending, because a lot of the tax increases will
come out of personal or corporate savings. A big injection of demand
in the economy will require an increase in interest rates to prevent
inflation rising, although the appreciation in sterling will provide
some temporary cushioning.
An appreciation in
sterling is likely to raise the real wage of every worker in this country. Is an
increase in interest rates a problem? For some it may be, but of
course for every borrower there is also a saver. From a macroeconomic
point of view an increase in interest rates is long overdue. It is a
sign that that after a wasted decade we are finally getting the
economy moving. You thought the economy was already strong? Just more Conservatives lies. 2010 to 2018 has been the weakest period in terms of growth in GDP per head since the 1950s.
In the unlikely
event of a majority Labour government a stimulus of this scale might
lead to shortages of skilled labour that would mean some plans may be
delayed. More realistically that problem would be less severe in a minority
government where some of the manifesto might be blocked by coalition
partners. But either way, a Labour government implementing all or the
major part of this manifesto will mean the economy as a whole will
end a decade of low output and wage growth that has stifled UK
innovation and productivity growth.
We should ignore the
tired old discourse about whether we can pay for it, and focus on
the benefits each individual spending increase or investment project
might bring, and on the revitalisation of the economy that this
manifesto will generate.
"Coalition partners'. Bear in mind the distinction between a full coalition and a parliamentary pact. In a coalition, all parties in it have ministerial posts, take part in the day-to-day haggling over government business, and share Cabinet responsibility for everything that's done. In the latter, the smaller party promises votes on supply and support for a short list of other legislation, but stays outside the government. It isn't responsible for anything else. IIRC that was the nature of May's pact with the DUP. Since the LibDems were nearly destroyed by their coalition with the Tories, a parliamentary pact with Labour is far more likely.
ReplyDeleteLabor wants people to work harder. Why do I say that?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, people who get a check from government really don't pay taxes. How could they possibly pay taxes when government first gives them the money needed to pay anything? Taxes paid by government workers only reduce the true amount of disposable income available to them.
That leaves only workers in the private sector available to pay taxes. When their taxes increase, they can only work harder to achieve their goals, or reduce their goals, so that they can always remain within earned income.
Now you suggest that government should just print money, MMT style. Unfortunately, that does not help the private sector as much as you think. Government printed money has a chain of distribution: First helped is the direct government payee. Second helped is providers of products purchased by direct payees and governments that tax the second helped. Third helped are savers and pension funds--new money always needs a place to wait until balanced budgets become the norm.
So what should Labour propose in the way of assistance to the NHS? They could propose that all medical procedures are tax deductible to patients, but that's not much help if there is no charge to begin with.
It is hard to compete with free services. Troubling, we also see that the medical service does not pay taxes. They only work for an income reduced by taxes. Only the remaining income is spent into the private sector who does pay taxes.
Labour needs to refocus on the true problem: the private sector needs more hands working to provide an enriched existence for all. Many hands make the task light.
"There is virtually no chance that this money will not be available at low long term real interest rates."
ReplyDeleteNot sure that this is true for a Labour Government. Foreign investors will need to build in the perceived risk of further devaluation and such a government would have more of a perception problem than most. In any case, how does 'real' apply. Is it relative to UK inflation or global inflation? Borrowing at interest rates which are low relative to a high UK inflation rate is not necessarily practicable.
You seriously underestimate the ability of Labour's GCT and IHT plans to encourage capital flight. If you think sterling pops on a Corbyn government you are on drugs.
ReplyDeleteAll of the principal domestic sectors (Government, non-financial institutions, financial institutions and households) are net borrowers. (The Non-profits institutions serving households appears to be close to balance.) This aggregate net borrowing is financed totally by net lending from the Rest of the the World (RoW).
ReplyDeleteBoth the Conservatives and Labour propose to increase this domestic net borrowing to different extents and with different impacts on the sectoral balances. Whichever party manages to form a government, it will confront the stances of the ratings agencies, of investors in the surplus net lending countries in the RoW and of the disaster capitalists in the bond, foreign exchange and money markets.
However, the sectoral deficits conceals enormous intra-sector inequalities and variations in income and wealth. The overall thrust of Labour's programme is to reduce these inequalities and to boost economic activity. But it will take a long time to alter what has become settled economic behaviour.
Labour's top-down, statist centrist approach, its commitment to wholly unnecessary nationalistions and an ill-thought through increase in worker participation and the patent inability of much of the shadow cabinet to demonstrate the sort of governance competence that will be required are major obstacles and many voters can see all these things.
Hi Simon,
ReplyDeleteThanks as always for your excellent analysis.
Would you be able to do something similar for the Tory one?
In particular, it looks like there's a £50B-odd hole in their current spending and a £129B hole in their investment spending costings.
Am I missing something here?
The UK economy is operating close to full employment. In the absence of Brexit, neither the total supply nor the AD curve shifts to the left in the short run. But an expansionary fiscal policy raises demand, ie shifts the AD curve. This will have to be met by net imports. To effect this rise in net imports, the real exchange rate will rise, meaning either higher inflation at unchanged exchange rate or a rise in the exchange rate. Which alternative depends on BoE monetary policy. FX mkt's initial reaction will be to sell £.
ReplyDeleteMost readers here I would expect would want to see European levels of G/Y and market regulation. But you cannot get there over night. Austerity and before that deindustrialisation have greatly weakened and the UK production base. From the top down you simply could not enact such huge spending and regulatory changes at such a pace without creating massive distortions and perhaps a balance of payments crisis.
ReplyDeleteThe European economies need to be better understood. They work differently, with a system that concentrates on directed long term capital investment. Their money supplies are connected to this, and is one reason they resist usually ill-informed advances from US economists and politicians to suddenly expand or contract monetary and fiscal policy or to deregulate, for example, their labour markets.
An economy that looks like Germany's or Sweden's is desirable. But it needs a long and careful plan on how to get there, and a good understanding of how they actually work.
I feer Corbyn's plan is too ambitious in its pace. It could push back the cause of social democracy even further.
It is not true that for every borrower there is a saver. This is because money is endogenous.
ReplyDelete