tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post4437328805805268054..comments2024-03-28T04:29:22.717+00:00Comments on mainly macro: Breaking the ‘strong economy’ narrativeMainly Macrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09984575852247982901noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-46847429102056337302017-04-29T17:17:42.398+00:002017-04-29T17:17:42.398+00:00It covers 1993 onwards and says:
"Wages of mi...It covers 1993 onwards and says:<br />"Wages of migrants have been converging with those of the UK-born, but A8 migrants have lower wages"<br />And River was specifically talking about the jobs added since the financial crisis.<br /><br />For the record I'm in favour of free movement for work, and would like to see market controls brought in, not controls set by the government.Andrew Careyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08442714147160589939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-35559464675387647752017-04-28T17:17:48.299+00:002017-04-28T17:17:48.299+00:00Here is some data on average wages:
http://www.mig...Here is some data on average wages:<br />http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/characteristics-and-outcomes-of-migrants-in-the-uk-labour-market/Mainly Macrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09984575852247982901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-32069734523250019972017-04-25T20:58:05.396+00:002017-04-25T20:58:05.396+00:00Search for "Foreign nationals make up 17 per ...Search for "Foreign nationals make up 17 per cent of Britain's 2.45 million child tax credit claimants, figures from HMRC show". Tax credit claimants have below average wages, and working migrants are over-represented on tax credit claims.Andrew Careyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08442714147160589939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-70161044532058743482017-04-25T14:25:56.752+00:002017-04-25T14:25:56.752+00:00There is very little evidence of a boom in 2007: l...There is very little evidence of a boom in 2007: look at consumption, or inflation.Mainly Macrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09984575852247982901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-10685556467862434602017-04-25T14:25:06.495+00:002017-04-25T14:25:06.495+00:00There is a presumption that migrants worked for be...There is a presumption that migrants worked for below average wages. Do you have any evidence to back that up?Mainly Macrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09984575852247982901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-63499906682467949282017-04-25T08:12:58.243+00:002017-04-25T08:12:58.243+00:00You put the issue in terms of political perception...You put the issue in terms of political perception but I think the failure is actually more basic than that.<br /><br />We expect continuous growth and yet, as people like Bob Gordon have pointed out, these things come in cycles and are not continuous by nature.<br /><br />Growth is composed of two main elements:population and productivity. Growth in the working age population in the developed economies is falling and this effects not only the host country but those who they trade with.<br /><br />Productivity has languished, perhaps explained by the Bob Gordon thesis.<br /><br />So what do we expect? The continuation of BAU!<br /><br />It seems to me the failure is far more than being disingenuous with the GDP figures; it's a far more fundamental failure to explain the economic facts of life and where reasonable expectations should rest. How much discussion is there about the secular increase in the cost of energy (been going up for years) and the implications of robotics/AI - virtually none, and yet these will be huge influences in our economic future within the next fifteen years or so.Robert Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03593742130088640939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-5818863053725934242017-04-24T15:56:18.645+00:002017-04-24T15:56:18.645+00:00Simon -- Are we not just seeing the great financia...Simon -- Are we not just seeing the great financial bubble working in reverse here -- ie the bubble artificially boosted GDP in the UK during the boom, and has had the opposite effect since 2008. Because the UK has a larger financial sector than other economies, it has lost relatively more in the bust.Gavyn Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17617233484693627444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-32196427408342503322017-04-24T12:36:43.923+00:002017-04-24T12:36:43.923+00:00The value of different variables depend on what ar...The value of different variables depend on what are looking to do. There is no sense in which GDP per capita is a poor metric without further qualifications.<br /><br />If the insistence is on profiting to many people, then GDP per capita is problematic because means are very sensitive to outliers and income distributions have many of them. However, if we just look at median wage growth or median income growth as suggested by another post, we also end up ignoring the high end of the income distribution.<br /><br />Usually, we use many different variables in conjunction with sometimes rather sophisticated statistical tools to answer questions related to policy evaluation because answers are hard to get. Stéphanenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-74258761207769518072017-04-24T08:17:29.842+00:002017-04-24T08:17:29.842+00:00I fully agree with the previous comment that GDP p...I fully agree with the previous comment that GDP per head is misleading when you add 2.5 million jobs to the economy. You should the stats without these jobs or count them with a income of zero for "before". Also, I think economy will take a back seat in this election because (1) brexit showed us that "identity politics" is back (as the excellent "Road to Somewhere" explains) and (2) the Labour party was taken over by psychopath marxists with the intellectual level of an ex-polytech dropout. Even if they had all the right policies, nobody sensible can vote for themRiverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03952784965398939121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-68898577987298986832017-04-22T15:43:42.113+00:002017-04-22T15:43:42.113+00:00Ah found almost what I wanted, average labor cost ...Ah found almost what I wanted, average labor cost per hour, snapshot of graph for several european countries <br /><br />http://imgur.com/a/VMBMN<br /><br />Since it is *average* labor costs it is probably quite different from median.Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-56474311635590465912017-04-22T15:25:55.607+00:002017-04-22T15:25:55.607+00:00I don't know how to fix that problem, seriousl...I don't know how to fix that problem, seriously. Most journalists went to college and they're still apparently incapable of picking up on how politicians purposefully frame problems. Or, else, they see it but choose to not spill the beans -- or, maybe, they are told not to spill the beans. It wouldn't be the first time we hear of people being censored in a very wicked manner. Regardless of the reasons, we are unlikely to see them ask real questions to politicians in the near future.<br /><br />What you present on this blog, most of the time, seems very straightforward to me. But do people really approach the matter in a way that allow them to be convinced? My experience of people outside the academia, and sometimes also within, is that they approach discussions as debates and talk to win, not to understand. How do you get someone in that mind set to turn their head and look at what's going on is beyond me.Stéphanenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-50616383158057987902017-04-22T15:08:54.387+00:002017-04-22T15:08:54.387+00:00As to median wages (and that should be per hour id...As to median wages (and that should be per hour ideally), I have briefly searched EuroStat for that, but not found yet. I found instead the famous series for the USA, 1979-2016, of weekly median wage deflated by the (ever optimistic) CPI, which has been oscillating around $320 per week 1979-1997 and around $340 per week 1997-2016, and it would be interesting to see the same graph for the UK:<br /><br />https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252881600ABlissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-91112599085276928262017-04-22T14:55:39.330+00:002017-04-22T14:55:39.330+00:00«redefine a strong economy as one that delivers so...«<i>redefine a strong economy as one that delivers solid real wage growth.</i>»<br /><br />That aim is interesting, especially it is about unit wage (per hour) growth, rather than total wage (per year) which can grow by simply increasing working hours.<br />The problem with that redefinition is that the Economics profession have defined for several decades wage growth as "inflation" and asserted that the main purpose of Economics policy is avoiding wage growth, and a strong economy has been defined instead as one with robust stocks and property price growth, thus improving aggregate "productivity" by reallocating resources from "low productivity" wage workers to "high productivity" rentier owners.<br /><br />It is good that our blogger is now advocating the notion that wage growth and improving living standards for most of the people is the main measure of economic policy success, but there is a mountain of contrary attitude to overcome.<br /><br />«<i>But a favourite trick of the government is to make international comparisons, of GDP rather than the more appropriate GDP per head</i>»<br /><br />That is a favourite trick of Economists in general, as aggregate GDP growth is positive for asset price growth. As to GDP per head growth it is not quite the same as wage growth, as GDP per head growth can go mostly to property incomes or to very high wage incomes. In general for wage growth it is better to look at *median* wage (or even income, if not available) growth in the 25-64 or 25-55 age range.<br /><br />Anyhow apart from the bar graph above, I find the following graph of GNI (rather than GDP, even if for most countries they are similar) per head at PPP constant 2011 dollars for some groups of european countries quite interesting to look at:<br /><br />http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.PP.KD?start=2001&end=2016&locations=GB-FI-IT-DK-BE-SE-ES-DE-PTBlissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-2845259367017441992017-04-22T11:23:50.529+00:002017-04-22T11:23:50.529+00:00I pointed out in your last post that GDP per capit...I pointed out in your last post that GDP per capita is a poor metric unless you consider demographic changes. You were cherry picking statistics to make a cheap political point. Your analysis in this post is more rubbish. <br />Since May 2010, the UK has added about 2.5 million jobs of with about 2 million foreign born in employment. These jobs are disproportionately low paid, so the arithmetic alone will have a significant affect on average wages. People already in employment will have achieved somewhat higher wage growth and many more young people and unemployed will have achieved higher welfare. Many of the OECD countries have higher wage growth at the cost of higher unemployment. Most of the foreign born workers will have been earning much lower wages in their own countries. There is a good argument for either excluding foreign workers from this kind of analysis or somehow including their original earning levels in the overall measurements.Stewarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05827642486227619609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-41167443948891166122017-04-22T11:16:40.518+00:002017-04-22T11:16:40.518+00:00Informative data and framing. Thank you. I agree, ...Informative data and framing. Thank you. I agree, this should be trumpeted load and clear with no frills.AllanWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05056883330644304960noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-44559307307483805842017-04-22T10:57:00.092+00:002017-04-22T10:57:00.092+00:00Asked how he wanted to be remembered as a politici...Asked how he wanted to be remembered as a politician, George Osborne last week said: "As someone who left the country in a better state than he found it."<br /><br />Of course the interviewer - John Pienaar I think - didn't call him on it. <br /><br />Has there ever been a more mendacious clown in British public life?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com