Tim Leunig
timleunig.bsky.social
Tim Leunig
@timleunig.bsky.social

Policy thoughts: http://timleunig.substack.com Chief Economist Nesta, Director Econ PublicFirst, Vis Prof LSE Sch Public Policy, Vis Fellow Inst for Govt

Timothy Charles Leunig is an economist at the London School of Economics's Department of Economic History. After a long career as a special advisor, he became a director at the economic consultants Public First. .. more

Economics 62%
Political science 13%

I agree, one of Dom's better posts.
You may not like it, but strip out the hyperbole and abuse and it's quite hard to argue with this Cummings asssessment of the public mood

Reposted by Tim Leunig

Read 200 pages of our new book here www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Or — if you’re in a rush — read @mikebrewerecon.bsky.social’s summary piece below, which does an amazing job of boiling the gist of it down to 900-odd words

Reposted by Tim Leunig

I don't think there are words in the dictionary to express how much I hate the ONS website. They must have a team of several dozen there working on making sure whatever data you want is impossible to find. Evil.
You may not like it, but strip out the hyperbole and abuse and it's quite hard to argue with this Cummings asssessment of the public mood

She's this mean we should have more onshore and less offshore wind? That would cut bills, presumably?
Good to see solar and onshore wind coming in a lot cheaper than offshore here. They are by some distance the cheapest new electricity generation capacity we can build in Britain.
BREAKING: UK govt auction secures 4.9GW new solar at £65/MWh and 1.3GW new onshore wind at £72/MWh, 13% and 21% below the price cap respectively.

All due online by 2029.

Reposted by Tim Leunig

Good to see solar and onshore wind coming in a lot cheaper than offshore here. They are by some distance the cheapest new electricity generation capacity we can build in Britain.
BREAKING: UK govt auction secures 4.9GW new solar at £65/MWh and 1.3GW new onshore wind at £72/MWh, 13% and 21% below the price cap respectively.

All due online by 2029.

Have you read the article?
Seems a shame, if you have spare money, not to invest it in something/someone useful.

Reposted by Tim Leunig

Seems a shame, if you have spare money, not to invest it in something/someone useful.

Have you ever thought about buying #Gold? I tell the story of what happened when I bought gold, and why it was my best ever investment - observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
History predicts a fall in the price of gold. I wouldn’t ...
The precious metal is now worth $5,000 an ounce and anyone who bought big a year ago has made a fortune, but that doesn’t mean it won’t go higher still
observer.co.uk

Gold's price began to move up at the end of 1967, but yet, one could claim other dates just as well. It would not alter my basic story

Reposted by Tim Leunig

Just nitpicking, why do you set the year for "the collapse of the Bretton Woods economic system" to 1967? Usually this is connected to the Nixon Shock in 1973, see e. g. www.bundesbank.de/de/aufgaben/...
1973: Das Ende von Bretton Woods – Als die Kurse schwanken lernten
Vor 40 Jahren brach das System fester Wechselkurse zusammen, auf das sich die wichtigsten Handelsnationen der Welt am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs geeinigt hatten.
www.bundesbank.de

Except that France only has spare power in summer, when it is least useful. Nuclear + solar is a terrible combo.
I wish we had France’s problem of too much abundant clean energy.
France has ended up in a strange position after using some €250bn of tax-payer money to build a fleet of nuclear power stations. Wind and solar power is merrily entering the French power market at prices nuclear production can't match, resulting in huge surpluses of power.

1/

Reposted by Tim Leunig

I wish we had France’s problem of too much abundant clean energy.
France has ended up in a strange position after using some €250bn of tax-payer money to build a fleet of nuclear power stations. Wind and solar power is merrily entering the French power market at prices nuclear production can't match, resulting in huge surpluses of power.

1/
Électricité : un rapport confidentiel d’EDF anticipe une explosion des coûts et des risques
« Le Point » s’est procuré le rapport interne d’EDF sur les conséquences de la modulation de son parc nucléaire pour faire place aux renouvelables. Un document explosif, alors que le gouvernement s’ap...
www.lepoint.fr

I have written a column for @ObserverUK on the history of gold as an investment, and why its should now be seen as a risky, not a safe, investment. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
History predicts a fall in the price of gold. I wouldn’t ...
The precious metal is now worth $5,000 an ounce and anyone who bought big a year ago has made a fortune, but that doesn’t mean it won’t go higher still
observer.co.uk

Reposted by Tim Leunig

Just catching up on the situation with UKRI and I can’t claim much expertise, but worth saying:
1. Research funding is pretty crucial when you’re a knowledge-based economy like the UK is
2. Blanket pauses in funding can be very damaging

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
UK’s £8bn research fund faces “hard decisions” as it pauses new grants
UKRI boss Ian Chapman said it had been told by the government to
www.bbc.co.uk

Reposted by Tim Bale, Tim Leunig

Parliament today

Well yes, when you want someone to have stuff in stock, right next to where you are, so that you can buy the thing at the drop of a hat and not wait a day, you will end up paying more. That is also the market working well!
But when I need them there and then... Plus own brand aren't as good! Maybe the market is fine and I just have niche needs 🤣

Reposted by Tim Leunig

Farming subsidies are increasingly linked to environmental outcomes.

This change has upended decades of stability in how farmers are subsidised.

Find out more about how we can support farmers with the net zero transition 👇
buff.ly/ogIwegT

Reposted by Tim Leunig

But when I need them there and then... Plus own brand aren't as good! Maybe the market is fine and I just have niche needs 🤣

You just need to swap around. You are complaining about £2.60 a pad, but 1 min research showed they are 83p on Amazon. Own brand alternatives are half that price on Amazon as well.

Reposted by Tim Leunig

"The price just doesn't matter if you can't get a home".

Good write up here of the problems of trying to use rent controls to force down private rents.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Rent controls are coming to the UK - but they're not a guaranteed win for tenants
Rent controls are coming to the UK - but they're not a guaranteed win for tenants
www.bbc.co.uk

Freezing fees and maintenance loans also means they borrowed less, so there is less to write off. Good news for tax payers, bad news for unis, mixed news for students and graduates (who are also taxpayers, remember)

The IFS rarely get these things wrong. Freezing the repayment threshold, and the interest rate threshold, means graduates will repay a lot more than earlier.
@timleunig.bsky.social is this really right?

I know the Conservatives cut back grants a lot but by that much?
I expect to spend today staring at this: ‘we’ve gone from government suggesting that the state would subsidise undergraduate student loans by about 45p in the pound, to making a profit on them for that cohort’.

A *profit* on student loans: everyone should read this. 🤯
wonkhe.com/blogs/gradua...

1000 snowdrops bought for £105 will give HUGE amounts of pleasure for many years - here is where I got mine from... eurobulbs.co.uk/shop/galanth... (other suppliers are available, but I can vouch for these). Buy loads and just chuck them in, all over the place.

Love snowdrops!
Times:

The Metropolitan Police is expected to announced on Tuesday evening that Mandelson is being investigated on suspicion of misconduct in public office, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Reposted by Tim Leunig

@timleunig.bsky.social is this really right?

I know the Conservatives cut back grants a lot but by that much?
I expect to spend today staring at this: ‘we’ve gone from government suggesting that the state would subsidise undergraduate student loans by about 45p in the pound, to making a profit on them for that cohort’.

A *profit* on student loans: everyone should read this. 🤯
wonkhe.com/blogs/gradua...
Graduates are paying more and getting less
Jim Dickinson traces how a student loans system once sold as cost-sharing has become one where graduates fund everything – and where Labour has quietly reversed promises to make things fairer Jim Dick...
wonkhe.com

Reposted by Tim Leunig

📊 Changes rolled out across 32 local authorities as part of a Tory-era SEND pilot have cut exclusions and kept more children in mainstream education, a report has found
schoolsweek.co.uk/piloted-in-s...
Piloted in-school SEND support 'cut exclusions' - report
Standardised EHCPs also welcomed by parents and councils, researchers find
schoolsweek.co.uk
📢 #CallForPapers for the 11th Monash-Paris-Warwick-Zurich-CEPR Text-As-Data #Workshop!

Papers using text, audio, images, or other unstructured data are welcome.

Organisers: @elliottash.bsky.social @essobecker.bsky.social & Philine Widmer
Deadline: 13 March
cepr.org/events/11th-...
#EconSky