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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · 12d

Taxing £10 from everyone in the country would definitely be described as “regressive”

Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · 13d

The Labour government is led by technocrats with a working majority of 157 in Parliament. It has forgiving budget rules and as long as four years until the next election. If it cannot put the budget on a sound footing, then who will?

www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

Britain is slowly going bust

Even with a huge majority and plenty of time, Labour is drifting towards a fiscal crisis

www.economist.com

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · 20d

Thanks. I think it's likely that the big compositional change will alter these figures, but I wonder how much.

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · 20d

Is there good data on that? This is the closest I've seen.
I'm interested because the long term NPV of low-skilled permanent migration does not look great in the US studies so this is an important point.

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · 20d

I was referring to the EU v non-EU attrition rates here:
migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/co...
"More recent migrants, especially from outside the EU, seem more likely to remain."
(And of course net migration by definition should be net of exits from earlier cohorts.)

Upward mobility? Earnings trajectories for recent immigrants - Migration Observatory

This analysis uses new data from HMRC to show how the size and earnings of the migrant employee workforce has changed over time in recent years.

migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · 20d

About 30k-50k per year. Not long ago Cameron was winning elections promising *total* net migration in the tens of thousands, so these are big numbers at least relative to what voters might expect. They're small relative to the total only because the total has also surged in the 2020s.

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · 20d

That is true for some. But there has been a big change in migrant composition. EU migrants were more likely to return than non-EU migrants. And small boat arrivals claiming asylum are obviously not intending to return. The fiscal impact calculation should be at long horizon (see eg US NAS study).

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · 20d

Not sure about that. The piece switches between the small boats issue and a general cost/benefit analysis of all migration. And it says "less of a fiscal burden" not "fiscal benefit", which is quite subtle. It does not mention that migrants get old too. The subject matter is hard not easy.

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Sep 2

The UK has higher actual individual consumption per capita. Though I agree that building things is good. It's just Britain's failure to build infrastructure has little to do with Reinhart/Rogoff's 90% threshold, which it has in any case crossed.

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Sep 2

France has nuclear power stations, better roads, high speed rail, FTTH and...fiscal problems at 105% debt/GDP.
Blaming everything on bad countercyclical policy 10-15 years ago means incredible levels of hysteresis.
A squeeze on the state was always going to happen given the ageing population

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Sep 2

If Britain is in a fiscal tight spot now, with debts not far above 90% of GDP, how can the big mistake have been a failure to take the debt/GDP ratio further above 90%?

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Aug 28

I reported this week's Money Talks podcast from the mountain, lake and lodge at Jackson Hole. Featuring Kristin Forbes, @jonsteinsson.bsky.social ‬, Barry Eichengreen and - at 10,000ft - @laura-veldkamp.bsky.social

Listen to my Jackson Hole audio diary:

www.economist.com/podcasts/202...

Gone fishing: our economics editor’s Jackson Hole diary

Our podcast on markets, the economy and business. This week, how Donald Trump’s fight with the Fed escalated in a usually quiet corner of Wyoming

www.economist.com

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Aug 25

While central bankers debated the technicalities of monetary-policy credibility at Jackson Hole, the Trump administration stood ready to bludgeon the idea

My column from the conference:
www.economist.com/finance-and-...

Trump’s interest-rate crusade will be self-defeating

The president’s threats loomed over this year’s Jackson Hole conference

www.economist.com

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Apr 17

I don't believe in central planning, so I do not think it is credible to assert that two jobs in very different contexts are "similar skills level and responsibilities". In most of these cases the wage captures more information than any authority can access

Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Apr 17

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Apr 17

www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

The lesson of Birmingham’s striking binmen

The moment is ripe to reform Britain’s equal-pay rules

www.economist.com

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Apr 17

Absurd laws saying Britain's employers must pay equal amounts to workers doing jobs judges deem to be of "equal value" have made central planners of the judiciary and left rubbish piled high on Birmingham's streets. Scrap them

www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Birmingham’s bin strikes reveal local problems—and a national one

Rubbish policy and rubbish on the streets

www.economist.com

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Apr 16

Matthew "Taleb" Holehouse

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Apr 15

Fair point, I am curious about that nominal anchor too. But the political consequences of the high wage growth / high inflation equilibrium of the past few years has made me less keen to gamble. I suspect many see all nominal wage growth as earned and all nominal price growth as greedflation

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Apr 15

I am definitely taking the bait here, but this has the Lucas critique written all over it. You don't just have 5% nominal wage growth; you need a general equilibrium that produces it!

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Apr 15

The more stable the inflation regime, the better the correlation in your chart; if the BoE hit its 2% target all the time the correlation would be perfect. This undermines it as evidence; it begs the question to assume inflation would not rise. So be curious, but not because of this chart

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Apr 6

Trade deficits just don’t measure what President Trump thinks they do. Why the tariffs are among the most profound and harmful economic policy mistakes of the modern era ⬇️

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Apr 5

Could the “major questions doctrine”--a conservative legal theory used to stop Biden's student loan forgiveness--bring down the tariffs?

"The pool of potential plaintiffs to take this fight to the courts is vast."

www.economist.com/united-state...

How Donald Trump’s tariffs will probably fare in court

The president has drawn fire from some conservative legal scholars

www.economist.com

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Mar 28

The Euler equation lives!

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Henry Curr @curr.bsky.social · Mar 27

You're right at market exchange-rates. But (most people think) the market exchange rates, ie dollar strength, reflect US hegemony, so the logic is circular. At PPP the decline is clear

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