“As the last of the official Q3 data came in, the UK found itself in the unenviable position of being the only economy in the [Group of 20 leading economies] to remain in recession”. Thus did Consensus Forecasts summarise the UK’s plight. With the third-largest economic decline, after Japan and Italy, the most indebted households, the biggest fiscal deterioration and the greatest dependency on the financial sector among the Group of Seven leading high-income countries, the UK has suffered a huge economic shock.
Fortunately, the UK also possesses assets. Among these are: a government with the capacity to act; the ability to borrow in its own currency; a flexible exchange rate; a credible monetary regime; a modest initial level of public indebtedness; privileged access to the European market, the world’s biggest; a greater number of top-class universities than any country, apart from the US; and an economy that has shed its most vulnerable manufacturing activities.
What the country requires is a strategy for what I have called the “post post-Thatcher era”. What should be its elements? Growth with stabilisation is the answer.
What then should be the elements of the strategy for growth?
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