Foreward

Having suffered the largest economic contraction in modern times, the UK now looks set to grow in a manner this year that will also break records. But as is so often the case, concentrating on growth rates masks the underlying level. And it is the level of income and the associated quality of life that matters in a country. In our recent Occasional Paper on fiscal frameworks, we argued for policy to be assessed against the metric of robust and inclusive economic growth as a way of re-focussing the debate away from the most recent numbers or political milestone. To be clear we do not want income to be targeted, like inflation, as it is largely the product of firm level innovation which cannot be well predicted. But we do know that institutional and government capabilities matter and so we want to focus more attention on the progress of households, regions and sectors. Indeed, policy needs to be systematically concerned with the progress of the nations and regions that comprise the UK.