It is a measure of the state we are in that the latest quarterly growth number for the UK, at 0.3% (1.2% annual rate) for 2013Q1, should be regarded as a political plus for the Chancellor. [See postscript at end.] So here is the first chart:
This extremely weak growth from a starting point of a deep recession should spell disaster for employment. But it has not, as this second chart from the Bank of England’s February Inflation report shows.
The upside of this incredibly poor productivity performance is that employment has been much more buoyant than the GDP numbers would normally imply. However a moment's thought reveals that this could be really bad news, because it might imply that the recession has led to a permanent reduction in what the UK economy can produce. I say ‘could’ and ‘might’ advisedly, because the reasons for this productivity disaster are almost totally mysterious, as I discuss here. Yet it helps explain why inflation has remained above target, and gives us a reason (although not in my view a justifiable one) why monetary policy has not been more expansionary.
Is this a reason for thinking that in fact policy in the UK has not been too bad, and that really we are suffering from some unexplained malady that the usual medicine (continuous monetary expansion and fiscal stimulus) could do nothing to cure? So we come to my third chart, which is UK unemployment (source ONS).
Despite strong growth in private sector employment, which with stagnant GDP gives us our second chart, unemployment remains high. Low earnings growth suggests that this level of unemployment is keeping real wages low, so there is no suggestion that this increase since the recession is in any way structural. (The wages Phillips curve in the UK continues to work as normal, with a natural rate way below 8%.) It reflects in part a significant increase in labour force participation (again quite different from the US), but that is no excuse to allow it to remain high.
So policy clearly has not and is not doing enough to expand demand. If it did do much more, with any luck productivity would start growing again and catch up some of the ground it has lost, but even if it does not this third chart shows us that expansion is the right policy. What has been happening instead is that fiscal policy has been working in the opposite direction, contracting demand, and monetary policy has been unwilling or unable to offset this. It is indeed one of the major UK macroeconomic policy errors since the second world war.
As an illustration of this sad state, the normally excellent Stephanie Flanders describes 0.3% as "good news". A better description would be pathetic. How can an annualised growth rate of 1.2%, in an economy that pre-crisis had a trend growth rate above 2%, and at the bottom of a deep depression, be described as good news! If you think I'm biased, read John Van Reenen.
0 Comments