Resolution Foundation Events Podcast

Open for business? Assessing the performance of British firms

British firms have had a tumultuous decade – from the financial crisis to the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2020s brings new challenges as they grapple with post-Brexit trade and regulatory changes, the net zero transition, and improving the UK’s woeful productivity record. But what is the state of British business as it heads into this decisive decade?
How dynamic is British capitalism? Which firms’ poor performance lies behind the UK’s persistently low productivity? What are the key differences between our firms and their competitors abroad? And what role should policy play in helping ensure firms can deliver the high wage, high productivity economy that everyone wants to see?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar – as part of The Economy 2030 Inquiry, funded by the Nuffield Foundation – to debate and answer these questions. Following a presentation of the key highlights from a new joint Resolution Foundation/ LSE health check of British firms’ economic performance, we will hear from leading experts, including MPC member Jonathan Haskel, on this crucial issue for the UK economy.
Read the report: https://economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org/reports/business-time/ 

Gaining from growth: When the economy grows, do wages?

While GDP is rarely discussed in the pub, the feedthrough from economic growth to higher wages is central to boosting family living standards. And while both pay and wider economic growth have been in short supply in the UK over the past decade, there is growing unease at the sense that these two crucial measures of economic progress have been decoupled, threatening the idea that we all gain from growth.
What is the relationship between GDP and pay? How does it vary in the US and UK, and how has that relationship changed over recent decades? Are we seeing periods of ‘wage-less economic growth’ or even ‘wage-led recoveries’ and what does this mean for our economy? And how can we re-establish a model of strong, sustainable and equitably shared economic growth amid a decade of profound economic change in the 2020s?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar – as part of The Economy 2030 Inquiry in collaboration with the LSE, funded by the Nuffield Foundation – to debate and answer these questions. Following the presentation of ground-breaking new research on the relationship between GDP and pay by leading economist John Van Reenen, Director of the Programme for Innovation and Diffusion (POID) at the LSE, we will hear from Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves on how she believes strong economic growth can feed through into higher wages, before taking part in an audience Q&A.

Budgeting for Britain: What the Budget and Spending Review tell us about the Government’s economic strategy

Rishi Sunak has had to make a flurry of major fiscal announcements during his 18-months as Chancellor amidst the Covid-19 crisis. At last, with the worse of the crisis behind us, he will hope to be able to set-out an economic plan for post-pandemic Britain in his Budget and Spending Review next Wednesday. However, with inflation and Covid cases rising again, the tough decisions he’ll need to make are far from over and uncertainty about the future path of the economy remains high.
What is the economic outlook for Britain? How has it shaped the Chancellor’s policy choices and his response to the cost of living crunch? What does the Budget and Spending Review reveal about the kind of Chancellor Rishi Sunak wants to be – or the kind of Government Boris Johnson wants to lead? How has he traded-off competing priorities, from delivering public services, to levelling up the country and investing in our net zero transition? And does the package of measures add up to a proper economic plan for post-pandemic Britain?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar to debate and answer these questions. Following a presentation of the key highlights from the Resolution Foundation’s overnight analysis of the Budget, we’ll hear from the Chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility Richard Hughes and leading economist Linda Yueh on their reflections on the Budget and Spending Review.
Read the overnight analysis: https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/the-boris-budget/ 

Trading places: What does Brexit mean for the UK’s economic strategy?

The UK’s political and policy debate on trade has become preoccupied with the nuts and bolts of individual trade deals – some real, some imaginary. Meanwhile bigger questions about the future path of the UK economy post-Brexit are ignored. Trade shapes our economic strengths and weaknesses, the jobs we do, and where we do them. More focus is needed on how trade fits into the UK’s wider economic plan – and how that in turn fits into a changing world economy.
What does wanting to be an open economy mean after Britain’s divorce from its biggest trading partner? Amid the immediate, direct effects of Brexit, can we see signs of the longer-lasting changes it might bring? How should a trade strategy align with other aspects of a new economic agenda, from ‘levelling up’ to the Prime Minister’s wish to move away from a low wage, low productivity labour market? And where does Britain fit in a new world order dominated by the EU, the US and China?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar – as part of The Economy 2030 Inquiry, funded by the Nuffield Foundation – to debate and answer these questions. Following a presentation of the key highlights from new Resolution Foundation research on the role of trade in shaping a decade of economic change for Britain in the 2020s, we will hear from two leading experts on how we should approach this challenge.
Read the report here: https://economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org/reports/trading-places/ 

Pastures new: Is lower migration the route to a new, higher wage, British economy?

Lower migration was always going to be a consequence of the vote to leave the European Union and Covid-19 has accelerated that change. The short term results include empty petrol stations and supermarkets’ warning of a Turkey-less Christmas. But wages are also rising fast for HGV drivers and the Prime Minister now insists that weaning British business off its addiction to cheap foreign labour is the key to creating a new high-skill, high-productivity, high-pay model for the UK economy.
To what extent will lower migration feed through into higher wages or higher prices? Will productivity rise or output fall? Which people, firms and places will be most affected? How big a role does migration play in shaping the UK’s economic model and will lower migration complement or harm the UK’s wider economy strategy for the 2020s?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar – as part of The Economy 2030 Inquiry, funded by the Nuffield Foundation – to debate and answer these questions. We will hear from leading experts on how Britain should approach this shift towards a lower migration labour market, and how it fits in with the wider change to Britain’s economic model. A companion event on the role of post-Brexit trade for the UK economy is being held the following day on Thursday 14th October.
Find the event slides on our website: https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/pastures-new/ 

The carbon crunch? Delivering the next phase of the Net Zero transition

Over the course of the 2020s, the UK will embark on the crucial next phase of the transition toward a Net Zero economy. This will touch our lives and livelihoods like never before, as we decarbonise how we travel and heat our homes. And with COP 26 starting in Glasgow in little over a months’ time, the UK will need to demonstrate global leadership by facing up to the challenges ahead.
How should Net Zero be put at the heart of Britain’s post-pandemic economic plan? What are the barriers to making progress on decarbonisation? And how can we ensure that the costs and benefits of the Net Zero transition are distributed fairly across people and places throughout the country?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar – as part of The Economy 2030 Inquiry, funded by the Nuffield Foundation – to debate and answer these questions. Following a presentation of the key highlights from new Resolution Foundation research on the choices and trade-offs around Net Zero, we will hear from two leading experts on where the UK should be heading.
Read the report here: https://economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org/reports/the-carbon-crunch/ 

Good job? How our experience of work has changed over the past 30 years

The world of work has changed substantially over the past 30 years – from what job we do, to how we do it and what we get paid. These things matter for our job satisfaction – indeed our life satisfaction, via the esteem we get from work, to the stress or success it can bring. For many people, jobs are such a large part of our lives that changes to them can shape our well-being – for good, and for bad.
What have been the big picture shifts in our experience of work over recent decades, and how does this differ by pay, occupation and gender? Is the commonly-held view that the quality of work has deteriorated wide of the mark? How do we feel about economic change when it affects the job we do? And what can policy makers do to improve our experience of work in the future?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar – as part of The Economy 2030 Inquiry, funded by the Nuffield Foundation – to debate and answer these questions. Following a presentation of the key highlights from new research on people’s experience of work, we will hear from two leading experts on what they think has driven these past shifts, and where we could be heading in the future.
Read the report here: https://economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org/reports/work-experiences/ 

From boom to bust and back again: 200 years of economic change across Britain

Book launch for ‘Two hundred years of muddling through’ by Duncan Weldon
The UK is facing a decisive decade of change, responding to the triple shocks of Brexit, Covid-19 and the transition to Net Zero. But this is not the first time Britain has faced such a radical upheaval. From industrial revolutions and the rise and fall of the British empire, to world wars, the great depression and the creation of the welfare state, Britain has weathered many economic storms and resets over the past two centuries.
How has Britain managed previous periods of economic change? On each occasion, how much has our economic future been shaped by our economic past? And what can today’s policy makers learn from our history as they navigate the decade of economic change to come?
As part of The Economy 2030 Inquiry, the Resolution Foundation is hosting a book launch for Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through: The Surprising Story of the British Economy by Duncan Weldon. We will be joined by Judy Stephenson, Associate Professor at UCL, to discuss the themes of the book, and the wider questions about Britain’s experience of economic change in the past, present and future.
Watch the event back here: https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/from-boom-to-bust-and-back-again/