Expert insight, analysis and comment on key public policy issues
By Diane Coyle Filed Under: Featured Posted:
Professor Diane Coyle explains that the latest, disappointing, GDP figures tell us little about what is actually happening in the economy. That won’t stop them being used by all the parties in the last days of the General Election campaign. It was no surprise that the General Election spin machines should try to put their […]
By Evangelos Kontopantelis Filed Under: Featured, Whitehall Watch Posted:
Government policy assumed that incentives for general practice through performance-related-pay would improve mortality rates and other outcomes. Its scheme for doing this appears not to have worked as intended, explains Evangelos Kontopantelis. Primary care has enormous potential for improving population health outcomes – including mortality from common chronic conditions – through early intervention in the […]
Minimum wage legislation is supposed to deliver earnings that protect an individual’s living standard from falling below an acceptable level. Quite often it does no such thing, explains Dr Simon Peters. Setting the UK national minimum wage should be a key policy in the framework of equality legislation. Yet there are serious doubts about whether […]
By Annie Austin Filed Under: Featured Posted:
Policy fetishism about GDP is being replaced by an unthinking devotion to simplistic happiness indicators, warns Annie Austin. “In a decade’s time we’re going to be using happiness as the sole basis for judging the impact of public policy.” So stated Paul Dolan recently in the opening sequence of ITV’s Tonight programme, entitled ‘Is Britain […]
By Diane Coyle Filed Under: Featured, Whitehall Watch Posted:
There is nothing inevitable or ‘natural’ about using GDP to measure the economy. The Office for National Statistics has embarked on a journey toward a more rounded assessment of economic well-being, argues Professor Diane Coyle. Just before Christmas, the Office for National Statistics took a giant step, in its normal low key manner: it published […]