Pieria View

My new site, Pieria , launched last week devoted to improving and expanding the debates in finance and economics. Below is a short summary of what the site is about and what it offers so please do come join the discussion! What is Pieria? Pieria is like going to your favourite cafe, if your favourite cafe is frequented by some of the best people in their field; discussing and debating the big issues of the day, a melting pot of ideas, disciplines and points of view. It’s an ongoing conversation and we’ve designed the site to reflect this.   The main navigation is divided between macro and micro sections, which together give a rounded overview of what’s going on right now in the economy.  On the homepage you will find the daily ‘HOT TOPICS’ and is a good starting point for exploring the site. These articles combine a briefing report with in-depth commentary on a single key issue that people are talking about or one which we think worthy of wider discussion.  Hot Topi...

It is fair to say that I would not have imagined myself writing a post in defence of the Office for Budget Responsibility. Nevertheless, here I find myself (sort of). That is not to say I intend to offer any excuses for the OBR’s worryingly poor forecasting record for UK economic output, which have been used all too frequently as a fig-leaf to cover a litany of equally poor policy decisions. Instead I want to defend Robert Chote and his team from a particular charge levelled at them by the FT’s Chris Giles last week. In an article entitled “ How to ‘plog’ the hole in our awful public finances ” Giles writes: “Had the OBR assumed significant spare capacity now alongside extremely weak growth in the economy’s potential output, it could combine a lacklustre forecast for output growth without the assumption that spare capacity would still exist in 2017-18. The benefit would be a logical and consistent forecast, but the assumptions would come at a cost: the OBR ...