Investment

Earlier this week, markets reacted to comments by the governor of the Bank of England by bringing forward their expectations of when interest rates will rise. What will this mean for different generations?

From today, the first 18-year-olds will be able to access Child Trust Funds (CTFs) set up over a decade ago by Tony Blair’s Labour government. When first announcing the policy, the government pointed to the fact that ‘people without assets are much more likely to have lower earnings and higher unemployment, and are less likely to start a business or enter higher education’. But how much difference might these accounts make to the finances of 18-year-olds?

The fall in stock markets has reduced the wealth of those who directly hold shares and of those with defined contribution pension pots that are invested in equities.

The spread of COVID-19, and international measures to contain it, are having a major impact on economic activity in the UK. In this observation we describe how this impact has varied across industries using data on share prices of firms listed on the London Stock Exchange, and how well targeted government support for workers and companies is in light of this.

The Chancellor and Shadow Chancellor have both outlined the fiscal targets that they would seek to adhere to. Mr Javid has chosen to adopt a forward-looking rolling target aimed at current budget balance. In other words, day-to-day spending could not exceed total revenues. This is very similar in nature to Mr McDonnell’s longstanding current budget target.

Our new research shows that company owner-managers respond to changes in income taxes by adjusting how and when they take money out of their company and not by changing the amount of income they create or how much investment they do.