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Our work as part of the Global Environmental Measurement and Monitoring Group

On Friday, we hosted the second Global Environmental Measurement and Monitoring (GEMM) Network at Strathclyde.

GEMM is a network of scientists, engineers, economists, lawyers and policymakers who are all seeking to better understand how changes in our environment will impact our economy and society.

The initiative was established by Strathclyde in partnership with The Optical Society (OSA) and the University of Stanford’s Stanford Photonics Research Center. The first meeting took place in Stanford in 2018.

Spending Round 2019: what does it mean for the Scottish budget?

As had been widely expected, UK Chancellor Sajid Javid used today’s Spending Round to announce significant increases in UK Government resource spending – to fund day-to-day public services – in 2020/21.

The announcements amount to an additional £12bn of resource spending next year relative to the plans that his predecessor Phillip Hammond had already pencilled in. This including a substantial uplift to schools spending (£2.6bn), extra resources for social care (£1bn), and for the police (£750m).

Of course these figures relate to spending in England. But the increases in spending in England will generate an uplift to the Scottish block grant, via the Barnett Formula.Continue reading

Income tax reconciliations and the Scottish economy: Q&A

It has been widely publicised that the Scottish budget may face income tax ‘reconciliations’ totalling £1bn over the next few years. But what are these reconciliations and why do they come about? Do they tell us anything about Scotland’s economic performance, or do they just reflect forecast error?Continue reading

What is the case for increasing council tax rates in Scotland?

This blog shows that council tax rates are now markedly lower in Scotland than in England and Wales. Increasing council tax in Scotland to match rates in Wales (or England) would raise substantial revenues, but would have adverse distributional implications. On balance, the case for more fundamental reform of property taxation would appear much stronger than the case for increasing rates within the existing system.

Differences in income tax policy between Scotland and rUK have been the subject of heated debate. There has been relatively little attention paid to differences in council tax policy in Scotland compared to England and Wales. But in some ways, the differences in council tax policy are more pronounced than they are for income tax.Continue reading

May Scottish Economy Nowcasts

This morning the latest UK data for growth in Q1 2019 were released. These put UK growth at 0.5% in Q1, with growth in production, construction and service sectors.

In this blog we release our nowcasts of the Scottish economy in Q1 2019 and Q2 2019.

The UK numbers were stronger than growth in the previous quarter (which was a disappointing 0.2%), and stronger than might have been expected.