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FAI Economic Commentary, 2020 Q4

While many parts of the world continue to introduce new lockdown measures – there is tentative optimism for the year ahead, according to the latest Economic Commentary by the Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde.

As we speak, initial rollouts are beginning of vaccines that will aim to ensure that 2021 will be a better economic year for Scotland than 2020.

Despite this welcome news, it will take some time for the country to get to a point where significant restrictions can be eased. This will continue to have a particular heavy toll on key sectors in our economy, such as tourism and hospitality. Moreover, the roll out of a sustained vaccination programme across the world will take many months, meaning that the global outlook – crucial for Scotland’s exports and investment prospects – remains hugely challenging.

As a result, the ongoing economic crisis remains severe: there is still a hard recovery to come. With unemployment soon to rise, and a renewed squeeze on wages across the public and private sector, it will feel like Scotland is in a recession for some time yet.

Economic Perspective articles:

  1. Perspective 1 – “Scotland’s Budget Report 2020”, David Eiser
  2. Perspective 2 – “Estimating the Elasticity of Substitution between Capital and Labour”, Julija Harrasova
  3. Perspective 3 – “A guide to Scottish GDP”, Milan Marcus & Adam McGeoch

Authors

Graeme Roy

Graeme is Professor of Economics at the University of Glasgow, and formerly Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute

Mairi is the Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute. Previously, she was the Deputy Chief Executive of the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Head of National Accounts at the Scottish Government and has over a decade of experience working in different areas of statistics and analysis.

Adam is an Economist Fellow at the FAI who works closely with FAI partners and specialises in business analysis. Adam's research typically involves an assessment of business strategies and policies on economic, societal and environmental impacts. Adam also leads the FAI's quarterly Scottish Business Monitor.

Find out more about Adam.

David is Senior Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute

 

 

James is a Fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute. He specialises in economic policy, modelling, trade and climate change. His work includes the production of economic statistics to improve our understanding of the economy, economic modelling and analysis to enhance the use of these statistics for policymaking, data visualisation to communicate results impactfully, and economic policy to understand how data can be used to drive decisions in Government.

Ben is an economist at the Fraser of Allander Institute working across a number of projects areas. He has a Masters in Economics from the University of Edinburgh, and a degree in Economics from the University of Strathclyde.

His main areas of focus are economic policy, social care and criminal justice in Scotland. Ben also co-edits the quarter Economic Commentary and has experience in business survey design and dissemination.

Head of Research at the Fraser of Allander Institute

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Founded in 1975, the Fraser of Allander Economic Commentary is the leading publication on the Scottish economy and offers an authoritative and independent analysis of the key issues of the day.