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Today’s Fraser of Allander Economic Commentary in 10 bullet points

Today we published our latest Economic Commentary.

Alongside our analysis of the Scottish, UK and global economies, we include the following articles:

Reappraising Scotland’s exports and their geographies: Brexit and beyond, Ronald V. Kalafsky (University of Tennessee) and Ross Brown (University of Strathclyde)
Monetary and fiscal policy in a newly independent Scotland: lessons from the dissolution of Czechoslovakia?, Frantisek Brocek (University of Strathclyde)
Highlighting the need for policy coordination: the economic impacts of UK trade-enhancing industrial policies and their spill-over effects on the energy system, Andrew Ross et al. (University of Strathclyde)

Today’s Commentary also includes an examination of the hot topic of regional inclusive growth.

In this blog, we summarise some of the key points from our latest outlook.

Yesterday’s GDP figures – an upturn in Scottish growth

Yesterday’s Scottish GDP growth figures – for the period up to June 2018 – showed a further pick-up in economic growth in Scotland. The Scottish economy expanded by 0.5% over the 3-months to June. This followed revised growth of 0.4% in the first 3-months of the year.

In this blog we provide a quick summary of the key trends. We’ll have a more in-depth discussion in our Economic Commentary – in partnership with Deloitte – to be published on Wednesday 26^th September.

The Fiscal Commission’s forecast evaluation

Last week, the Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) published its Forecast Evaluation Report.

As with all SFC publications, there was a significant degree of interest in its content.

In particular, it showed that Scottish income tax revenues were some £550m lower than expected. It also addressed the gap between the SFC’s pessimistic forecasts for growth and recent economic indicators.

This blog summarises some of the key issues from the report – with a focus on GDP and income tax. A more in depth discussion (including for the other devolved taxes) will appear in November’s Scotland’s Budget Report 2018.

Brexit: the mood amongst Scottish businesses

The last month has been a tumultuous time in the Brexit negotiations following the publication of the Prime Minister’s Chequers plan and the subsequent resignation of senior UK Ministers.

To help understand how businesses in Scotland are viewing recent developments, over the course of July we have been speaking to around 350 businesses from across the country (and from a variety of different sectors).

The focus of the survey was not on whether or not businesses believe Brexit to be good or bad, but instead, how their preparatory plans were taking shape.

This blog summarises the results of our survey – with a full run down of the results to be published in next month’s Economic Commentary which we’ll be publishing in partnership with Deloitte.Continue reading

The spillover effects of UK trade-enhancing industrial policies on the energy and non-energy systems

Key messages

The “spillover” effects of non-energy (primarily economic) policies on the energy system are of considerable interest from a policy perspective. In (The spillover effects of UK trade-enhancing industrial policies on the energy and non-energy systems) we analyse the impacts of export promotion policies – a key element of the UK’s Industrial Strategy – on the energy system and energy policy goals.
As the impacts of such policies are, in a large part transmitted via their effects on the economy, we adopt a computable general equilibrium model of the UK (UK-ENVI) that fully captures the interdependence of the energy and economic systems.
Our simulation results suggest that an across-the-board stimulus to exports stimulates all major economic indicators, and increases total energy use significantly. The energy intensity of GDP increases – not directly through energy exports – but indirectly through the energy sectors’ linkages to other sectors.
Export led growth therefore impacts on energy use – and significantly so. This in turn is likely to have an adverse impact on emission targets.
Policy makers should be aware of the fact that a successful implementation of the Industrial Strategy may create significant tensions with the UK’s Clean Growth Strategy, for example, and with the goals of energy policy more generally, in the absence of offsetting policy initiatives.
Ultimately, a knowledge of such spillover effects of economic policies on the energy system creates the potential for more effective and efficient policy making.