The writer, an FT contributing editor, is chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts Last month, I discussed the negative feedback loop between stalling economic growth and expanding safety nets. How do countries break free from this “doom loop”? One important element is to rethink the fiscal rules shaping government investment decisions. The idea of
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5/16/2023, 12:23:12 AM Kyiv rocked by explosions as Russian air strikes intensify Roman Olearchyk in Kyiv Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv was rocked by more than a dozen explosions around 3am on Tuesday, about a half-hour after air raid sirens went off nationwide warning that Russia’s invading forces were resuming air strikes on the country. Financial
The UK’s policing minister has pushed for facial recognition to be rolled out across police forces nationally in a move that would ignore critics who claim the technology is inaccurate and some of its applications illegal. According to a report to be submitted to parliament on Tuesday, the Home Office briefed the biometrics and surveillance
One in seven UK adults will be paying income tax at 40 per cent by 2027-28 because of a six-year freeze on the threshold at which the higher rate kicks in, according to an influential think-tank. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said on Tuesday that by its end, the freeze on tax thresholds and allowances
Downing Street on Monday refused to say when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would meet a Tory pledge to cut net migration, as high inflows of foreign workers, health staff and students drive numbers towards a record high. Suella Braverman, home secretary, insisted at a conference in London that the government must honour its 2019 manifesto
It is all reminiscent of Brexit wranglings of the past. But this time it concerns an industry of the future. Batteries for electric vehicles must, under the Brexit agreement, source 60 per cent of their value from within the UK or Europe to qualify for tariff-free trade from 2024, a threshold that jumps again in
The writer is author of ‘Turkey Under Erdoğan’ There is one question on many people’s minds in Turkey today: how did pollsters get it wrong? Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was trailing in most surveys ahead of Sunday’s presidential elections. Analysts expected the tanking economy, along with the state’s lacklustre response to the deadly earthquakes in February,
EU regulators have cleared Microsoft’s $75bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard, breaking from the UK and US which are holding up the gaming industry’s biggest deal. Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, on Monday said Microsoft had made concessions to alleviate its concerns, including allowing all European consumers who purchase an existing or future Activision game
The writer is chief investment officer of emerging market debt at FIM Partners Debt and currency investors went into the Turkish elections pricing in a high chance of an opposition victory in the first round. Such victory was meant to bring about a return to economic orthodoxy even if it was understood that the macro
The cost of buying insurance against default on Turkish bonds has shot up to its highest level since November as investors brace themselves for further market stress on signs that incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appeared on course to clinch the country’s presidential election. The “spread” on five-year credit default swaps jumped more than 100 basis
“Hide your brightness, bide your time.” That famous piece of advice from Deng Xiaoping has served China well over the past 40 years. Deng, the leader whose economic policies transformed China, understood that if his country was to become richer and stronger, it must avoid confrontation with the west. But Xi Jinping, who has led
European and Asian stocks rose on Monday as investors cheered German economic data that indicated inflation in Europe’s largest economy was slowing. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 rose 0.2 per cent, extending its rally from last week, while France’s Cac 40 edged up 0.4 per cent and London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.3 per cent in the
Soaring UK inflation is not the result of higher company profit margins, even for food prices, a former Bank of England interest rate setter has said, echoing similar findings by current members of the Monetary Policy Committee. Michael Saunders, senior economic adviser at consultancy Oxford Economics, said on Monday that “greedflation”, where businesses drive up
Higher interest rates have so fundamentally shifted the financial environment that investors must focus on a company’s ability to maintain margins rather than just its growth prospects, veteran private equity executive Chip Kaye said. “This moment is different than anything we have had in the 40 years before . . . with inflation proving stickier and interest rates higher
Flush with confidence that victory against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was finally within reach, Turkey’s main opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu called on voters to “finish it” in the first round. But rather than ending Erdoğan’s two-decade long rule, the tally from Sunday’s presidential election has triggered soul searching in the opposition’s camp — with the second
Can a bond that no longer exists trigger a default? This is the quasi-metaphysical question facing the panel of experts who have to determine whether Credit Suisse’s credit-default swap contracts will pay out. Call it Schrödinger’s swap. While most in the market had assumed that Switzerland’s decision to vapourise $17bn of Credit Suisse’s Additional Tier
If Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was rattled by the knife-edged nature of Turkey’s pivotal elections, with initial results suggesting that the president will be forced into a run-off for the first time, he did not show it when he addressed fervent supporters in the early hours of Monday morning. Instead, as he took to the balcony
Rishi Sunak will promise to send more military hardware to Ukraine when he meets Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a surprise meeting at Chequers, the UK prime minister’s country residence near London. The Ukrainian president has been visiting European capitals over the weekend as he drums up support for his country ahead of an anticipated counter-offensive against
Turkey’s veteran leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday led a hotly contested election to extend his rule into a third decade, defying polls to enter an expected run-off for the presidency with momentum on his side. After a hard-fought campaign that had raised hopes of an opposition breakthrough, Erdoğan won 49.3 per cent of votes
When the 140-year-old steel industry in Teesside finally collapsed in 2015, it swept away 3,000 jobs and, with them, a political and economic anchor in the north-east of England. Two years later an ambitious young Conservative mayor, Ben Houchen, stepped into the resulting vacuum, promising that a public-private partnership would attract a new wave of
The story of troubled American cities left with empty office buildings post-pandemic is well known. What’s less well understood is that this is really a tale of two cities — downtown, and everywhere else. While many commercial business districts are struggling, their urban outer rings are often thriving. Call it “the donut effect”. Academics Arjun