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Giles Wilkes Profile picture
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9 Apr, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Capital invested in manufacturing, 1998-2017
I suspect there is something iffy about the Italian numbers for capital invested.

Output tells a more truthful story: compare UK and Italy now (oh, and Germany)
Sorry, HERE is the fascinating UK Manufacturing story
And, finally, a different way of describing how four peer-countries 'chose' their allocation of labour to the two big productivity driving sectors

Again, I am most suspicious of people who think you can quickly prove something from this ...

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Giles Wilkes Profile picture
8 Mar
OK, long overdue, overlong thread thinking about Rachel's fundamental question here. My first reaction was to see what I have learned from the responses to my original tweet; is the answer necessarily "more business investment"? 1/18
1st obvious point: not necessarily. Biz inv can be wasted. More formally, it depends on your on marginal productivity of capital, depreciation, etc. Here a chart from a toy model where you pass quite soon the point at which more saving into capital no longer> higher wages 2/
A point @t0nyyates put neatly here,
There is an optimal K/L. But as others point out it is highly suggestive that we went below that overall level 3/
Read 19 tweets
Giles Wilkes Profile picture
9 Feb
Fascinating from Philip McCann: a lifetime of study, and he found that 570 pages barely covered the complexity of the UK Regional Economic challenges.

Surprising, because quite a few people think it's pretty simple
Also very striking: we have a governance system that automatically disincentivizes learning. A consequence of centralisation
"It's a core-periphery problem, not a cities-towns-rural problem. In the core, the cities, towns and rural areas are all doing well - in the periphery, none of them".

McCann identifies a clear flaw in how we are misdiagnosing the problem
Read 6 tweets
Giles Wilkes Profile picture
8 Jan
Determined to be even-handed, I have forced myself to read this to see how much can be easily refutable. Tl;dr - most of it, easily
1/
First, this bit about things being no worse than a normal winter. Clearly wrong, as shown by @jburnmurdoch in this tweet stream

But also, there are cancelled urgent operations in the NHS. Does he think they do this for fun? 2/
Second, this bit that argues "well the lockdown won't make any difference". Again bizarre, because a. it makes an argument for a tougher lockdown, and b. clearly it does make a difference. Before, the schools were going to open. Now they are not. Contacts are reduced 3/
Read 8 tweets
Giles Wilkes Profile picture
18 Dec 20
I spent six years in Government building the case for an Industrial Strategy, first with Vince Cable and then with Theresa May.

This report is my attempt to explain the thinking that needs to go into it 1/ instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/…
First, you need to pick your moment - but the moment can last years. Peter Mandelson and @vincecable each recognised that post Financial Crisis was the time to build the case for intervention that changes the way the economy works. Now is another such time 2/
Let's face it: Johnson has always sounded like someone who ought to like Industrial Strategy, even if his "boosterish can-do-ism" largely focuses on concerns that other politicians going back to @Ed_Miliband have expressed 3/
Read 18 tweets
Giles Wilkes Profile picture
15 Dec 20
OK, I have tried to model this more, and the bottom line is: without a test and trace system that absolutely jumps on rising cases when the number of cases is really low, the government has a really hard task. Brace for some ugly graphs: 1/
This models a Spring surge, harsh measures in April-May that crush the virus infection down, and leads to loosening in June and July.

Basically, the R rate rises fast when lockdowns end in June - but you can hardly see it .... Table shows measures (low = restrictive) 2/ ImageImage
and so further lockdowns etc are *politically impossible* at the point they may stop it rising. Imagine - 3 months of almost no cases, not many deaths - but the exponential force is building, and then BANG 3/ Image
Read 7 tweets
Giles Wilkes Profile picture
15 Dec 20
OK, so the @FT is in favour of new nuclear, but not at any price. How to judge this?

Here is my go ft.com/content/b528ba…

First, assume that each year we don't have a nuke, we burn gas instead, which produces carbon. How much? Here comes the maths:1/
A 3.2GW plant running for 8000 hours a year generates 25,600,000,000 kwh of electricity. And a kwh generated with gas produces .117kg of CO2.

So a year early = 3mTCO2 saved.

That is .85% of our current emissions...

or more like 1.5 % of our 2030 emissions. 2/ Image
How much is that worth? Well this doc assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl… prices carbon in 2030 at £80. That would make those emissions worth £239m in 2018 £s

3/
Read 6 tweets

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