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The UK is reaping the #rewards of #ideological policy making trumping over #evidence.
#Austerity is a prime example. I am not an advocate of a large state but a smart one. And a smart state listens to evidence.
Unfortunately, our media content generators work with punchlines, not substance. But the world is complex.
I was a junior academic when I started on my journey to study the #causes of #Brexit.
I received a ton of critique. So, here is an example that, well... 
Meet James Ferguson who emailed me in 2019 after my paper "Did #Austerity Cause #Brexit?" emailed me.
I have his consent to be quoted.
James regularly appears on #BBC TV and radio, Sky TV, Channel 4 and #Bloomberg TV.
He is a founding partner of macro strategy, an advisory firm. He asked for full attribution.
His main assertion was twofold
1) There was no #austerity
2) There was no #austerity.
Below is his email. Have his comments merit?
The short answer is: No.
Lets have a look.
He refers to OBR figures on spending. But welfare spending is a broad category. State pension is the biggest part of welfare spending.
If we decompose this data the figure that emerges looks very different.
1) Real #Pension spending shot up and was decoupled form the real economy (#TripleLock)
2) #Welfare spending was flat nominally & declined in real terms by around 30%.
This is what #austerity looks like.
If this was a #Econ101 assignment, this would be a clear fail.
But... there is a
a more important point.
There was a notable realignment of public spending along the #age divide. As #politicaleconomist we know why this is so (votes).
Public spending became massively more #agebiased.
Money was shifted from the current working population (in work benefits), the future working generation (education), to, well, "the past" (pensions).
I am not saying that the State Pension is super generous, far from it, but to claim that there was no austerity is just disingenuous.
But it gets even worse: much of the #austerity did not actually save any money. In my paper Did #Austerity cause #Brexit? I estimate that every GBP 1 of welfare cuts reduced the local economy my around GBP 2.
This is because, well, low income consumers have a high marginal propensity to consume.
The foregone indirect tax receipts (VAT, income tax etc.) would have easily paid for the benefits...
So austerity was shrinking the economy. It cant get worse?
Well unfortunately it does...
Let me talk about a paper that was just accepted in the Journal of the European Economics Association.
This paper studies the cuts to #HousingBenefit, specifically, the cut to #LocalHousingAllowance.
In that paper we show that the cut drastically increased #evictions, it ripped communities apart, and came at a huge cost to councils.
We estimate that for every GBP 1 pound the central govt saved in #HousingBenefit, council #homelessness #prevention increased easily by 53 pence.
And this ignores the huge indirect cost that this had to ripping apart communities.
It increased homelessness visibility on the streets (feeding populist narratives).
But massively impacted young children because the prime set of households affected were (young) families with children and single moms.
The indirect cost in form of youth crime, poor (mental) health is likely huge. The economic burden of this #zerosum policy will linger for decades.
So yes, there was pointless #austerity.
Now, lets look at local governments. This is James second point.
Local council spending across categories saw drastic declines -- and this comes back to haunt us in the #EnergyCrisis. Because, we could have done with more resources to make our communities ready for #NetZero #ClimateCrisis #energycrisis
And guess what did councils cut spending on: investment in the future.
Where could they not cut? #SocialCare. And guess what is the problem that still hasnt been fixed: social care funding.
But lets get back to James point. Yes, central govt spending on local measures did increase. But again, the devil is in the detail.
He is making, in his "argument" an implicit assumption that central govt spending "is more effective". And of course, he is not decomposing it.
This is just ridiculous but yes, he has a platform in the UK media system. He has a voice, because, well, he is ready to serve punchlines.
Now on local govt spending, its obvious that there is huge inequalities across
communities.
The assumption that central govt spending is more efficient has been exposed most blatantly as being a lie that had zero evidence base during the pandemic.
We dont have good research evidence yet. I did write a paper on NHS Test and Trace -- I show that the program did have an effect on infections.
But that does not answer whether it was money well spent. And my hunch is that Local Public Health teams were far more cost effective.
This is worthy of research. And more work.
Now, over the coming months and years I hope to carry on with my work despite #Brexit, despite all the crap and the many crises that are unfolding.
If anything, we need more research that is in tune with what is going on in the world. Research matters, evidence matters, it has to be relevant.
Follow me on here for (semi) regular reflections on research work and (unfiltered) commentary.