Port Talbot closure highlights uncomfortable truth about clinging onto the past

The decision by Tata Steel to shut the blast furnaces at the steelworks in Port Talbot, South Wales, has provoked outrage. Almost three quarters of the 4,000 workers at the plant will lose their jobs. On the same day that the news broke, the government announced a £500m subsidy for Tata’s £1.25bn proposed investment on the […]

They may be annoying, but Gen Z’s quarter life gap years are economically rational

Generation Z has been getting a lot of bad press recently. Allegations that they enjoy “quiet quitting” and boast of their “lazy girl jobs” were gathering momentum last year. These were given a huge boost in November when the American television personality Whoopi Goldberg made headlines with her claim that they just were not willing […]

The post-pandemic workplace and office employment densities in central London

Historically, office employment densities in London have been consistently increasing as more workers have been fit into smaller spaces. It is likely that average office employment densities for prime urban areas reached as high as one full-time equivalent job per 10sqm of office space before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic (hereafter ‘the pandemic’). Ostensibly […]

Learnings from our 2023 work experience programme

Volterra are delighted to have hosted four work experience placements over the past two weeks at our Kennington office. The benefits of work experience placements for students are well documented. Readers won’t be surprised to hear that a good quality placement helps grow the students’ confidence, improves their core skillsets and consolidates their career paths […]

A warm welcome to Andrew and Roberto

Volterra is delighted to announce the arrival of two new economic consultants, Andrew Cuttle and Roberto Vedova. Andrew has previous experience in cost-benefit analysis and developing business cases for large government-funded rail projects. He also has experience as an economist at the UK’s rail regulating body, reviewing operator access charges as part of Network Rail’s […]

How will London grow? The updated 2022 GLA growth forecasts

Over the past twenty years the Greater London Authority (GLA) has produced forecasts of population and employment growth across the capital. These forecasts help us understand how and where the capital is expected to grow or change in future years. The GLA has recently produced an update to their employment forecasts, updating previous projections produced […]

Central banks have fooled themselves into thinking they have power over inflation

The failures of central banks around the world to anticipate and control the current upsurge in inflation are now apparent to all. What has been going on with the highly technical models which economists in these institutions build to try and explain inflation? If we look under the bonnet, we find a debate which is […]

As Johnson squirms, his party must remember the roots of Conservatives values

Boris Johnson’s government now has a penchant for embracing policies which, to many, have a distinctively non-conservative feel. High taxes, a big state. What’s next? An old idea which is currently being given new legs is that of a universal basic income (UBI). The basic concept is that all citizens of a country receive from […]