Business and investment

European Structural and Investment (ESI) funds help to pay for initiatives supporting business development, research and development, investment in digital and green infrastructure, as well skills and training interventions and support for job-seekers. But with the UK having formally departed the European Union, the country will stop receiving new ESI funding at the end of 2020. Thus, for 2021 and beyond, the UK government faces choices over what to replace ESI funding with.

The spread of COVID-19, and international measures to contain it, are having a major impact on economic activity in the UK. In this observation we describe how this impact has varied across industries using data on share prices of firms listed on the London Stock Exchange, and how well targeted government support for workers and companies is in light of this.

Our new research shows that company owner-managers respond to changes in income taxes by adjusting how and when they take money out of their company and not by changing the amount of income they create or how much investment they do.

We cannot have our cake and eat it. Decisions have consequences, and so does failure to decide. Pretending that there are no consequences won’t make them go away.

The value of the pound has changed a lot over the past three years - making us all a little poorer. Back in December 2015, £1 would buy you about €1.40. Today it will get you nearer €1.14. It has suffered a similar fate against most major currencies, losing about 15% of its value over that time. A big part of the fall occurred literally overnight, once the result of the EU referendum became apparent in the early hours of 24 June 2016. That's a big change, but what does it mean for all of us?