The British economy: an international comparison

How is the UK economy performing against its international peers?

The OECD has just released a useful chart of first quarter 2012 growth rates:

The UK is performing worse than every other  major economy except Italy. We are well below the European Union average.

Strange that the eurozone crisis should be “killing” the UK recovery, as the Chancellor puts it, while leaving the major economies that are actually members of the single currency relatively unscathed.

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• greggf

  Ben, you’re not intimating that we’d be better off if we joined the euro surely….?

• http://twitter.com/XmasCardsOnline ChristmasCardsOnline

  I think Ben is implying that the UKs lack of growth is not completely as a result of the euro crisis as those countries more likely to be impacted by this are showing stronger growth. http://www.digiprintchristmas.com

• http://twitter.com/francessmith frances smith

  well george has been finding weak excuses for poor growth for some time, or ever since he got the job of chancellor of the exchequer, to be more precise.

  so it is inevitable he will push the euro crisis excuse for as long as he can, assuming, i suspect, that not enough of us are familiar with the real figures, to see that his excuse is flawed.

  oh well, the coalition is clinging to their life raft for as long as they can, even as it falls apart.

• MightyDrunken

  The reason is obvious for our poor economic growth and the answer has been known since the 1940’s.

  Keynes’ answer to a recession caused by insufficient demand (a general glut) is to lower interest rates and for the Government to invest in infrastructure. The problem with most recessions is a reluctance or inability to spend.

  Therefore when a Government attempts austerity measures during a recession they are simply going to prolong it. The UK Government should not be making cuts but changing spending to projects which will hasten and enable economic growth while employing people. House building, research and building power generation etc.

  It’s sad that the money markets “caused” this recession and George bending over backwards to please them is making it worse for us. Coincidentally the problems which Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal face are caused by traders betting against the weaker economies, a self fulfilling prophecy if enough people bet that these economies will fail. How economics works in the World needs a rework.