Consumer Surplus

Foundations: Why Britain has stagnated

2024-09-20 · 00:00 UTC ·Sam Bowman ·1 min read

Brief

This is a brief announcement of a longer essay that presents a straightforward diagnosis of Britain's economic problems since the mid-2000s. The authors argue that Britain's growth stagnation isn't mysterious but stems from regulatory and policy barriers that have effectively prohibited the infrastructure investments necessary for economic growth. Their central thesis is that Britain has systematically blocked investment in the four foundational areas needed for productivity growth: housing, business premises, infrastructure, and energy supply. They point to dramatically higher electricity prices over the past two decades as evidence of how these investment restrictions have created real economic costs. The essay builds on previous work by the authors on topics like Britain's development challenges and democratic solutions to regulatory capture, while drawing on research from organizations like Britain Remade and various policy researchers focused on infrastructure and planning reform.

Why it matters

Sam Bowman and co-authors published a new essay arguing Britain's economic stagnation stems from regulatory barriers to essential infrastructure investment:

Key details

  • [thesis] Britain has effectively banned investment in housing, business premises, infrastructure, and energy supply needed for growth
  • [evidence] Electricity prices have risen vastly over the past twenty years due to these investment restrictions
  • [framework] Low productivity isn't a puzzle - it's the direct result of not building foundational infrastructure
Source evidence

title: Foundations: Why Britain has stagnated
author: Sam Bowman
contenttype: article
publication: Consumer Surplus
published: 2024-09-20T00:00:00
sourceurl: https://www.sambowman.co/p/foundations-why-britain-has-stagnated

word_count: 224

Foundations: Why Britain has stagnated

A new essay about making Britain prosperous again.

I have co-authored a new essay about why Britain’s growth has almost flatlined since the mid-2000s, along with Ben Southwood and Samuel Hughes. I think it is the best thing I have ever been involved in writing about Britain’s problems, and I hope you’ll find the time to read it.

Our argument is that Britain’s problems are very simple. We have banned investment in most of the housing, business premises, infrastructure, and energy supply we need. There is no separate mystery about why investment is low – we have banned most investments we need to make. And there is no productivity “puzzle” – productivity growth is low because we do not build the basics that we need to produce more.

For example, electricity prices are now vastly higher than they were twenty years ago:

The essay builds on things I have written like Britain is a developing country and Democracy is the solution to vetocracy, and that Ben and Samuel have written on similar topics. But it also relies on the huge amounts of work done by people like John Myers, Sam Dumitriu and Ben Hopkinson of Britain Remade, Anton Howes, the author of In The Sight of the Unwise, Harry Rushworth, Freddie Poser, Michael Lane, and many others.