Tim Leunig @timleunig Twitter profile

Last Seen Profiles

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@crfmands

@eckiiaaoo

@_72xr

Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 months

Sad moment on the doorstep today. An 80 year old lady told me she was turned away at the polling station for owning no relevant photo ID. "We fought for votes for women. I have voted in every election. Now they have taken it away." Hope the next government sorts this out.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 months

This picture shows why HS2 is costing the UK so much. Flat land is perfect for trains. But to please a few NIMBYs we are spending a literal fortune not just putting it in a trench, but in a tunnel. (Big embodied carbon cost as well).

Hayden

@the_transit_guy

4 months

Because British people thought that the view of a passing high speed rail train was such a blight, that it would be better to tunnel trains that could operate perfectly fine at surface level.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

6 months

Thanks to @The_TUC for this compilation - people have always reckoned that others are workshy. (Tip, if you can't find enough workers, raise wages, or mechanise. There is no third option). 1/2

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

8 months

7 quarters of falling living standards - something that has not happened since records began almost 70 years ago. Our country is in a deep, deep mess.

Andy Bruce

@BruceReuters

8 months

Two quarters of contraction of real GDP will get headlines, but maybe this is the real story 👇 💥 GDP per person dropped every quarter of 2023. It hasn't grown since Q1 2022 💥 That's 7 quarters - longest unbroken run without per capita GDP growth since records began in 1955

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

8 months

You won't believe how bad this pie chart is! The NHS Counter Fraud Authority @NHSCFA are using a pie chart to show the change over 5 years. I could cry. . @jburnmurdoch @stianwestlake @sib313 @whippletom

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

Imagine how much better living standards would be if you only had to pay £120k for a house in London. Let's build LOADS more houses (and flats) and make that happen. We really can all be much richer.

Sam Freedman

@Samfr

1 year

Always love a house price in a biography as a reminder of what used to be affordable. In 1954 Roy Jenkins bought a six bed house in Notting Hill for £120k in today's money. Would now cost around £4-5 million.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

Nick Crafts' death has robbed Economic History of a clear thinker, an outstanding researcher, an excellent writer, a committed teacher and a wonderful colleague and mentor. @EcHistSoc

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

This 3 bed in Streatham sold for £96,500 in 1998. (£182k in today's money). Today it is worth £932k. Life would be much better if it had stayed at £182k. . Certainly closer to £182k than £932k.

Dominic Hogg

@Dom_Hogg

3 months

@timleunig @timleunig at what point would you say housing in London had become ‘affordable’? Interested since I think it’d be good to run numbers as to what would be needed at varying levels of change in population to achieve that objective through new-build homes alone

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

My LSE colleague Paul Cheshire has reported that more land is used for golf courses than for housing in Surrey. @henryoverman @LSE_SERC

Tom Forth

@thomasforth

1 year

Does anyone do anything else in that area than play golf?

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 months

We have a choice - we can build up - more flats (think 5-7 storeys), come together (terraces) or build out (more low density suburbs on greenfield land). Otherwise homes will get ever more expensive and young people will be ever more stuffed. To govern is to choose.

BBC Radio 4 Today

@BBCr4today

4 months

Would you sacrifice the character of your area to build more homes?🏠 @amolrajan and @bbcnickrobinson discuss what needs to change to make housing more affordable with economist Tim Leunig. 🎧 Listen to The Today Podcast on @BBCSounds

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 years

This is big news. We may have passed "peak birth". Not enough people are thinking about the consequences. People born today may see a world in which countries compete for immigrants...

Max Roser

@MaxCRoser

2 years

This shows the global population of children under the age of 5 – data from 1950 until today, and the UN's forecast until the end of the century. The global population of children peaked five years ago. [from our Global Demography Explorer ]

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

London could be affordable if councils allowed Islington style town houses, & Pimlico flats- or if govt created a permitted development for that. We could make London affordable: Labour are following the Tories in deciding not to. Big shame, especially for the young.

Anna Clarke

@AnnaClarke_____

3 months

@timleunig London is the least affordable place, and always has been. Does that mean that every year we increase the targets in London compared with everywhere else? Just creates total fantasy targets for London which won't be delivered.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

Now that I am no longer a civil servant, I can write for the press again. Here is an FT op-ed on how to design a ULEZ without losing elections.

Memo to Sadiq Khan: here’s how to redesign Ulez

Properly structured road pricing is critical to improving air quality in big cities like London

www.ft.com

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

5 months

Electric car now cheaper than petrol: Vauxhall e-Corsa vs Corsa. Same deposit, lower monthly payment. If you have off road parking, it will have much lower running costs as well - a steal for the right buyer.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

I owe @bswd a drink. He read my prize-winning 2012 airports report; summarised why 4 runways at LHR over the M25 (almost) doubles capacity and cuts noise below today's levels. He summarised it in this thread, and answered every q, sensible and otherwise. Thank you!

Ben Southwood

@bswud

3 months

The Tim Leunig plan for expanding Heathrow westwards over the M25, which allows for four runways yet reduced noise (by moving away from nearly everyone in the flightpaths) is still the best option out there.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

This is important. It (almost) doesn't matter what we build - the benefits of more housebuilding are widely felt, because the people who buy new executive housing free up other housing for other people.

Jim Gleeson

@geographyjim

1 year

New research from Sweden shows that while most new homes are occupied by households with above-average incomes, the homes freed up by this initial move are mostly moved into by households with below-average incomes

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 years

I expect to be made redundant at Christmas, as part of the Civil Service 2025 plans to reduce headcount by 91,000. If you might have a use for me, please get in touch. DMs open, and please RT. Thank you. 4/4

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

7 months

Market economics works. If you don't have enough staff, pay them more and you will. (cf teachers, etc)

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

More job news I will be leaving the civil service this summer and moving to Public First.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 years

Job news. My fixed term contract with @HMTreasury is over, and I will be leaving at the end of June. 1/4

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

Delighted to announce that my time at @LSEnews continues. I have been appointed a Visiting Professor in Practice in the @LSEPublicPolicy

Tim Leunig

Tim Leunig, Professor

www.lse.ac.uk

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

9 months

Now that I am no longer a civil servant, I can say things in public that I would only say in private before. (I am the last minute - at 17:00)

Free Leaseholders

@FreeLeasehlders

9 months

🐷EXPOSING THE GROUND RENT GRAZERS🐷 This one’s for @BimAfolami , @RishiSunak , @michaelgove , @Lee4NED and @mtpennycook . In a general election year, it is crucial to debunk the sector spin of the ‘ruined granny’ and show who is really behind the protection racket of ground rent.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

8 months

Our first house is now worth 8x what we paid in 1996. Salary for my job then has risen 2.5x. No wonder the UK young don't vote Conservative. @jburnmurdoch

Why are young people deserting conservatism in Britain but nowhere else?

Shocks thought to be worldwide have hit Britain’s young adults harder than most

www.ft.com

Sam Freedman

@Samfr

8 months

@racheljanetwolf @timleunig The flat we bought in 2006 is now three times as much whereas the salary for the job I was doing then is up about 50%. It's nuts.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 years

This is remarkable. Offshore wind for £44/mWh when gas generated electricity is costing ~4x the amount. CfD contracts are not only cheap and green, but the low price is locked in. @guynewey @DrSimEvans

Simon Evans

@DrSimEvans

2 years

The record-low £37/MWh for offshore wind in today's UK auction result is all the more remarkable amid severe global commodity price inflation (£44/MWh in current money)

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 years

Over 70 or clinically extremely vulnerable? You can book a vaccine slot even if you have not had a letter offering you the jab. Click or ring 119 for free. Please retweet, tell other people you know etc etc.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

5 months

You can really see how David Cameron and the @Conservatives killed wind power in England. (Also shows why I love devolution - make bad policy choices more obvious, and therefore easier to undo) Thanks

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

5 months

There are plenty of countries richer than us that have higher taxes than the UK. Tax rates are not the obvious determinant of growth.

Ryan Bourne

@MrRBourne

5 months

"I don’t believe that there is a single reputable economist around the world who believes that the answer now to the UK’s productivity problems is to raise taxes in order to spend on welfare payments." @BorisJohnson

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

7 months

The post war history of the UK car industry shows how levelling up policy can destroy GDP and reduce living standards across the country. It is hard to buck markets.

CoKeynesian

@CoKeynesian

7 months

One of the many distortions created by postwar British planning law was to force the British motor industry away from building new factories in its traditional hub of Birmingham to scattered locations of areas of high unemployment.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

If you have never studied economics, this article is close to the perfect 10 minute course in how economists think, and why economics is useful in answering big questions including war and peace. And economists will like it too. Thanks @MargRev

Marginal Revolution

@MargRev

1 year

Substitutes Are Everywhere: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 years

I am off to @DHSCgovuk for 6 months, working on cancer, mental health and other issues. These are important issues and I hope to make a difference 3/4

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

Your claim is that 1933 build rates cannot be beaten in the 2020s, despite all the improvements in technology? I find that unconvincing. Big message from this chart is surely that post war planning controls reduced building a LOT.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

5 months

I wrote it, @ros_hutchinson . Despite the threat of VAT, private school applications are the second highest in history. I have no doubt that the sector will be fine, and that Labour will raise a decent sum of money. My full article is here: @SchoolsWeek

Better advice is available for private schools avoiding VAT

I'll bet a bottle of champagne that state school leaders could help private schools find savings to pay their tax bill

schoolsweek.co.uk

Ros Hutchinson

@ros_hutchinson

5 months

@Samfr @peterjukes This is an interesting take Can’t remember who wrote it.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

The work that @BoyanSlat is doing to prevent plastic entering the ocean is so effective. Bravo!

Boyan Slat

@BoyanSlat

1 year

Another look at Monday’s record extraction day (half a million lbs!) in Guatemala:

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

Wow. This is nuts. Government allows farming to massively pollute our rivers while banning new houses, even though they onlymoved pollution from where people used to live, to where they now live. Hopefully @TamFinkelstein @defra will get to the bottom of this.

Paul Smith

@Paul_SLG

3 months

Astonishing research from @HomeBuildersFed . At the same time as 160,000 homes are held up by nutrient neutrality rules, the Environment Agency has approved farms exceeding standard legal limits of nitrogen use by 1.1m kgs. That’s equivalent to more than 600,000 homes.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

I crunched the new housing numbers properly last night (meaning Stata, not Excel). Don't like the outcome one bit. Will write it up properly over the weekend. Young people are going to be very disappointed with Labour in 5 years if they stick to this plan.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

10 months

Whilst there are legitimate qs about student visa misuse, never forget UK Universities are major exporters, and level up the UK. International students at the Unis of Sunderland, Huddersfield, Portsmouth etc are spending money locally and bringing prosperity.

Chris Blattman

@cblatts

10 months

Such a weird backwards view of what drives economic growth. Higher education is one of the most important exports that developed nations have. Selling a terrifically valuable service to foreigners. It just happens to be bought on our soil (which means they buy a tremendous amount

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

Great news: @UCAS cancel personal statements. They cause huge stress for applicants, waste school time and are rarely read by university admissions teams. (I never read the: who cares if you play the flute or spent a week saving the rhino?)

UCAS on LinkedIn: UCAS announces new personal statement structure |...

💥 Today we're revealing the new format to the UCAS personal statement, creating a level playing field for all applicants. 📝 The new format, which separates… | 15 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

5 months

The Attlee government was **very** averse to private enterprise, nationalising 1000s of small parcel firms, coal, steel, rail etc. British Sugar was next in line. 1/3

Sam Bowman

@s8mb

5 months

@IronEconomist @timleunig No, they really did intend to kill (private) housebuilding. Alongside the TCPA they initially completely banned private housebuilding without a “building license” and only issued 20–40k/year between 1946 and 1951. They wanted public housebuilding only.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

11 months

All jobs that don't offer WFH will have to offer higher pay if they want to recruit staff that can otherwise get WFH positions. This will be true for both teachers and TAs, among others

Laura McInerney

@miss_mcinerney

3 years

The more I look at it the more I can’t see how schools will be able to continue recruiting learning support assistants, & receptionists & many other roles which - let’s be honest - have often been done by women who needed term time-only jobs and so accepted low pay.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

10 months

Delighted to be joining @ukonward two days a week in the new year, as Chief Economist, and equally delighted to be remaining at PublicFirst as Director of Economics three days a week. [Want to hire a great econ team? DM me...]

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

10 months

This is the scariest thing I have seen. This appears completely real, and it is completely fake. I genuinely do not know how we will tell reality from the fakes that will be everywhere.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 months

I agree with every single one of @IronEconomist contributions to this exchange. If we grant more planning permissions we will get more houses, more reservoirs, etc. Markets are very useful things for allocating resources to things that are really needed.

Giles Wilkes

@Gilesyb

4 months

Amazing how often this issue is overlooked. I swear I know people who talk as if you just change planning laws and then Pop! Out of nowhere appear thousands of housebuilding elves....

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

5 years

I am humbled. I was planting snowdrops earlier today and came in for a cuppa as soon as it started to hail!

James Rebanks

@herdyshepherd1

5 years

People are awesome Someday this will be a bushy old hedgerow with oaks every 30-40ft

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

This really is an outstanding essay on Malthus, and the origins of economic growth in England. Every single @LSEEcHist #EH101 should read it. Thanks @MaxCRoser for writing it.

Breaking out of the Malthusian trap: How pandemics allow us to understand why our ancestors were...

The Industrial Revolution ended the Malthusian trap in which incomes were determined by the size of the population – making it possible for a country to leave abject poverty behind.

ourworldindata.org

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

Labour really are serious about both being on the side of builders, and about net zero. When people say "it doesn't matter who I vote for", they are wrong!

Sam Dumitriu

@Sam_Dumitriu

3 months

At the end of his first full week as Energy Sec, Ed Miliband has approved three large-scale solar farms. ✅ Sunnica Energy Farm ✅ Mallard Pass Solar Farm ✅ Gate Burton Energy Park 1.5GW of clean power unlocked with the stroke of a pen.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

I said @UKLabour might find loads of nasties when they got into govt. Tories told me I was wrong, saying @PJTheEconomist says everything is known. Today we discover that the nasties were so well hidden even Paul did not spot them in advance! 1/2

Paul Johnson

@PJTheEconomist

3 months

Rachel Reeves says £6.4bn overspend on asylum this year. Huge number. Does genuinely appear to have been unfunded.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 months

Outstanding and important column from @ChrisGiles_ UK QE was MUCH more expensive than elsewhere. Perhaps we should have used fiscal policy more - £100bn of investment rather than QE losses could have raised our growth potential.

Was QE worth it?

Quantitative easing appears to have cost British taxpayers at least twice as much as equivalents in the US, Europe and other advanced economies

www.ft.com

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

5 months

Britain has more homeless people than other countries: @jburnmurdoch on exceptional form today: clear about facts, clear about causes, clear about implications. Read it and weep, better still read it and remember it when you vote later this year.

Why Britain is the world’s worst on homelessness

Insufficient housing, an eroded social sector and diminished state support made tens of thousands destitute

www.ft.com

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

8 months

Utterly magnificent from @mortenmorland in @thetimes today. Spot on! @michaelgove , take note!

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 months

The best route to economic growth for UK and @UKLabour is too liberalise planning, with a much greater rule for permitted development. A guaranteed job creator.

scoot!

@ScootFoundation

4 months

aside from all the direct benefits to higher quality and more abundance, the Auckland housing boom has been great for blue collar employment:

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

If you build enough houses, houses become affordable. Evidence for basic economics here...

Jeremiah Johnson 🌐

@JeremiahDJohns

3 months

The 'empty quadrant' is one of the most replicated findings in housing research. There expensive cities that don't build. There are cheap cities that do build. And there are no cities that build lots of housing and still see very high housing costs.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 years

I will always be proud of the work we did on furlough (with our wonderful colleagues in @HMRCgovuk ), on arbitration for commercial rents, and on High Street Rental Auctions. 2/4

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 months

All politicians need to learn that you can't buck the market, and that the market is increasingly international. If you pay low wages, as we do for teachers, we will have vacancies. It really is that simple.

Ed Dorrell

@Ed_Dorrell

4 months

Ouch

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

Housebuilder shares rose this morning. Points to markets not being efficient - surely we knew yesterday that Labour would win?

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

Received a lovely email today: "We overlapped briefly at HMT but didn’t meet. I covered in XXX's PO and was advised, on a slow Friday in recess, to search for emails from you in our inbox and read them all. It was a very good Friday" Made my day! #ShowAppreciation

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@timleunig

9 months

This piece is utter nonsense. If we allowed 10 stories on all sites across London, the value of land would fall because speculators would realise housing would soon be abundant, and this land values low

Giles Wilkes

@Gilesyb

9 months

Bit late to this, no doubt it will annoy a lot of people, but it is an insightful piece. Lifting zone restrictions is not sufficient; rents are mostly about incomes, you know the sort of thing.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

The third covid vaccine dose doesn't just work, it works spectacularly well. If you are eligible, go to a walk in centre today. Type your postcode in here:

Paul Mainwood

@PaulMainwood

3 years

Emergency extension of the y-axis. Big clue that something important is happening.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

6 months

One of the reasons the UK public sector costs a lot, and yet finds it so hard to recruit good people. Pension-biased renumeration is not a winner! h/t @JohnRalfe1

Adrian Moore

@reasonpolicy

6 months

Data show that traditional defined-benefit retirement plans aren’t a path to improved recruitment or retention. When it comes to younger workers in particular, policymakers need to accept the new reality. @Jen_Sidorova

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 months

Guess what? If you don't build enough houses in the right places, housing becomes more expensive. #EC101 PS It is the worst in 7 years because we only have data for 7 years. It is probably the worst in 70 years or 700 years.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

3 doses of the covid vaccine will cut your risk of dying from covid by over 98%. I still find that utterly remarkable. My huge thanks to all those involved - you may have saved my life, you have certainly saved many lives.

Edouard Mathieu

@redouad

3 years

Update: COVID deaths in Switzerland by booster status Compared to unvaccinated people, the COVID mortality rate is: • 11x lower after full vaccination • 56x lower after a booster [From our post with @maxcroser on death rates by vaccination status: ]

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

And to those saying "these pay rises are a choice" - only up to a point. If Perm Secs are telling Ministers that recruitment and retention are awful the choice is rather hollow.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

6 months

BBC report 5000 nail technicians agree to raise prices on Monday. Looks like illegal price fixing. @CMAgovUK @CitizensAdvice Anyone doing this can be fined 10% of turnover & banned from being a company director.

Manicure price rise: Are you happy to pay more for your nails?

Nail technicians unite to raise their charges in what they call "National Nail Price Increase Day”.

www.bbc.co.uk

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@timleunig

4 years

Hallelujah! Let us give thanks. And here is to the rest of the world following in their footsteps.

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼

@Noahpinion

4 years

Our World in Data reports ZERO new COVID cases in Israel on March 27th. (I know some people are really sticklers for reporting cases as a percent of population, so note that as a percent of population, this is also zero)

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

6 months

British workers are LESS likely to take sick leave than in any other rich developed country. #FactsMatter , thank you @benatipsos

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

6 months

It is true that we work fewer hours, which peaked at about 3500 a year, in the industrial revolution. That is good - more leisure is one of the many benefits of economic growth. @joachim_voth

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 years

This is one of those really important facts whose significance will only be understood in retrospect. Once we stop using marginal land for food, food prices will fall, as it is marginal cost of production that sets price.

Hannah Ritchie

@_HannahRitchie

2 years

For millennia, humans have used more and more land for agriculture, taking over wild habitats. But, we are at a unique point in history: agricultural land use has peaked. My latest article:

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

This is correct from Tony Blair: our own emissions are less important than what we do to get everyone's emissions down, whether by accelerating tech to cut costs, or by diplomacy.

John Rentoul

@JohnRentoul

1 year

Tony Blair’s office says that the most “heretical” phrase in the interview was a description of other people’s views

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

18 days

The £22bn is an annual, recurrent, black hole not a one off!

Harry Cole

@MrHarryCole

18 days

Superb. The 395 tonnes of gold flogged off by Gordon Brown at the bottom of the market would be worth … £22 Billion … today. There’s ya black hole sorted.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

A pleasure to take my old @LSEEcHist friend and colleague Debin Ma out for tea, to celebrate his @OxfordESH Professorship.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

10 months

It is about time Tim Martin @WetherspoonsTA was knighted. He is one of our most successful entrepreneurs and has done much to revitalise our High Streets

Roger Protz

@RogerProtzBeer

10 months

Pub giant JD Wetherspoon announces "January Sale" next week with some pints at £1.99 - tough competition for other pubs - as founder Tim Martin is set to be knighted for "services to business"

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 years

One of our office cleaners told me that I was the first office worker to talk to him in five years cleaning our office. So sad. We should all make time for those doing jobs we depend on.

Ian Leslie

@mrianleslie

4 years

Damn

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

6 months

I lost count of the number of times in govt and out when people said to me "Treasury said no" and I have said "when? and to what exact q?" And they said "We have not actually asked, because we know what they will say".

Tom Forth

@thomasforth

6 months

@ChrisGiles_ I'm sort of with you. I'd like to at least try a concerted national campaign where when someone says "Treasury said no" we all reply "yeah but did they? Really? Did they really? I bet they didn't" instead of "booo, Treasury bad".

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 months

Surely, surely, @UKLabour cannot go into the next election having overseen a massive rise in poverty, and a massive rise in child poverty? What would be the point of the party?

Resolution Foundation

@resfoundation

2 months

Currently, absolute and relative poverty are heading in the wrong direction. If the economic forecasts and policies inherited by the new Gov remained unchanged, 1.5 million more people, including 400,000 children, would be in relative poverty by the end of the Parliament.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 years

Remember that there are many good and interesting jobs outside academia.

Natalie E. Dean, PhD

@nataliexdean

4 years

Dear senior faculty, If you could give your junior faculty self one piece of advice, what would it be? Thanks in advance! Sincerely, A stressed out assistant professor looking for guidance

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 months

Solar is now so cheap and in the right places so effective that it is being installed by people who do not care about global warming. This is how we will prevent further climate worsening.

Science Is Strategic

@scienceisstrat1

4 months

Solar is eating the world

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

8 months

😀Good news! Two days ago I tweeted the worst pie chart ever. Within a day @NHSCFA DM'd me that they had changed it. 😀(Sure, it is not perfect, but it is good enough) Thank you! @whippletom @GavinFreeguard @sib313 @jburnmurdoch @stianwestlake

Tim Leunig

@timleunig

8 months

You won't believe how bad this pie chart is! The NHS Counter Fraud Authority @NHSCFA are using a pie chart to show the change over 5 years. I could cry. . @jburnmurdoch @stianwestlake @sib313 @whippletom

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

As I say to my students: If you are ever offered the chance to go back in time, just say no. Life was overwhelmingly hard work, as well as the much higher chance of dying young.

Ethan Mollick

@emollick

1 year

The “good old days” were much harder. In 1865 the average British worker worked 124,000 hours over their life (like the US & Japan). In 1980, only 69,000 hours, despite living longer. Since then, it dropped slower, by 6%. We went from spending 50% of our lives working to 20%!

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

The cost of children is now much higher (lost female earning power), so people have fewer. If the state pays enough, people have more, see Estonia: h/t @Work_Life_You

Chris Giles

@ChrisGiles_

1 year

😬 What do people think is the cause? a) Housing market? b) Childcare? c) Who wants kids anyway? d) Other

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

8 months

In the nineteenth century, we put up lots of statues by public subscription, to honour people of merit. I wish we still did - I would donate for a statue of Navalny. Preferably opposite the Russian Embassy. #LetFreedomReign

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

(I am only cancelling because my new employer subscribes. But being on hold this long puts me off subscribing. Any company that allows you to subscribe online should allow you to cancel online. Shoddy practice not to).

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

7 months

Yes, reducing the pension-biased renumeration of civil servants would help recruitment. Long overdue!

Alex Thomas

@AlexGAThomas

7 months

@IGMansfield @timleunig @instituteforgov And pension reform - more up front salary at least as an option

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 years

@alanbeattie @lionelbarber As a civil servant, I write "The data shows that", but as an economic historian I write "The data show that", thus keeping both my tribes happy... (The @EcHistSocReview still uses "per caput"...)

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

10 months

I agree 100% with @PJTheEconomist . The covid enquiry is not proceeding in a sensible manner.

Paul Johnson

@PJTheEconomist

10 months

I’m pretty grumpy. Lots to learn about responding to covid & future pandemics. A serious analysis of trade offs implicit in lockdowns, social costs etc is needed. But spending 4 years and £100m+ on who said what to whom in a series of legalistic confrontations is ludicrous.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

Want to reduce your chance of dying from covid by more than 95%? All you have to do is get vaccinated. Thank you to all the scientists, and to @NHSEngland who have reduced my chance of dying from covid so spectacularly. Love you all

Edouard Mathieu

@redouad

3 years

Update: The COVID mortality rate among unvaccinated people is 24 times higher than among vaccinated people. This is the latest age-standardized data from Switzerland. [From our post with @maxcroser on death rates by vaccination status: ]

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

Inflation adjusted global median income has **doubled in 17 years**. All time record. Stunning. #LifeIsGettingBetter #GettingThere . Thanks @DinaPomeranz @LSEEcHist #EH101

Dina D. Pomeranz 🟣

@DinaPomeranz

3 years

Two facts many people don't know: 1) The global median income has doubled in 17 years from 2000 to 2017. A stunningly rapid progress the world has *never* seen before. (Adjusted for prices, so not due to inflation) 2) Still half the people in the world have less than $7 per day

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

1 year

Yup, this is true. We stopped factories and offices in Birmingham from expanding in the 1960s to level up the North. Didn't work. Bucking the market rarely does: it just makes us poorer.

Sam Dumitriu

@Sam_Dumitriu

1 year

In 1961, West Midlands households earned more on average than households in any other part of Britain. So, London-based planners banned almost all new building of factories, offices and housing south of Manchester in an attempt to rebalance the economy.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

An outstanding example of brownfield redevelopment. Thanks @Lewis_Ilsley for highlighting. @createstreets @SCP_Hughes

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

5 years

Surely one for @herdyshepherd1 & @julian_glover ...

@zoesqwilliams.bsky.social

@zoesqwilliams

5 years

Bloodie collies think they’re so intelligent (because they are)

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

It is worth understanding and appreciating how many of Ukraine's soldiers are, at most, part time soldiers. They absolutely did not choose to fight, to kill, or to die. Thanks @PippaCrerar

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

11 months

H/T @dmthomas90 - 15% of disadvantaged pupils in the UK are top performers in PISA. This is **THE BEST IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD**. Wow, just wow. Be proud, teachers! :-)

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

I agree with @antonhowes that the Victorians did this well. Any one could submit a design, and the decision is made by a govt appointed panel.

Dr Anton Howes

@antonhowes

3 years

The government wants an iconic design for British EV charge points, to compare with post boxes and telephone booths. Good. But hiring a consultancy design team is the wrong approach. Should be a public competition, like the Victorians would have done.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 months

This is why people who block off, or dig up the road, should pay a daily fee. They would then have an incentive to get on with it.

Clem Cowton

@ClemCowton

2 months

These road works near my house have been going on so long Nature is reclaiming the street.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

5 months

Darn, I thought this was going to be Cambridge England supporting denser, higher housing

Jonathan Berk

@berkie1

5 months

A Cambridge City Council Panel’s Proposal Would Legalize Six-Story Buildings. Everywhere. “If we want to take the housing crisis seriously, we need to be doing a lot better than we are right now." - @realBurhanAzeem 📍 Cambridge, MA

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 years

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office invites UK students in Year 10 to Year 13 or equivalent to write 800 words about big economic challenges by 25 April 2021. £250 prize.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 months

All the evidence is that people think it is time for change. I am playing my part in making it happen today.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

"Don't get it right, get it written". It is easier to edit something you have written than think your way to the perfect sentence. Especially useful for young or inexperienced writers. I heard it when I was writing my undergrad dissertation.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

4 years

Almost at the front of the queue! Won't be long now!!

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 months

Am happy to forgive you, but I am a multiple prize winning transport economist, been a consultant to ATOC and serve in a DfT advisory panel...

William Barter

@WilliamBarter1

3 months

@timleunig @SCP_Hughes Forgive me, but your comments are typical think tank stuff - expert on one subject making sweeping and misleading statements on another without realising that there is actually a body of knowledge to be acquired first.

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

2 months

The decline in Scottish educational standards is one of the saddest things to have happened in the UK in the last decade or so. National and International measures of standards are falling - particularly for poor kids. A big story for the future of the UK.

Nick Hillman

@nickhillman

2 months

Worth reading if you’re getting your head around the worrying trends in educational performance in Scotland shown in yesterday’s Higher results. Perhaps they shouldn’t come as a surprise? PISA 2022 in Scotland: declining attainment & growing inequality:

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Tim Leunig

@timleunig

3 years

Great to know universities increase human capital!

Ethan Mollick

@emollick

3 years

A cool study that is able to show the benefit of college beyond being a signal to employers - Mafia members who go to college become more effective criminals. Police records show, Mafiosos who went to college earned 8% more per year, even higher for those running complex crimes.

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