On 17 October we hosted our annual RES Summit, which this year was on Inflation and the Cost of Living Crisis.
If you were able to join us live, thank you very much, it was a fascinating look at where we are, how we got here and how economists are part of the debate.
The first panel, chaired by Romesh Vaitilingam of the Economics Observatory, heard from Swati Dhingra, Bank of England who said that recent labour market data shows a softening economy which is likely to lead to slower wage growth and reduced inflation pressure. Swati commented that “Now when the labour market is really loosening… it’s very hard to imagine where further momentum in wage growth is going to come from” before adding “We should see some relenting of domestic inflationary pressures…”
Swati’s comments were reported later in the day by Reuters, Bloomberg and The Telegraph.
Xiaowei Xu, Senior Research Economist at the IFS discussed the effects of rising inflation rates on real wages across the UK. Alfie Stirling from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation gave a stark picture on the effects inflation and the crisis is having, especially for low-income households, who have been forced to take on more debt.
Part 2 brought a change of pace as we looked at teaching inflation and economics in the classroom. Thank you to Scott Wolla who dialled in from the St. Louis to talked about teaching economics and gave some great examples including using data sourced from FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) along with some useful active learning examples. Thanks also to Fabio Aricò (UEA) and Yunzi He from University Bristol who referenced her own teaching materials.
For those who missed the summit, you can watch the recording now in the members/ videos area of the RES website where you will also find resources supplied by some speakers. If you are not currently a member of the RES, joining is simple and starts at just £18 per year. Members have access to a multitude of event videos. You will also receive the monthly RES Member News, the quarterly newsletter, discounted RES Annual Conference tickets and much more. More information here.
