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Which leadership challenges remain as a barrier to growth for SMEs?

Posted By Mike Cherry, Policy Chairman, FSB

21 March 2013

A review of the the leadership challenges which often face micro-businesses and SMEs.

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Charles  Levy

A Budget for innovation and growth? Three tests

Posted By Charles Levy

18 March 2013

Our Senior Economist, Charles, puts forward 3 tests against which to assess the potential for innovation and growth in this year's budget.

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Gareth Quested

Alternative lending: Shaking up banking business models

Posted By Gareth Quested

01 March 2013

Last week’s politically embarrassing downgrade of government debt by the credit rating agency Moody’s is probably not really worth worrying about by itself, but it does highlight legitimate concerns about the UK economy’s potential to grow itself out of its problems.

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Proposal for a new type of funding for SMEs to match their funding needs throughout the product lifecycle

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Andrew Sissons

We cannot rely on consumer spending to drive a strong recovery

Posted By Andrew Sissons

15 November 2012

Some of the UK’s economic commentators have become afflicted by a very strange idea recently: that consumer spending is going to rescue the UK economy.

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Hiba Sameen

What do the OBR forecasts really tell us?

Posted By Hiba Sameen

22 March 2012

Yesterday’s budget was meant to put Britain back on the path to growth and recovery. The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) has set out in its forecasts what that path might look like. As the government’s watchdog on public finances, its primary function is to ensure that the government is meeting its fiscal mandate during this period of austerity. But as the governments’ fiscal target is to eliminate the structural deficit by 2016/17, one of the key judgements they are required to make is the size of the output gap. The output gap reflects the underlying capacity for the economy to grow without giving rise to inflation, debt imbalances or other factors that could cause a subsequent correction in the future. And the size of the output gap is a key judgement for the OBR, because as it determines how much of the deficit is cyclical and how much of it is structural, it has important implications for the government’s fiscal target.

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The Coalition has always towed a pretty consistent line on geographic re-balancing in the UK: we need to become less dependent on the South East, and spread growth more evenly around the country. The message from today’s Autumn Statement was no different – the Chancellor announced a series of measures that aim to boost prosperity around the UK.

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Dr Neil Lee

Finance for high growth firms: EIS and beyond

Posted By Neil Lee

28 September 2011

Brussels has given the Treasury the go-ahead to expand the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS). By reducing the tax investors pay when backing high-risk companies, it’s designed to increase investment in them. The government argues the scheme will create more high growth firms: the seven per cent of firms who create half of all new jobs.

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