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Till death do us part? (updated)

You’ve had a busy day at work. You check your watch; it’s almost 5pm. You should be packing soon – except, your boss is still in their office. You shouldn’t really be seen leaving before your boss, should you? You don’t want to be branded as ‘that guy’ – the one who is ‘not committed’, ‘not willing to go the extra mile’, ‘not flexible enough’, first out of the door’ – you don’t want to have that label pinned on your performance appraisal. After all, your boss is still hard at work, and so are your other colleagues.

So you wait, pretending to work, although you do not really do much – perhaps you’re checking Facebook, reading the news or similar. And so does your boss, not wanting to be seen leaving before anyone else. But what example is this going to set for you and your other colleagues. You all wait for someone to make the first move – a prisoner’s dilemma situation. The only difference is that it’s you who is the prisoner in this situation.

Presenteeism

What we have described is an example of presenteeism. But how would we define it? If you search the term on Google Scholar or Scopus, you will come across a number of articles in the fields of health and labour economics that define presenteeism as a phenomenon in which employees who feel physically unwell choose to go to work, or stay on at work, rather than asking for time off to get better (see, for instance, Hansen and Andersen, 2008 and several others). This is also known as sickness presenteeism.

According to Cooper and Lu (2016), however, the use of the term can be extended to describe a wider situation in which a worker is physically present at their workplace but not functioning (by reason of tiredness, physical illness, mental ill-health, peer pressure or whatever else). As explained in Biron and Saksvik (2009):

Cooper’s conceptualisation of presenteeism implied that presenteeism was a behaviour determined by specific determinants (i.e. long working hours and a context of uncertainty). This tendency to stay at work longer than required to display a visible commitment is what Simpson (1998) calls ‘competitive presenteeism’ where people compete on who will stay in the office the longest.

The effect of presenteeism

Unsurprisingly, the effect of presenteeism on the wellbeing of workers and the economic performance of firms has been looked at extensively from different angles and disciplines – including health economists, organisational behaviour and labour economists – for a recent and comprehensive review of the literature on this topic see Lohaus and Habermann (2019).

Most of these studies agree that the effects of presenteeism are negative; in particular, they identify significant negative effects on the physical health of workers (Skagen and Collins, 2016); emotional exhaustion and mental health issues (Demerouti et al, 2009); persistent productivity loss (Warren et al, 2011); lower work engagement and negative feelings (Asfaw et al, 2017) – among several others. There seems, therefore, to be plenty of convincing evidence that presenteeism is bad for everyone – business owners, managers and staff.

So next time that you find yourself stuck at work working silly hours, feeling totally unproductive and just staying to be seen, email this blog to your boss and other colleagues – and ask them if they wish to join you for a drink or a walk.

You’re welcome!

(By the way, there’s a saying that in the UK the last one to leave the office is seen as the hardest working, whereas in Germany the last one to leave the office is seen as the least efficient!)

Articles

References

Questions

  1. ‘Presenteeism leads to lower productivity and firm performance and should be discouraged by business owners and managers’. Discuss.
  2. Jack Ma, the Chinese billionaire and owner of Ali Baba, has defended his ‘996 work model’ (working 9am to 9pm for 6 days a week) as a ‘huge blessing’. Find and review some articles on this topic, and use them to write a response. Your response should be substantiated using relevant economic theory and empirical research.
  3. Have you or anyone you know found yourself guilty of presenteeism? Share your experience with the rest of the class, focusing on effects on productivity and your attitude towards your employer and work colleagues.
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Subscription traps: policy responses to a market failure

Policy makers have become increasingly concerned about what the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) describe as ‘negative option marketing’. These are marketing deals that contain the following feature:

a term or condition that allows a seller to interpret a customer’s silence, or failure to take affirmative action, as an acceptance of an offer.

For example, companies such as Amazon, Apple, Spotify and Netflix may offer students a 3-month free trial or 3-month introductory offer (at a special lower price) for movie and music streaming services. However, many of these subscription contracts contain an example of negative option marketing – auto renewal clauses.

Problems with auto-renewal contracts

The inclusion of an auto-renewal clause means that if a customer fails to cancel the subscription at the end of the three-month period, the subscription automatically reverts to its full price. The full-price contract then continues to roll-over indefinitely unless the customer takes a pre-specified action to terminate the deal. Inattentive consumers could end up paying subscription prices that far exceed their willingness to pay.

Auto-renewal contracts are not just an issue with free trials/introductory offers. Some people may purchase subscription contracts at the full price and then forget about them. These consumers could end up paying fees for months after they have effectively stopped using the service.

Another potential problem with the use of auto-renewal contracts, is businesses deliberately making the cancellation process more complex than it needs to be. In many cases it takes just one click to sign up for the subscription, but multiple clicks through a series of menus to cancel. Some businesses do not provide consumers with the option to cancel online and, instead, they are forced to phone a number that is often very busy.

Effects on consumer welfare

To what extent do these problems caused by auto-renewal reduce consumer welfare? What evidence do we have?

Research by Citizens Advice found that just over one in four people (26 per cent) had signed up to a subscription by accident. 58 per cent of this group forgot to cancel a free trial, while 21 per cent did not realise that the free trial would automatically roll-over to a full-price subscription. This seems to be a particular issue for those on low incomes with 46 per cent of people on Universal Credit signing up to a subscription by accident.

Analysis by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has tried to estimate the value of these unwanted subscriptions. The study found that consumers spent £602 million on unwanted subscriptions where a free or reduced-price trial had been rolled over to the full price. The same study also found that £573 million was spent on subscriptions that people had forgotten about.

One in five people in the Citizens Advice study who tried to cancel a subscription found the process difficult. The DBT estimates that cancellation difficulties led to £382 million being spent on unwanted subscriptions.

UK Government response

In response to these findings, the government introduced the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill into Parliament in April 2023.

Provisions in the Bill seek to standardise the information that businesses must provide consumers before they sign up for subscription contracts. For example, in the future, firms will have to display prominently (a) any auto-renewal provisions, (b) whether the price increases after a specified period, (c) details about how consumers can terminate the contract and (d) cooling-off periods.

The Bill also stipulates that businesses will have to provide consumers with reminders when a free/reduced-price trial period is about to end and/or a subscription is about to renew automatically. They must also make it easy to exit contracts and remove any unnecessary steps.

The government initially considered an additional measure that would force businesses to provide consumers with the option to take out any subscription without auto-renewal.

Citizens Advice strongly supported this policy. They argued that not only should consumers be given the choice, but that auto-renewal should not be the default i.e. people would have to opt-in to auto-renewal subscriptions.

However, after the consultation process for the Bill, the government decided against introducing this additional measure. Businesses have also argued that the other elements of the policy are too prescriptive.

Articles

Government documents

Questions

  1. Outline some theories from behavioural economics that might help to explain why people sometimes end up with unwanted subscriptions.
  2. Discuss some of the potential benefits of auto-renewal subscriptions for both consumers and firms.
  3. Using behavioural economic theory, explain some of the potential disadvantages for businesses of using auto-renewal subscriptions.
  4. When businesses deliberately make the cancellation process more complex than it needs to be, it is referred to as an example of ‘sludge’. Explain the meaning of ‘sludge’ in more detail, referring to some different examples in your answer.
  5. What difference do you think it would make to the number of people signing up for auto-renewal subscriptions if you had to opt-in as opposed to opting out? Explain your answer.
  6. Another policy would be to force firms to cancel subscription contracts if there is evidence that consumers have not used the service for a long period of time. Discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of this measure.
  7. Explain what are meant by ‘dark patterns’. How may the choice architecture on some sites actually hinder consumer choice?
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End of the line

HS2 has been cancelled north of Birmingham. The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced this at the Conservative Party conference on 4 October, some 13 years after the plan was adopted by the Labour government to build a new high-speed railway from London to Birmingham, which then would branch into two legs – one to Manchester and one to Leeds. The initial budget for this was £15.8bn to £17.4bn. When it came to power, the Conservative-Liberal coalition government ordered a review of the plan. In light of this, the government gave the green light in January 2012 for the full Y-shaped project to go ahead. The London–Birmingham leg was planned to open in 2026 and the two northern legs from 2033.

The project was divided into two phases: Phase 1 to Birmingham and Phase 2 to Manchester and Leeds. The Phase 1 parliamentary bill became law in February 2017 and soon after that, various construction contracts were signed. After some delays, preparation for construction work began in June 2019. There was growing doubt, however, about the viability of the northern legs.

On becoming prime minister in 2019, Boris Johnson ordered an independent review of the project after estimates that the costs of the full project would be some £88bn. The review, chaired by Douglas Oakervee, was published in December 2019 (for a link, see list of reports below). It found that costs (in 2015 prices) were likely to be between £62bn and £69bn. Nevertheless, it concluded that the project should proceed: that the original rationale for HS2 still held; that there were:

no shovel-ready alternative investments in the existing network that were available: if HS2 were to be cancelled, many years of planning work would be required to identify, design and develop new proposals; that the upgrading of existing lines would also come at a high passenger cost with significant disruption; that there would be serious consequences for the supply chain, the fragile UK construction industry and confidence in UK infrastructure planning if HS2 were to be cancelled at this late stage.

In February 2020, the prime minister announced that HS2 would go ahead, including the legs to Manchester and Leeds. The Department for Transport published a document (see source line to the following table) giving the full business case for Phase 1 and the outline case for Phase 2. The document itemised the costs and benefits as estimated at the time.

Source: Full Business Case: High Speed Two, Table 2.9, Department for Transport (April 2020)

Box 12.6 in Economics (eleventh edition) and Case study 8.16 on the Essentials of Economics (ninth edition) student website looks at these costs and benefits. The above table is taken from the box/case study. Net transport benefits (present value at 2015 prices) were estimated to be £74.2bn. These include benefits to passengers from shorter journey times, greater reliability, greater connectivity and less crowding, and reduced congestion on roads. They also include other benefits, such as a reduction in carbon emissions and a reduction in road accidents. Net benefits also include the wider benefits from greater connectivity between firms (resulting in increased specialism, trade and investment), greater competition and greater labour mobility. These wider benefits were estimated to be £20.5bn, giving total net benefits of £94.7bn.

Total costs to the government were estimated to be £108.9bn and revenues from fares to be £45.4bn, giving total net costs of £63.5bn. This gave a benefit/cost ratio of 1.5 (£94.7bn/£63.5bn). In the light of these findings, the government announced in September 2020 that the main work on the London to Birmingham leg would begin, despite the Public Accounts Committee’s finding that the project was badly off course and lacking in transparency.

Concern was expressed over whether the Leeds leg would go ahead, but in May 2021, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, confirmed that it would be completed. However, with the publication of the Integrated Rail Plan in November 2021 (for a link, see list of reports below), the government decided that the eastern leg of HS2 would no longer reach Leeds but instead end in the East Midlands. Then in June 2022, the link between the HS2 line near Manchester and the West Coast Main Line was scrapped. This would have allowed HS2 trains to reach Scotland.

In early 2023, it was announced that the building of the terminus at Euston was being put on hold. Many interpreted this as meaning that it was being scrapped, with trains terminating at Old Oak Common, some six miles from Central London.

Finally, as we have seen, HS2 north of Birmingham has now been scrapped and the government is seeking private-sector funding to build the terminus at Euston and complete the line from Old Oak Common.

Arguments for scrapping the northern legs

The main argument given by the government was that projected costs have risen substantially above original estimates and that by cancelling the Manchester and east Midlands legs, the money saved could be better used elsewhere. The argument is one of opportunity cost. The cost of going ahead would mean not going ahead with better-value alternatives.

The government claims that £36bn will be saved and that this will be diverted to rail, road and other transport projects, primarily (although not exclusively) in the north of England. The money would be spent between 2029 and 2040. Projects include spending additional money on the planned upgrading of the rail link between Manchester and Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and Hull; building a new station at Bradford; developing a mass transit system for Leeds and its surroundings; a £2.5bn fund for improved transport for smaller cities, towns and the countryside in the north of England; extra funding for transport in the east and west Midlands, including funding a Midlands Rail Hub. Out of the £36bn, £6.5bn would be for projects elsewhere, including road improvement.

In order to judge whether the diversion of funds represents a better use of money, a full analysis of costs and benefits of the various projects would need to be conducted and compared with an updated cost–benefit analysis of continuing with the legs to Manchester and the east Midlands and possibly reinstating the Leeds leg too.

One possible benefit for the government is a political one. It hopes that promising more local projects rather than HS2 will appeal to the electorate in large parts of the north of England who are suffering from poor and unreliable transport links. However, most of these projects will be started well beyond the next election and this political gain may turn out to be small. Indeed, cancelling HS2 may breed cynicism, with people wondering whether any promised new projects will actually be delivered.

Arguments against scrapping the northern leg(s)

The benefits originally identified from HS2 will now be lost. It is not just that the northern legs of HS2 would have provided faster travel to Manchester and Leeds, but the new lines would have reduced congestion for slower trains and freight on existing lines. This has been the experience in countries such as Japan and Spain, which have invested heavily in new, separate high-speed lines.

When the line is completed to Birmingham, the HS2 trains will be able to continue north of Birmingham on existing lines. But these lines are heavily congested, which will limit the number of HS2 trains that can use them. Also they will be restricted to 110 mph on these lines as they have no tilting mechanism. Also they will have a maximum capacity of only 550 seats (a single train set) as the platforms at Manchester Piccadilly cannot accommodate double-set trains. The existing Pendalino trains on the West Coast mainline can travel at 125 mph as they do have the tilting mechanism and they have a higher capacity of 607 seats.

Then there are the signals that cancellation sends to industry about whether governments can be trusted to follow through on public-sector projects. Many business had expanded or relocated to places near the HS2 routes. Many others will wonder whether the promised new projects will go ahead. Indeed, shortly after giving a list of the projects (some of which had already been built or were being built), the list was removed from the government website. There is already a mood of scepticism amongst the electorate. Polling following the initial announcement showed that a majority believed that it was unlikely that the Conservatives would deliver the other projects if they won the next election.

The opportunity cost argument that the money would be better spent on alternative transport projects is predicated on various assumptions. One is that the money will actually be spent, which, as we have seen, people consider doubtful. Another is that the only choice is either spending a fixed pot of money on the northern leg(s) of HS2 or spending it on the alternative projects announced by the prime minister. It could be argued that the government should proceed with both the full HS2 and these other projects, and fund it by extra taxation. Investment as a percentage of GDP is low in the UK compared with other countries. Over the past 10 years, it has averaged 17.8% in the UK. This compares with 21.0% in the USA, 21.5% in Germany, 23.7% in France and 25.4% in Japan. Also, public-sector investment is low in the UK compared with that in other countries.

Assessing the arguments

Many of the costs and benefits of long-term projects, such as HS2, occur many years hence. There is, therefore, a great deal of uncertainty over their magnitude. This makes it extremely difficult to reach a clear conclusion over the desirability of cancelling HS2 north of Birmingham or continuing with it. Under such circumstances, politics tends to dominate decision making.

Articles

Government Press Release

Reports

Questions

  1. Why have the costs of HS2 (in real terms) risen substantially since the first estimates in 2012?
  2. Identify the types of environmental costs and benefits of the full Y-shaped HS2 project. Why might such costs and benefits be difficult to measure?
  3. Is the opportunity of cost of proceeding with the full Y-shaped HS2 a range of other transport projects? Explain.
  4. Find out the level of public-sector investment expenditure as a percentage of (a) total government expenditure and (b) GDP in some other developed countries and compare them with the UK. Comment on your findings.
  5. Should the decision whether or not to go ahead with the Manchester and east Midlands legs have been delayed until a new updated cost–benefit analysis had been conducted?
  6. If most of the benefits from the originally planned HS2 will be now be lost with the line ending at Birmingham, should this leg to Birmingham also be cancelled, even though many of the costs have already been incurred? Explain your reasoning.
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UK house prices: why are they falling so little?

UK house prices have been falling in recent months. According to the Nationwide Building Society, average UK house prices in September 2023 were 5.3% lower than in September 2022. This fall reflects the increasing cost of owning a home as mortgage rates have risen. The average standard variable rate mortgage was 3.61% in August 2021, 4.88% in August 2022 and 7.85% in August 2023. A two-year fixed rate mortgage with a 10% deposit had an interest rate of 2.48% in August 2021, 3.93% in August 2022 and 6.59% in August 2023. Thus over two years, mortgage rates have more than doubled. This has made house purchase less affordable and has dampened demand.

But do house prices simply reflect current affordability? Given the large increase in mortgage costs and the cost-of-living crisis, it might seem surprising that house prices have fallen so little. After all, from September 2019 to August 2023, the average UK house price rose by 27.1% (from £215 352 to £273 751). Since then it has fallen by only 5.8% (to £257 808 in September 2023). However, there are various factors that help to explain why house prices have not fallen considerably more.

The first is that 74% of borrowers are on fixed-rate mortgages and 96% of new mortgages since 2019 have been at fixed rates. More than half of people with fixed rates have not yet had to renew their mortgage since interest rates began rising in December 2021. These people, therefore, have not yet been affected by the rise in mortgage interest rates.

The second is that interest rates are expected to peak and then fall. Even though by December 2024 another 2 million households will have had to renew their mortgage, those taking out new longer-term fixed rates may find that rates are lower than those on offer today. This could help to reduce the downward effect on house prices.

The third is that rents continue to rise, partly in response to the higher mortgage rates paid by landlords. With the price of this substitute product rising, this acts as an incentive for existing homeowners not to sell and existing renters to buy, even though they are facing higher mortgage payments.

The fourth is that house prices do not necessarily reflect the overall market equilibrium. People selling may hold out for a better price, hoping that they will eventually attract a buyer. Houses thus are taking longer to sell. This creates a glut of houses at above-equilibrium prices, with fewer sales taking place. At the same time, these higher prices depress demand. People would rather wait for a fall in house prices than pay the current asking price. This creates more of a ‘buyers’ market’, with some sellers being forced to sell well below the asking price. According to Zoopla (see linked article below), the average selling price is 4.2% below the asking price – the highest since 2019. Nevertheless, with sellers holding out and with reduced sales, actual sale prices have fallen less than if markets cleared.

So will house prices continue to fall and will the rate of decline accelerate? This depends on confidence and affordability. With interest rates falling, confidence and affordability are likely to rise. This will help to arrest further price falls.

However, with large numbers of people still on low fixed rates but with these fixed terms ending over the coming months, for them interest rates will be higher and this could continue to have a dampening effect on demand. What is more, affordability is likely to rise only slowly and in the short term could fall further. Petrol and diesel prices remain high and home energy costs and food prices are still well above the levels of two years ago. Inflation generally is coming down only slowly. The higher prices plus a rising tax burden from fiscal drag1 will continue to squeeze household budgets. This will reduce the size of deposits and the monthly payments that house purchasers can afford.

Over the longer term, house prices are set to rise again. Lower interest rates, rising real incomes again and a failure of house building to keep up with the growth in the number of people seeking to buy houses will all contribute to this. However, over the next few months, house prices are likely to continue falling. But just how much is difficult to predict. A lot will depend on expectations about house prices and incomes, how quickly inflation falls and how quickly the Bank of England reduces interest rates.

1 With tax thresholds frozen, as people’s wages rise, so a higher proportion of their income is taxed and, for higher earners, a higher proportion is taxed at a higher rate. This automatically increases income tax as a proportion of income.

Articles

Data

Questions

  1. Use a supply and demand diagram to illustrate the situation where house prices are above the equilibrium.
  2. Why does house price inflation/deflation differ (a) from one type of house (or flat) to another; (b) from one region of the economy/locality to another?
  3. Find out why house prices rose so much (a) in the early 2000s; (b) from 2020 to 2022.
  4. Find out why house prices fell so much from 2008 to 2010. Why was this fall so much greater than in recent months?
  5. Find out what is happening to house prices in two other developed countries of your choice. How does the current housing market in these countries differ from that in the UK?
  6. Paint possible scenarios (a) where UK house prices continue to fall by several percentage points; (b) begin to rise again very soon.
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Chinese economic woes

China has been an economic powerhouse in recent decades – a powerhouse that has helped to drive the world economy through trade and both inward and outward investment. At the same time, its low-priced exports have helped to dampen world inflation. But is all this changing? Is China, to use President Biden’s words, a ‘ticking time bomb’?

China’s economic growth rate is slowing, with the quarterly growth in GDP falling from 2.2% in Q1 this year to 0.8% in Q2. Even though public-sector investment rose by 8.1% in the first six months of this year, private-sector investment fell by 0.2%, reflecting waning business confidence. And manufacturing output declined in August. But, despite slowing growth, the Chinese government is unlikely to use expansionary fiscal policy because of worries about growing public-sector debt.

The property market

One of the biggest worries for the Chinese economy is the property market. The annual rate of property investment fell by 20.6% in June this year and new home prices fell by 0.2% in July (compared with June). The annual rate of price increase for new homes was negative throughout 2022, being as low as minus 1.6% in November 2022; it was minus 0.1% in the year to July 2023, putting new-home prices at 2.4% below their August 2021 level. However, these are official statistics. According to the Japan Times article linked below, which reports Bloomberg evidence, property agents and private data providers report much bigger falls, with existing home prices falling by at least 15% in many cities.

Falling home prices have made home-owners poorer and this wealth effect acts as a brake on spending. The result is that, unlike in many Western countries, there has been no post-pandemic bounce back in spending. There has also been a dampening effect on local authority spending. During the property boom they financed a proportion of their spending by selling land to property developers. That source of revenue has now largely dried up. And as public-sector revenues have been constrained, so this has constrained infrastructure spending – a major source of growth in China.

The government, however, has been unwilling to compensate for this by encouraging private investment and has tightened regulation of the financial sector. The result has been a decline in new jobs and a rise in unemployment, especially among graduates, where new white collar jobs in urban areas are declining. According to the BBC News article linked below, “In July, figures showed a record 21.3% of jobseekers between the ages of 16 and 25 were out of work”.

Deflation

The fall in demand has caused consumer prices to fall. In the year to July 2023, they fell by 0.3%. Even though core inflation is still positive (0.8%), the likelihood of price reductions in the near future discourages spending as people hold back, waiting for prices to fall further. This further dampens the economy. This is a problem that was experienced in Japan over many years.

Despite slowing economic growth, Chinese annual growth in GDP for 2023 is still expected to be around 4.5% – much lower than the average rate for 9.5% from 1991 to 2019, but considerably higher than the average of 1.1% forecast for 2023 for the G7 countries. Nevertheless, China’s exports fell by 14.5% in the year to July 2023 and imports fell by 12.5%. The fall in imports represents a fall in exports to China from the rest of the world and hence a fall in injections to the rest-of-the-world economy. Currently China’s role as a powerhouse of the world has gone into reverse.

Articles

Questions

  1. Using PowerPoint or Excel, plot the growth rate of Chinese real GDP, real exports and real imports from 1990 to 2024 (using forecasts for 2023 and 2024). Use data from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook database. Comment on the figures.
  2. Explain the wealth effect from falling home prices.
  3. Why may official figures understate the magnitude of home price deflation?
  4. Explain the foreign trade multiplier and its relevance to other countries when the volume of Chinese imports changes. What determines the size of this multiplier for a specific country?
  5. How does the nature of the political system in China affect the likely policy response to the problems identified in this blog?
  6. Is there any good news for the rest of the world from the slowdown in the Chinese economy?