Prosperity Through Growth: Boosting Living Standards in an Age of Autocracy and AI
About this ebook
It begins by setting out the principles of ideal economic policy – the 'North Star' of prosperity through growth – and applies them to the UK's current position. The thinking takes account of the age of autocracy and AI, in which political decisions in democracies are constrained and talented and entrepreneurial people are increasingly mobile, making economic incentives even more important.
The final section draws on interviews with more than thirty economic decision-makers from the worlds of business, politics and the civil service, including five Prime Ministers and nine Chancellors. The interviews give insights into the economic and political causes of low growth and provide a strategy for implementing a pro-growth agenda.
Specially commissioned research shows how the UK is forecast to slide down the league table of GDP per capita over the next twenty-five years. The book argues that such a slide is not inevitable and outlines a fully costed and modelled '24/7 Growth Plan' to show how the decline can be averted.
About the author
Dr Arthur B. Laffer, founder of Laffer Associates, is known as ‘The Father of Supply-Side Economics’. He advised both President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher on fiscal policy. In 1999, Time named him one of ‘the Century’s Greatest Minds’ for creating the Laffer curve. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019, the highest civilian honour awarded by the United States, for his contributions to economics.
Matthew Elliott is one of the UK’s foremost public policy thinkers, having set up numerous policy campaigns, including the TaxPayers’ Alliance in 2003. He has overseen two successful national referendum campaigns – the NOtoAV campaign in 2011 and the Vote Leave campaign in 2016 – and convened two influential policy commissions. He is currently the co-founder and president of the Jobs Foundation, a charity which champions the role of business as a force for good. Matthew is also a member of the House of Lords, where he sits as Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell.
Michael Hintze is a financier and businessman. He has held positions in Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs and Salomon Brothers, before founding CQS Investment Management and Deltroit Asset Management. He also served as an officer in the Australian Army. Lord Hintze’s philanthropy spans contributions to the arts, religious charities, military charities and education. He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory by Pope Benedict XVI and was subsequently elevated to the rank of Knight Grand Cross. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2008 and was made a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2022, he was granted a life peerage by King Charles III and sits in the House of Lords as Baron Hintze.
Douglas McWilliams sold the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), the economics consultancy that he had founded thirty-five years earlier, in autumn 2024 to a management buyout. Cebr has become well known, especially for its World Economic League Table published on Boxing Day each year. Before setting up Cebr, he had been chief economic adviser to the CBI and chief economist for IBM UK. Douglas had also chaired the Economics Committee of what is now called Business Europe in Brussels. While running Cebr, he was also the Gresham Professor of Commerce, and today he remains a member of the Growth Commission. Among his books, the best known are The Flat White Economy, about the emerging UK tech economy, and The Inequality Paradox, where he refutes Thomas Piketty’s theory of exploitation.
