Jagjit S. Chadha

Professor of Economics, Cambridge University |

Macroeconomics |

Contributory Editor Central Banking |

DJ on Jazz Funk Soul Radio |

Photographer

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

Central banking will continue to dominate much of the agenda. If you want to understand some of the principles that underpin thinking. My book may help.

@NIESRorg @CFMUK @CambUP_Econ @MMF_research @RoyalEconSoc @CamEcon @MaghicU @LSEEcon @BoE_Research @CentralBanking_ @cepr_org

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

Early morning cow parsley at Byron's pool...

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

An important dialogue between @bankofengland staff and external experts on how forecasting problems are being addressed following the #BernankeReview. Glad to have participated especially as it was in Leeds.

@CamEcon @LeedsBizSchool
@MMF_research @CFMUK

https://t.co/5zkZZntkVO

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

Good opportunity @BBK_BCAM to outline some of my thoughts on the state of the British economy. The lecture was recorded and my part starts at around 10 mins - comments/thoughts welcome.

https://t.co/l6ulWhK9NO

[CamEcon @CamEcon]

In a wide-ranging assessment of Britain's economic performance since the global financial crisis, Professor @jagjit_chadha examines the factors behind the UK's prolonged period of weak productivity growth and disappointing living standards. https://t.co/R3EeVUOGkS

[CamEcon @CamEcon]

Professor @Jagjit_Chadha has contributed to a major UK Parliamentary report examining how the country can strengthen investment and improve long-term economic growth.
He says “the UK’s fiscal framework has failed".
https://t.co/vSNWTORkLq

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

Just over a day to go. Do come this Thursday evening if you are near Bloomsbury and join in the discussion on the State of the UK Economy.

@CFMUK @BBK_BCAM @GES_UK
@CamEcon @AcadSocSciences @coreeconteam @EconObservatory @ESRC

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

Join me this Thur eve (11th) at 5pm for my State of the Economy talk. High time to think constructively about getting out of our economic doldrums.

🎩 @BBK_BCAM, Wendy Carlin & @PedroMaiaGomes

@ESRC @TPIProductivity @CamEcon @NIESRorg @RoyalEconSoc

https://t.co/Xo78TOWOCV

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

Join me this Thur eve (11th) at 5pm for my State of the Economy talk. High time to think constructively about getting out of our economic doldrums.

🎩 @BBK_BCAM, Wendy Carlin & @PedroMaiaGomes

@ESRC @TPIProductivity @CamEcon @NIESRorg @RoyalEconSoc

https://t.co/Xo78TOWOCV

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

It is hard not to agree completely with @LiamHalligan. Not only are we firmly en route to a full blown fiscal crisis there is precious little concern in public policy circles. Commitments on spending continue to dominate those on any meaningful fiscal consolidation.

[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

Labour risks being forced to seek emergency help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Britain lurches toward a debt crisis, leading economists are now warning.

Former IMF chief economist Ken Rogoff says, in a new interview, that there is “more than 50:50 chance” of a major UK debt crisis before the end of this decade.

He is joined by Sir Charlie Bean, a former senior official at both the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility, who says the need for an IMF bail-out is now a “material risk” for the British economy.

I not only firmly agree with Ken Rogoff and Sir Charlie Bean – but have been repeatedly issuing the very same warnings for a very long time.

Because the grave risk of a major fiscal meltdown has been apparent for at least the last two years – to anyone who combines serious knowledge of UK economics and politics and global debt markets with an open mind.

The UK's public finances were already fragile when Labour took office back in July 2024.

But this government's misguided, ideologically-driven statist policies have made a bad situation much worse, seriously increasing the danger of a deep fiscal crisis - which would cause a disastrous state funding shortfall and a very nasty inflation spike.

That would result in Downing Street being forced to follow the orders of unelected technocrats flown in from Washington and elsewhere.

It would be a very major national humiliation combined with a deep economic slump and an even more intense cost-of-living crisis – in which low-income households, as ever, would suffer the most.

Yet those of us that have shown the brains and courage to point out these inconvenient truths over recent months and years have long been dismissed and derided for our trouble - not only by ignorant politicians and approval-seeking journalists but also the overwhelming majority of "leading economists".

Ahead of the general election in mid-2024, with Labour on course to win, the conventional wisdom among the great sages of broadsheet journalism and the economics establishment was that "the adults would soon be back in charge" ... Labour would "get lucky with the economy" ... and "Britain would now enjoy an extended period of political and fiscal stability".

I thought that was total nonsense – not least as I was well aware Labour's plans irresponsibly to increase borrowing and spending would be met with deep scepticism by the global pensions funds, insurance companies and other institutional investors that lend governments serious money.

My weekly @Telegraph "Economic Agenda" column of 23rd June 2024, a fortnight ahead of the general election, was a total outlier. I recounted the disaster of 1976 – when Britain was forced to go "cap in hand" to the IMF for a bailout – and warned that "The Ghosts of the 1970s" would haunt Labour's (so-called) economic resurrection".

Six months later, after the October 2024 "Hallowen" budget in which Chancellor Rachel Reeves did indeed sharply hike borrowing and spending, I assessed the market reaction then doubled-down – warning more assertively in my column of 12th January 2025 that "The UK risks a return to 1976 unless Reeves changes course".

And then again on 20th July 2025, as Labour's policies raised the costs of doing business, translating into price pressures which pushed up government borrowing costs even more, I again cautioned that "Inflation risks are taking Britain to the debt-crisis cliff edge".

"It’s now screamingly obvious that Labour’s crude Keynesianism – “pump priming” the economy by upping state borrowing and spending – isn’t working," I wrote in that column last July.

"Worse than that, this Government’s actions are pushing Britain towards a budgetary crisis every bit as serious as that in 1976 – when the UK was forced to go “cap in hand” to the IMF for a bail-out".

It's been a lonely task issuing these warnings. I've been hounded in public debates, slagged off by senior civil servants and often dismissed by "leading economists" as "alarmist".

So what do these same "leading economists" now say to Rogoff (Harvard Professor, Former IMF Chief Economist) and Bean (LSE Professor and Former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England)?

The "economics establishment" – with very few honourable exceptions, the brilliant @jagjit_chadha among them – has been and remains extremely reluctant to point out the deeply unsustainable nature of this government's addiction to ever more borrowing.

The systemic fiscal dangers of evermore "tax and spend" – and the prospect of a serious spike in gilt yields and related fiscal meltdown – are now so real and present as to be completely undeniable.

Yet the UK government is about to shift even further to the left, pushing up borrowing and spending even more under a new leader, in a bid to appease the massed ranks of economic illiterates among Labour's Parliamentary party and activist base – making those dangers even more acute.

Yet, still, the silence among "public intellectual" economists is deafening.

I'm glad the likes of Ken Rogoff and Charlie Bean are now issuing clear warnings. So where is the rest of the "economics establishment" - those who purport to understand fiscal management and financial markets, and often funded by taxpayers' money?

Britain is now clearly in the crosshairs of a very serious danger. The government's creditors are increasingly fickle and based overseas – with no regulatory or cultural obligations to lend money to the UK government.

Those holding UK gilts are increasingly "speculative" rather than "strategic" long-term investors – looking for quick returns, financing their government bond purchases with "leverage" (money borrowed from elsewhere), which will quickly be withdrawn when senitment decisively shifts, causing a plunge in gilt prices and a sharp additional surge in government borrowing costs, setting up a vicious circle.

The UK government is very heavily indebted – and the global investors we rely on to bankroll a huge slice of our state spending are alarmed that of the £132bn the government borrowed last year, no less than £110bn was spent on debt interest – as I wrote in a column on 17th May 2026, "As Labour lurches further left, the markets are calling time".

Global investors are alarmed the UK has consistently had the highest inflation in the G7 (which pushes up borrowing costs) and has easily the highest share of index-linked debt (which magnifies the burden of inflation on the state's balance sheet).

And they are deeply, deeply alarmed that when Labour came to power in mid-2024, the Office for Budget Responsibility was forecasting additional state borrowing of £323bn by 2029, the scheduled end of this Parliament.

But Labour’s runaway spending and growth-crushing tax rises mean that the same five-year borrowing forecast is now £583bn – 80pc higher. And still, the trade unions, MPs and Labour activists who will choose Starmer’s successor now want even more.

It is not too late to pull the UK back from the fiscal brink, to avoid the extremely painful and deep, lingering damage of being forced to go to the IMF and perhaps other multi-lateral creditors for a bailout.

It is not too late to avoid the inflation surge, the currency crash, the shocking blow to consumer and business confidence alongside the sky-high interest rates that will seriously whack our economy – or the perhaps even deeper damage of yet more of the British electorate losing faith in the ability of our establishment to manage the country in a manner that avoids imposing serious hardship on so many hard-working people simply trying to make their way.

But our political and media class needs to start acknowledging the economic and financial truth – that the UK government is borrowing and spending too much, taxation is now so high that it's hammering growth and employment, and that trying to finally get the economy moving by "moving further left", borrowing and spending even more, will result in a fiscal collapse.

Smart, experienced, high-profile economists need to start speaking out – as Rogoff and Bean just have – raising the alarm in a bid to force the broader establishment to face reality. Before it's too late.

If you've read this far, you clearly think this analysis is worthwhile and important. So please like and share.

And for more, read my "Economic Agenda" column in The Sunday Telegraph each week – and subscribe to "When The Facts Change: Economics and Politics in a fast-moving world, with Liam Halligan"

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

I actually know the exact spot to which you refer in Masham. This match was around 20 miles from there at Burnsall where the local sells "a cream-like" Thwaites.

[Paul Mortimer-Lee @MortimerleePaul]

@jagjit_chadha Where is it?
My favorite ground is Masham, at the side of the Ure, with the sweet aroma of the Theakston and Blacksheep breweries wafting gently over the game…

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

Cricket in the Dales...

Civilisation at work...

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

The Spring @RoyalEconSoc Newsletter is now out.

Very glad to be involved with @nriapia and the team at #DeanTrenchStreet.

Comments and pitches are very welcome: [email protected]

@AcadSocSciences @ImranRasul3 @NIESRorg
@TheIFS @EJ_RES @leightonc @B_Eichengreen

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

It's #TowelDay.

Don't Forget Your Towel.

Don't Panic!

[Danna Brown @brown__danna]

This was a brilliant conversation with Jagit Chadha on fiscal frameworks.

[BIRKBECK_BCAM @BBK_BCAM]

🎓 We’re very pleased to share that 4 Home-fee scholarships are now available for exceptional candidates applying to the MSc Economics or Graduate Diploma in Economics at Birkbeck, University of London.
➡️ Deadline: 31 July
➡️ Further details: https://t.co/x1k5ujsMtZ

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

May Day!

So many folk memories.

@CamEcon

🎩 @CambridgePPF

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

*New Date*

11th June 2026 @BBK_BCAM

Let's take a genuine and realistic stock of the progress of the UK economy.

🎩 Pedro Martins & Wendy Carlin

@AcadSocSciences @BritishAcademy_ @NIESRorg @CFMUK
@RoyalEconSoc @GES_UK @GreshamCollege @EconObservatory

https://t.co/Xo78TOWOCV

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

I particularly remember how angry, if not disgusted, he always was with a wayward throw back to him at the stumps! He would walk away with a look of genuine revulsion!

[David Paton @cricketwyvern]

Fascinating interview with our alumni, the great Deryck Murray, as part of the 75 year celebrations of Industrial Economics at @UniofNottingham.
@NottmUniBschool
https://t.co/XN0pvcSpaz

[Paul Mortimer-Lee @MortimerleePaul]

Britain's Big, Bad Government Funding Mistake https://t.co/9DScNszKU6

[The Janeway Institute @janewayinst]

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Lord Robert Skidelsky, an eminent economic historian & author of the award-winning 3-volume biography of J. M. Keynes.
Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends at this very sad time.
#econtwitter

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

It was a pleasure to come out to play...and thank you Dana for chairing the discussion.

[Civitas think tank @Civitas_UK]

Great discussion with Professor @jagjit_chadha at Civitas today on how the UK might reformulate its fiscal framework to establish a credible commitment for fiscal policy.

[Jagjit S. Chadha @jagjit_chadha]

Why thank you @TiagoCavalcan.

Ready for Samba on Saturday?

[Tiago Cavalcanti @TiagoCavalcan]

@jagjit_chadha @RoyalEconSoc @CamEcon @ESRC @EconObservatory Cool! In great hands.