The article discusses the Phillips curve, the inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation, using recent UK data. UK unemployment rose to 5.2% in the October-December 2025 period, up 0.8 percentage points from a year earlier, while inflation fell from 3.4% in December to 3% in January. The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee uses the concept of economic “slack” to...

Eight European Union countries, led by Spain and the Netherlands, have urged the EU not to dismantle or suspend its Emissions Trading System (ETS), the bloc’s main climate change policy. This warning comes as Brussels faces pressure from other governments, including Italy, to suspend the carbon market in response to surging energy prices caused by disruptions to Middle Eastern oil...

European Union countries have given final approval to an ambitious new climate target to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040, pressing ahead with the bloc’s climate agenda despite political resistance. The target represents a hard-fought political compromise struck by governments and EU lawmakers last year and is more ambitious than most major economies’ emissions-cutting commitments, including China’s. In...

The UK government’s Spring Statement in March 2026 presented a complex fiscal policy landscape where Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced no new tax increases, yet the overall tax burden continues to rise through existing mechanisms. The most significant factor is “fiscal drag,” where tax thresholds remain frozen while incomes rise, effectively pulling more people into higher tax brackets. This policy, extended...

The U.S. Federal Reserve faces a difficult policy dilemma in March 2026 as conflicting economic signals create pressure on both sides of its dual mandate. On one hand, the labor market shows unexpected weakness with employers shedding 92,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate rising to 4.4%. This represents the worst private-sector job creation year since 2009, excluding the...