The Bank of England and HM Treasury are currently working with Nottingham and Stanford Universities to run a pilot survey of firms across the UK on their expectations for future growth of sales, employment, investment, costs and other outcomes. This survey collects expectations from UK firms about the impact of Brexit shocks in a more timely way than other currently available indicators from the ONS, which lag behind events on average by at least 3 months. This proposal seeks to enlarge the panel of firms to allow for greater representativeness of the data, collection of data from the same panel participants over 3 years (we expect further Brexit shocks) and to allow us to conduct detailed analysis of subset of firms by industry, type and region. The data we are collecting is timely and important for immediate policymaking, business decisions and Brexit negotiations. The fact that this project has the full support of the Chief Economists of HM Treasury (Sir David Ramsden) and the Bank (Andrew Haldane) is evidence that the project is timely and important for UK decision making. This data would be used for three purposes: A) Research: We would investigate the impact of the Brexit (and other) shocks, in terms of both uncertainty but also mean impacts. Armed with our large panel of at least 2500 firms per month, and after matching this data into annual accounts data from Amadeus, industry and regional data (e.g. LFS and Comtrade) and ONS micro-data, we will then investigate a number of questions. For example, how has Brexit impacted investment and hiring, how does this vary across regions, industries, firm sizes, ages and growth rates? How is this related to the initial enthusiasm for Brexit, and how are other policies affecting this? Are firms expectations consistent with the eventual outcomes (since we follow these firms over time) and what factors appear to influence these expectations? Are firms over-optimistic (too high mean) and over-confident (too high variance) as is often seen in surveys of senior managers? The project will generate important answers to these questions, which will be used to generate international journal publications, as we draw upon unique and timely data during a period of immense change. The basis of the evaluation of the data will be detailed economic analysis using state of the art panel data methods. B) Policy: The Bank and Treasury are both responding to the Brexit shock with only limited guidance on its impact on the UK economy. Having a minimum panel of 2500 firms at high frequency (monthly) will provide the data that we (and others) can use to explore uncertainty, subjective views of economic conditions and investment, sales and employment impacts by region and industry. We will introduce specialized questions to evaluate policy announcements on Brexit dates, policy positions on trade, immigration and steps to mitigate its impact. C) Data: Following on prior projects we will rapidly make available public indices of sales, investment, employment and price sentiments (e.g. the size weighted average monthly expected changes, and some lower frequency regional and industry indices). This will be extremely useful for policy makers, but also private firms trying to navigate the Brexit process. Secondly, we will provide on-line anonymized micro-data for business users and academics, and for registered users the full micro-data (confidentially). Our commitment to do this is highlighted by the extensive online provision in prior projects like www.worldmanagementsurvey.com and www.policyuncertainty.com This project will provide cutting-edge results, both in terms of the academic analysis but also in the service it provides to key policy institutions such as HM Treasury and the Bank of England. This is made possible by the unique data set developed by a trans-Atlantic collaboration of Professors Mizen and Bloom and the specialist inputs of the C-Is in the Bank of England (Thwaites and Young).

The UK is currently in the midst of sweeping changes to both state pension provision and private pension arrangements. Recent policy reforms include the introduction of the 'new state pension' from April 2016, further increases in the state pension age and the introduction of 'auto-enrolment' into workplace pensions. These changes are happening against a backdrop of continuing long-term trends, including a decline in the generosity of many employer-provided pensions and increasing life expectancies. These trends and policy reforms have significant implications for households' saving and retirement decisions. In very general terms, the environment is one in which accumulating resources to finance retirement is increasingly important, but the responsibility for ensuring such accumulation happens is shifting ever more to the individual as the state and employers take a step back. We propose a programme of research that will study the implications of this changing environment and recent policy reforms for household behaviour and well-being. Our two central sets of research questions are: 1) Are working-age households saving appropriately for retirement? What will be the likely standards of living in retirement of successive generations of pensioners? 2) What are the likely long-run impacts of recent reforms and other long run trends on household saving and retirement decisions? Different cohorts of individuals (those born in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s) have faced very different incentives to save privately for retirement (and to do so in different types of assets), and will face different incentives to retire as they approach what would traditionally have been the end of working life. This had led to considerable policy concern that while those recently retired have, on average, done so with relatively high levels of resources, those currently in working life are not saving enough for their retirement. We aim to add considerably to the evidence base available for policy makers by exploring what can be known now about the future retirement living standards of currently working age households. We will do this by using the best available data on the decisions that these cohorts have already made, taking into account their past earnings and the structure of state and private pensions that they face, to estimate their future behaviour. We will then consider how their likely retirement standards of living will compare to those enjoyed during working life and to absolute thresholds of poverty in order to assess the 'appropriateness' of the household saving. An important feature of our research will be to study how this differs across different cohorts, given the different incentives they have faced and will face in future. We will also analyse separately the impact of various changes to the pensions and savings environment - including specific policy reforms - on household saving and retirement behaviour, and consequently on households' resources. This will allow us to assess the impact of these changes on standards of living in retirement. The trends and policy changes whose effects we propose to consider are: the declining prevalence of some employer-provided pensions, increases in the state pension age, the introduction of the new state pension, changes in annuity prices, and the financial incentives to save encompassed in 'auto-enrolment'. Such analysis is of considerable importance for policy makers. Understanding the long-run impact of recent, extremely large policy reforms on households' behaviour and living standards is vital for any assessment of a policy's effectiveness at meeting its objectives. Furthermore, greater understanding of the impact of some long-running changes in the pensions and saving environment is needed to better understand which (if any) future policy reforms may be desirable.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the UK has witnessed weak economic growth and stagnant productivity. While employment remained high, many jobs offer little security or opportunities for training and progression. Self-employment, much of which is unstable and low paid, was the fastest growing form of employment between the early 2000s and the pandemic. And the best jobs have become highly clustered in small parts of the country. These trends risk creating barriers to successful careers and progression for talented people, with detrimental effects on productivity. The aim of this project is to further understanding of the interactions between skills, jobs and career progression, their combined role in driving inequalities in economic outcomes and their consequences for productivity. A cross-cutting part of this agenda is to investigate the role of policy for tackling inequalities in work and promoting good jobs, earnings progression and productivity. We propose an ambitious programme of work that combines state of the art economic modelling, careful econometric methods, and the use of new and existing linked data from administrative and other sources, to provide much needed evidence in this area. This project is made up of three large strands, each of which contains multiple projects within it. The first strand of work will examine the role of jobs in developing the skills, careers and earnings of workers in the UK. Focussing on low-and medium-paid workers, we will identify the characteristics of jobs and firms in which less educated people succeed, with a focus on the particular skills these jobs need. We will examine the importance of employer-based training and of firms' characteristics for wage progression. We will look into how occupational structures change with the introduction of the National Living Wage. The second strand of work will focus on the growing importance of self-employment and small business ownership in the UK. We will study the role of self-employment in developing the skills of workers; its importance in providing a source of insurance against unemployment shocks; and how self-employment can drive inequalities in income and access to employment rights. We will examine the transitions between employment, self-employment, and unemployment and how the tax system and other policy changes affect these transitions. The final strand of work will study the role of the geographic distribution of industries and jobs for inequalities in careers and productivity. We will examine how the skills required by employers are matched to the skills of jobseekers, across the country and socio-economic groups. We will use these measures to examine how local labour market conditions affect career progression, in particular seeking to understand the effects on the careers of women, many of whom are unable to commute long distances for work. We will examine how local labour market difficulties caused by industrial change can have long term consequences on careers and productivity. Brought together, the findings of this research programme will be crucial to inform the development of government policies that seek to boost employment, pay, and productivity, particularly for people with lower levels of education, from disadvantaged backgrounds, or in less prosperous parts of the country. We will engage with senior policy-makers throughout, including through roundtables that bring different parts of government together, to ensure that we tailor our research to the needs of policy-making as best we can and to ensure that the findings of our work are impacting on policy development.

Observed, Strategic, sustained action is now needed to avoid further negative consequences of climate change and to build a greener, cleaner and fairer future. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the rise in global temperature is largely driven by total carbon dioxide emissions over time. In order to avoid further global warming, international Governments agreed to work towards a balance between emissions and greenhouse gas removal (GGR), known 'net zero', in the Paris Agreement. In June 2019 the UK committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, making it the first G7 country to legislate such a target. Transitioning to net zero means that we will have to remove as many emissions as we produce. Much of the focus of climate action to date has been on reducing emissions, for example through renewable power and electric vehicles. However, pathways to net zero require not just cutting fossil fuel emissions but also turning the land into a net carbon sink and scaling up new technologies to remove and store greenhouse gases. This will require new legislation to pave the way for investment in new infrastructure and businesses expected to be worth billions of pounds a year within 30 years. This challenge has far-reaching implications for technology, business models, social practices and policy. GGR has been much less studied, developed and incentivised than actions to cut emissions. The proposed CO2RE Hub brings together leading UK academics with a wide range of expertise to co-ordinate a suite of GGR demonstration projects to accelerate progress in this area. In particular the Hub will study how we can (1) reduce technology costs so that GGR becomes economically viable; (2) ensure industry adopts the concept of net zero in a way that will maintain and create jobs; (3) put in place sensible policy incentives; (4) make sure there is social license for GGR (unlike fracking or nuclear); (5) set up regulatory oversight of environmental sustainability and risks of GGR; (6) understand what is required to achieve GGR at large scale and (7) guarantee there are the skills and knowledge required for all this to happen. Building on extensive existing links to stakeholders in business, Government and NGOs, the Hub will work extensively with everyone involved in regulating and delivering GGR to ensure our research provides solutions to strategic priorities. We will also encourage the teams working on demonstrator technologies to think responsibly about the risks, benefits and public perceptions of their work and consider the full environmental, social and economic implications of implementation from the outset. CO2RE will seek to bring the GGR community in the UK as a whole closer together, functioning as a gateway to UK inter-disciplinary research expertise on GGR. We will inform, and stay informed, about the latest developments nationally and internationally, and reach out to engage the wider public. In doing so we will be able to respond to a rapidly evolving landscape recognising that technical and social change are not separate, but happen together. To accelerate and achieve meaningful change, we will be guided by consultation with key decision-makers and the general public, and set up a £1m flexible fund to respond to priorities that emerge with the help of the wider UK academic community. Ultimately we will help the UK and the world understand how GGR can be scaled up responsibly as part of climate action to meet the ambition of net zero.

Due to the need for climate change action, UK Government has committed to the ambitious task of achieving 'net zero' greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. However, some emissions from farming, aviation and other activities are very difficult to eliminate. So to reach net zero the UK must also directly remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere amounting to the equivalent of 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide/year. Of the Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) options available, increasing the carbon stored in the UK's 'treescapes' (forests, hedgerows etc.) has the greatest potential, the lowest cost, and can be started immediately. Planting woodlands can store carbon in standing trees, in forest soils and in timber products. For these reasons, the UK is committed to a huge increase in forest cover. However, our understanding of all these processes and how they vary across locations and over time is incomplete. This major programme will gather evidence, address knowledge gaps and allow decision makers to understand the GGR consequences of different planting options. Woodlands can also deliver many other benefits, creating habitats to conserve wild species, enhancing water quality, regulating rainfall and reducing flood risk, and providing recreation (hence the "GGR+" title). GGR+ will examine all the diverse aspects of forestry to identify "The Right Tree in the Right Place". However, it is equally possible to plant the wrong tree in the wrong place. This can result in damage to biodiversity, and even cause some soils to release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Also, if certain types of agriculture are displaced, there could be higher imports of food from countries that destroy rainforests to increase farm yields. On top of this, climate change means that many risks (forest fires, extreme weather, disease) are changing faster than ever. "The Right Tree in the Right Place" is not a simple proposition - if we are not careful, and don't consider the complexities properly, the UK's net zero tree planting strategy will be poorly designed, and at worst could result in forests that actually increase climate change. However, even understanding the consequences of planting in different locations is not enough to plan the future of the UK's forests. Land is typically privately owned and Government cannot dictate its use. Rather they need to create the conditions and incentives needed for owners to decide to plant trees. Consequently, GGR+ will also undertake the economic research needed to turn science advice into practice. This challenge cannot be addressed by scientists alone, and the GGR+ partners include UK land use policy makers, including all of the Forestry authorities, the Defra teams responsible for forestry, climate and agriculture (who will use GGR+ to plant 30,000ha/year), as well as the Ministry of Defence (which has huge land holdings). From the private and NGO sectors our partners include massive land owners such as Network Rail and the National Trust (who together will fund over 74,000ha of planting based on GGR+ advice), as well as a network of over 1,400 farmers, the timber and building sector and many other stakeholders. Together with our partners, GGR+ will design innovative "decision support tools"; bespoke software allowing users to examine the effects of a tree planting investment or policy in terms of greenhouse gas storage, food production, incomes of those involved, effects on biodiversity, water quality, flooding, recreation etc. Perhaps most revolutionary, this tool will allow users to specify what outcomes they want and then see what planting, policy or investments they need to get those outcomes. This is an exciting, highly interdisciplinary approach to answering the surprisingly challenging question of finding "The Right Tree in the Right Place" and setting the UK on the path to delivering net zero emissions by 2050.