In reaction to the Spending Review and George Osborne’s welfare cap proposal, Chris Dillow of the Stumbling and Mumbling blog points out that “spending on non-pension benefits is not so much a fiscal problem as a labour market one” and that “if we want to cap working age welfare benefits, we should get more people into work”.

Declan Gaffney at the ToUChstone blog describes the welfare cap announces by the Chancellor as an obvious political gimmick with very significant risks.

Simon Johnson writing on the Project Syndicate blog examines the state of regulating bank capital in the UK, arguing that “British authorities do not even have a firm grip on the basics”. 

The ONS revisions of GDP data that indicated that the UK actually avoided a double dip recession made headlines. However, on his MainlyMacro blog, Simon Wren-Lewis points out and discusses the more important revelation from the correction, that UK growth has been even worse than thought.

Noah Smith of the Noahpinion blog tears into Mankiw’s inequality argument.