The onus of UK macroeconomic policy falls on the Bank of England. George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, has nailed his colours to the mast of fiscal discipline instead. Whatever wheezes appear in next week’s Budget are likely make little difference to immediate performance, as my colleague, Chris Giles, pointed out last week. This does not make the Budget unimportant. As Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has also noted, a tax system devoid of principles and rife with gimmicks is unpredictable and so a source of damaging uncertainty. But that is, alas, unlikely to change.
制定英國宏觀經濟政策的責任落到了英國央行(BoE)身上。英國財政大臣喬治?奧斯本(George Osborne)反而旗幟鮮明地表明了自己對財政紀律的立場。正如我的同事克里斯?賈爾斯(Chris Giles)上周指出的那樣，下周的財政預算案無論提議什么，都不會對當前的情況有多大幫助。不過，這并不意味著預算案無足輕重。倫敦財政研究所(Institute for Fiscal Studies)所長保羅?約翰遜(Paul Johnson)也指出，一套缺乏原則、充滿欺騙的稅收體制是不可預測的，因此也造成了具有破壞性的不確定性。但遺憾的是，這種情況不太可能得到改變。