We asked members two weeks ahead of the UK Budget (26 November) what they thought would be announced by the Chancellor. The timing of the poll turned out to be interesting, because the FT ran a story shortly after we sent out our survey suggesting the Chancellor would not raise income tax because the size of the fiscal hole wasn’t as large as previously feared. Notwithstanding that issue, these are the results we received – most of which are likely to have been provided before the FT’s story.

• Over 85% expected the Chancellor to raise income tax, VAT, employee NICS or corporation tax, though we suspect this would very likely have been lower had the question been posed after the FT story.
• Almost half of respondents thought that tax hikes would be front-loaded, with about 30% thinking they’d be evenly distributed over time and around 20% expecting them to be back-loaded towards the end of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast horizon.
• Slightly more respondents thought tax increases would be announced to the tune of £20-29bn (44%) versus £10-19bn (38%). 15% expected tax increases of over £30bn versus just 2.5% of less than £10bn.
• And a majority (two thirds) thought the Chancellor would increase modestly the fiscal headroom against which she intends to meet her rules, with about 10% saying she would increase the breathing space by a lot, and almost 20% saying no change at all.

In short – respondents expect tax rises of over £20bn to be front-loaded or evenly distributed, to address a fiscal hole and to raise headroom against which the rules are met.

In summary, members were most concerned about the fiscal position of the US and recommended raising taxes to deal with it. Respondents were close to 50-50 on whether Europe’s recent fiscal announcements would be a game-changer for growth, and the majority thought they wouldn’t be inflationary. A global recession would require a combination of fiscal and monetary policy action; by themselves, fiscal policy was considered slightly more effective than monetary policy.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, among the G7 economies, SPE members were most concerned about fiscal sustainability in the US. The majority (55%) thought the US should address this via raising domestic taxes, with 30% thinking lower spending would be better. Only around one-in-eight respondents said the US didn’t need to reduce its deficit, and tellingly only one respondent of the 79 replies thought it should raise revenue by lifting tariffs.

Of the remaining G7 economies, the UK came (a not-so-close) second in the fiscal unsustainability ranks, slightly more worrisome than France (where the IMF expects deficits between 5% and 6% of GDP for the next five years) and Japan (where high levels of public debt are largely owned by domestic investors).

Slightly more than half of respondents thought Europe’s recent fiscal loosening announcements would not be a game-changer for European growth – though it was a close call. A larger percentage (around 60%) thought that European fiscal loosening wouldn’t be inflationary.

Finally, a plurality of members said they favoured a combination of monetary and fiscal policy to deal with a global recession (should one transpire). Of the remainder, slightly more favoured using monetary policy alone than fiscal policy alone.

Our questions asked about the effect of AI on the economy and on one’s own productivity. The overwhelming majority (over 70% of responses) saw the effect on economic growth being “mildly positive”, with more (about 15%) seeing the impact as “very positive” than unchanged or negative. Nonetheless, more saw AI ultimately pushing up on unemployment (around 29%) then lowering it (9%), though by far the majority (over 60%) expected no effect here. While almost 40% of respondents said they didn’t use AI explicitly themselves, 70% of those that did use it said it made them more productive (“moderately” rather than “much” more productive was the most popular answer).