Download Free Economics And Economic Policy In Britain Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Economics And Economic Policy In Britain and write the review.

In War, Wine, and Taxes, John Nye debunks the myth that Britain was a free-trade nation during and after the industrial revolution, by revealing how the British used tariffs—notably on French wine—as a mercantilist tool to politically weaken France and to respond to pressure from local brewers and others. The book reveals that Britain did not transform smoothly from a mercantilist state in the eighteenth century to a bastion of free trade in the late nineteenth. This boldly revisionist account gives the first satisfactory explanation of Britain's transformation from a minor power to the dominant nation in Europe. It also shows how Britain and France negotiated the critical trade treaty of 1860 that opened wide the European markets in the decades before World War I. Going back to the seventeenth century and examining the peculiar history of Anglo-French military and commercial rivalry, Nye helps us understand why the British drink beer not wine, why the Portuguese sold liquor almost exclusively to Britain, and how liberal, eighteenth-century Britain managed to raise taxes at an unprecedented rate—with government revenues growing five times faster than the gross national product. War, Wine, and Taxes stands in stark contrast to standard interpretations of the role tariffs played in the economic development of Britain and France, and sheds valuable new light on the joint role of commercial and fiscal policy in the rise of the modern state.
Analyzing the evolution of economic policy in postwar Britain, this book develops a striking new argument about the sources of Britain's economic problems. Through an insightful, comparative examination of policy-making in Britain and France, Hall presents a new approach to state-society relations that emphasizes the crucial role of institutional structures.
It is commonplace to assume that the twentieth-century British economy has failed, falling from the world's richest industrial country in 1900 to one of the poorest nations of Western Europe in 2000. Manufacturing is inevitably the centre of this failure: British industrial managers cannot organise the proverbial 'knees-up' in a brewery; British workers are idle and greedy; its financial system is uniquely geared to the short term interests of the City rather than of manufacturing; its economic policies areperverse for industry; and its culture is fundamentally anti-industrial. There is a grain of truth in each of these statements, but only a grain. In this book, Alan Booth notes that Britain's living standards have definitely been overtaken, but evidence that Britain has fallen continuously further and further behindits major competitors is thin indeed. Although British manufacturing has been much criticised, it has performed comparatively better than the service sector. The British Economy in the Twentieth Century combines narrative with a conceptual and analytic approach to review British economic performance during the twentieth century in a controlled comparative framework. It looks at key themes, including economic growth and welfare, the working of the labour market, and the performance of entrepreneurs and managers. Alan Booth argues that a careful, balanced assessment (which must embrace the whole century rather than simply the post-war years) does not support the loud and persistent case for systematic failure in British management, labour, institutions, culture and economic policy. Relative decline has been much more modest, patchy and inevitable than commonly believed.
Years of Recovery was the first comprehensive study of the transition from war to peace in the British economy under the Labour government of 1945–51. It includes a full account of the successive crises and turning-points in those hectic years – the coal and convertibility crises of 1947, devaluation in 1949 and rearmament in 1951. These episodes, apart from their dramatic interest, light up the dilemmas of policy and the underlying economic trends and pressures in a country delicately poised between economic disaster and full recovery. Many of the debates on economic policy that are still in progress – on incomes policy, demand management, the welfare state and relations with Europe, for example – have their roots in those years. Many of the trends originating then persisted long afterwards. The book also examines the interaction between events and policy and the role in a managed economy of the policy-making machine. Now that the public records are open to 1954, it has been possible to make use of official documents to review the possibilities of action that were canvassed and the thinking and differences of opinion that underlay ministerial decisions. Combining personal involvement with thorough research, this fascinating study will be a major contribution to our understanding of post-war economic policy. Alec Cairncross was Chancellor of the University of Glasgow and a former Master of St Peter’s College, Oxford. He spent the years covered by this volume as a civil servant in London, Berlin and Paris before moving to Glasgow as Professor of Applied Economics. This classic book of some of his most brilliant research was first published in 1985.
In further examining the relations between ministers and their official advisers, this history explores the growing influence of economists in Whitehall."--Jacket.
This book presents a comprehensive evaluation of the likely economic impact upon the UK economy arising from Brexit. It seeks to assess both the methods adopted, and conclusions reached, by the existing economic studies, and supplements this by providing additional evidence to assist the reader in forming their own assessment of the relative merits of the different approaches. It additionally outlines the options available to policy makers for the formation of an economic strategy capable of adapting the economy to the challenges and opportunities presented by Brexit. Finally, it outlines and comments upon the range of alternative models of future trading relationships that are available to the UK, both in relation to the EU and the rest of the world.
The attempt to reduce the role of the state in the market through tax cuts, decreases in social spending, deregulation, and privatization—“neoliberalism”—took root in the United States under Ronald Reagan and in Britain under Margaret Thatcher. But why did neoliberal policies gain such prominence in these two countries and not in similarly industrialized Western countries such as France and Germany? In The Politics of Free Markets, a comparative-historical analysis of the development of neoliberal policies in these four countries,Monica Prasad argues that neoliberalism was made possible in the United States and Britain not because the Left in these countries was too weak, but because it was in some respects too strong. At the time of the oil crisis in the 1970s, American and British tax policies were more punitive to business and the wealthy than the tax policies of France and West Germany; American and British industrial policies were more adversarial to business in key domains; and while the British welfare state was the most redistributive of the four, the French welfare state was the least redistributive. Prasad shows that these adversarial structures in the United States and Britain created opportunities for politicians to find and mobilize dissatisfaction with the status quo, while the more progrowth policies of France and West Germany prevented politicians of the Right from anchoring neoliberalism in electoral dissatisfaction.
The first part of the book is devoted to an historical survey of what has been written regarding Britain's policy problems since 1946: problems such as full employment, the sources and methods of controlling inflation and the measures to promote economic growth. At an international level, issues such as economic relations with Europe and the question of devaluation are considered. The subsequent part of the book considers how far economists' recommendations regarding policies have been derived from well-tested theories, or how far they have been based on speculation, guesswork or judgement.
This is an account of Britain's rise and fall, and an introduction to the main explanations of decline and political strategies for reversing it. The book has been updated and has a new concluding chapter which assesses the state of debate and the British economy after the Thatcher decade.
The Economics of Brexit – Revisited builds upon and extends the analysis contained within the authors' previous book, The Economics of Brexit: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the UK's Economic Relationship with the EU, which arguably represented the most comprehensive and systematic evaluation of the UK’s economic relationship with the EU. The Economics of Brexit – Revisited continues where the previous volume left off, given that the UK has now formally withdrawn from the EU, and therefore the focus of the evidence presented concerns the potential economic implications arising from Brexit and considering the options available to those negotiating the UK's future economic relationship both regionally and globally. The Economics of Brexit – Revisited seeks to provide greater clarity to a range of issues that have been hotly debated over the past few years, ranging from the trade and fiscal implications of Brexit, to the economic impact of regulation and migration. The significance of different Brexit options are discussed in detail, including the significance of demands for regulatory harmonisation (the 'level playing field'), along with their implications for UK trade with the EU and the rest of the world. A wide range of economic analyses are evaluated to determine their relative methodological strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately whether their conclusions are sufficiently robust to engender confidence. Finally, noting that a key determinant of the effectiveness of any post-Brexit economic strategy depends upon the degree of flexibility created for economic policy, the book provides an extended examination of the potential relating to different economic policy options available to the UK government, depending upon the form of final trade settlement that is agreed with the EU. These policy options include more active forms of macroeconomic management, combined with industrial and procurement policy. The Economics of Brexit – Revisited therefore seeks to combine evaluation of the available evidence indicating the economic impact of Brexit, together with consideration of policy trade-offs that lie at the heart of the choices surrounding Brexit, and how these might be resolved. The Economics of Brexit – Revisited therefore maintains its position as the most comprehensive analysis of the economics of Brexit in the market today.