Arguing that there were important elements of continuity in the decisions of the Treasury and the Bank of England, this survey of macroeconomic policy in Britain contains a chronological account of policy actions that covers the most influential writings of economists during this period.

Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.

This book offers a fresh view of postwar British politics, very much at odds to the dominant view in contemporary scholarship. The author argues that postwar British politics, up to and including the Blair Government, can be largely characterised in terms of continuity and a gradual evolution from a period of conflict over the primary aims of government strategy to one of recent relative consensus. This book provides a provocative and challenging account of the historical background to the election of the Blair Government and will be of interest to a wide audience.

This book, written by a distinguished selection of academics and commentators, provides the most detailed comparison yet of old and new Labour in power. I

Going behind the doors of the Treasury and Number 10, this book explores why successive British Prime Ministers from Callaghan to Blair have been hesitant towards European Economic and Monetary Union. It uses official documents and interviews with former ministers to understand discussions that took place at the heart of government.

This study offers a distinctive new account of British economic life since the Second World War, focussing upon the ways in which successive governments, in seeking to manage the economy, have sought simultaneously to 'manage the people': to try and manage popular understanding of economic issues. In doing so, governments have sought not only to shape expectations for electoral purposes but to construct broader narratives about how 'the economy' should be understood. The starting point of this work is to ask why these goals have been focussed upon (and differentially over time), how they have been constructed to appeal to the population, and, insofar as this can be assessed, how far the population has accepted these narratives. The first half of the book analyses the development of the major narratives from the 1940s onwards, addressing the notion of 'austerity' and its particular meaning in the 1940s; the rise of a narrative of 'economic decline from the late 1950s, and the subsequent attempts to 'modernize' the economy; the attempts to 'roll back the state' from the 1970s; the impact of ideas of 'globalization' in the 1900s; and, finally, the way the crisis of 2008/9 onwards was constructed as a problem of 'debts and deficits'. The second part of the book focuses on four key issues in attempts to 'manage the people': productivity, the balance of payments, inflation, and unemployment. It shows how, in each case, governments sought to get the populace to understand these issues in a particular light, and shaped strategies to that end.

The massive inflation and oil crisis of the 1970s damaged Jimmy Carter's presidency. In Jimmy Carter's Economy, Carl Biven traces how the Carter administration developed and implemented economic policy amid multiple crises and explores how a combination of factors beyond the administration's control came to dictate a new paradigm of Democratic Party politics. Jimmy Carter inherited a deeply troubled economy. Inflation had been on the rise since the Johnson years, and the oil crisis Carter faced was the second oil price shock of the decade. In addition, a decline in worker productivity and a rise in competition from Germany and Japan compounded the nation's economic problems. The resulting anti-inflation policy that was forced on Carter included controlling public spending, limiting the expansion of the welfare state, and postponing popular tax cuts. Moreover, according to Biven, Carter argued that the ambitious policies of the Great Society were no longer possible in an age of limits and that the Democratic Party must by economic necessity become more centrist.