Microeconomic Reform in Britain: Delivering Opportunities for All provides a comprehensive guide to the extensive microeconomic reforms implemented over the last 6 years to realise the UK Government's goals: a stronger more enterprising economy and a fairer society. This companion volume to Reforming Britain's Economic and Financial Policy: Towards Greater Economic Stability , published in 2002, offers a detailed account of a programme of reforms which together constitute a comprehensive strategy to lock in the stability needed to support steady growth by pursuing both enterprise and fairness for all. Building on the foundations of monetary and fiscal reform, the reforms in microeconomic policy described in this volume provide the framework for improving Britain's overall productivity, expanding national wealth and protecting the environment. The government's approach to raising productivity across all sectors and income groups, supporting families, and tackling poverty is presented, together with a detailed account of the reform of the delivery of public services. This volume is a key resource for students of economics and politics, bringing together the work which will have a profound influence on the future of British economic policy making.

This book explores Edmund Burke's economic thought through his understanding of commerce in wider social, imperial, and ethical contexts.

Based on the findings of a commission chaired by James Mirrlees, this volume presents a coherent picture of tax reform whose aim is to identify the characteristics of a good tax system for any open developed economy, assess the extent to which the UK tax system conforms to these ideals, and recommend how it might be reformed in that direction.

In developed countries, men’s labor force participation at older ages has increased in recent years, reversing a decades-long pattern of decline. Participation rates for older women have also been rising. What explains these patterns, and the differences in them across countries? The answers to these questions are pivotal as countries face fiscal and retirement security challenges posed by longer life-spans. This eighth phase of the International Social Security project, which compares the social security and retirement experiences of twelve developed countries, documents trends in participation and employment and explores reasons for the rising participation rates of older workers. The chapters use a common template for analysis, which facilitates comparison of results across countries. Using within-country natural experiments and cross-country comparisons, the researchers study the impact of improving health and education, changes in the occupation mix, the retirement incentives of social security programs, and the emergence of women in the workplace, on labor markets. The findings suggest that social security reforms and other factors such as the movement of women into the labor force have played an important role in labor force participation trends.

Policymakers around the world have increasingly agreed that macroeconomic discipline, microeconomic liberalization, and outward orientation are prerequisites for economic success. But what are the political conditions that make economic transformation possible? At a conference held at the Institute for International Economics, leaders of economic reform recounted their efforts to bring about change and discussed the impact of the political climate on the success of their efforts. In this book, these leaders explore the political conditions conducive to the success of policy reforms. Did economic crisis strengthen the hands of the reformers? Was the rapidity with which reforms were instituted crucial? Did the reformers have a "honeymoon" period in which to transform the economy? The authors answer these and other questions, as well as providing first-hand accounts of the politically charged atmosphere surrounding reform efforts in their countries.

Applying the new economics of organisation and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross-national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterise the 'varieties of capitalism' worldwide.