Economic Policy and Management, 1870-2010
R.C. Floud, P.A. Johnson and K.J. Humphries, eds, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, 2nd edn, Vol. II: 1870–2010, 2013, Forthcoming
26 Pages Posted: 18 Nov 2012
Date Written: 2012
Abstract
This paper, prepared for the forthcoming new edition of the Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, provides an assessment of the long-term development of British economic policy and of its impact. It charts, first, the transformation in the scale and scope of government since the laissez-faire regime that characteristised mid nineteenth-century Britain, secondly, using the concept of economic policy regime, it examines the development of economic policy objectives and instruments; and, thirdly, then makes an assessment, principally but not exclusively macroeconomic, of policy impact. Using political economy tools as well as those of economic history, this paper confirms Peper Hall's earlier conclusion that the British state was ‘not primarily responsible for Britain’s economic decline’ but nor has it been an ‘innocent bystander’.
Keywords: British economic history, economic policy, economic performance
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