I. McLean – författare

In this book leading policy experts examine what has happened over the last decade across a broad range of key policy areas, what are currently the most salient challenges and what options might an incoming UK government, regardless of political persuasion, have to address them.

The system for allocating public expenditure to the nations and regions of the UK has broken down. Money goes to the English regions by poorly-understood formulae that work badly. People in every region think that the system is unfair to them.

The system for allocating public expenditure to the nations and regions of the UK has broken down. Money goes to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by the notorious Barnett formula, but this is collapsing and cannot last long. Money goes to the English regions by poorly-understood formulae that work badly. People in every region think that the system is unfair to them. The Fiscal Crisis of the United Kingdom suggests how the system could be fixed, drawing lessons from Australia and Canada. It recommends a Territorial Grants Commission.

Iain McLean reexamines the radical legacy of AdamSmith, arguing that Smith was a radical egalitarian and that his work supported all three of the slogans of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, and fraternity. This book brings Smith into full view, showing how much of modern economics and political science is in Smith.

Successive chapters show what went wrong in UK economic policy making in the 1960s and 1970s, what goes better now, and what still goes wrong. The editors explain how recent developments in economic theory have improved economic policy making.