Roger Middleton - Böcker

The rise and fall of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) parallels the promised but eventually unfulfilled modernization agenda of the 1964-6 Wilson government. The diary kept by Samuel Brittan (in contravention of civil service rules) for the fourteen months in which he served as an 'irregular' in the DEA provides a unique source for understanding the growth ambitions of the new government and why they quickly ran into the sands. Published here in full, with extensive notes, the diary sheds light on the Wilson government more broadly, giving insights into the 'great reappraisal' of economic policy, the reform of government institutions and the personalities of those involved.Samuel Brittan emerged as the most important economic journalist of his generation (at the Financial Times from 1955, with brief interruptions, to the present). His diary is would be of interest for that reason alone, but it has a double value because of the special place that his book, The Treasury under the Tories, 1951-64, has in diagnoses of successive failures in postwar British economic policy. The diary is central to understanding why Brittan turned against 1960s dirigisme and thus constitutes an important contribution to the early intellectual history of the reaction against the postwar consensus.

In order to reach a balanced assessment of the evidence, historians must engage with all of the debate. The British Economy since 1945 introduces the reader to economic and quantitative analysis, tools vital for a deeper understanding of the subject.In this new, introductory and up-to-date text on British economic policy and performance from 1945 to the present day, Roger Middleton makes a balanced assessment of the questions that dominate both the historical and the contemporary political debate. He dispels many of the myths and misunderstandings about Britain's 'decline' and exposes the weaknesses in the arguments of those who seek scapegoats for the causes of economic underperformance.

In order to reach a balanced assessment of the evidence, historians must engage with all of the debate. The British Economy since 1945 introduces the reader to economic and quantitative analysis, tools vital for a deeper understanding of the subject.In this new, introductory and up-to-date text on British economic policy and performance from 1945 to the present day, Roger Middleton makes a balanced assessment of the questions that dominate both the historical and the contemporary political debate. He dispels many of the myths and misunderstandings about Britain's 'decline' and exposes the weaknesses in the arguments of those who seek scapegoats for the causes of economic underperformance.

This is a major study of economic policy making in Britain between the wars. It provided the first full-length analysis of the early development of fiscal policy as a tool of modern economic management. The central question addressed is how Keynesian fiscal policies came to be adopted by the British government, with particular attention paid to the role of the Treasury and to that of Keynes himself.Drawing extensively on unpublished documents hitherto untapped by economists or historians, Roger Middleton challenges the widely held view of official economic thinking as an ill-informed group of people holding ‘the Treasury view’ in opposition to Keynes’s prescriptions for deficient demand and mass unemployment. Instead he argues that acceptance of Keynesian economics during the Second World War resulted from political and administrative factors as much as a conversion to Keynesian theory. He investigates the form and impact of fiscal policy during the 1930s and, through a constant employment budget analysis, shows convincingly that at times of rising unemployment governments ignore at their peril the effects of automatic stabilizers upon budgetary stability.Historians and economists welcomed this fresh perspective on a debate of historical as well as contemporary importance. Towards the Managed Economy is essential reading for all those interested in the rise and fall of Keynesian demand management. This classic text was first published in 1985.

This is a major study of economic policy making in Britain between the wars. It provided the first full-length analysis of the early development of fiscal policy as a tool of modern economic management. The central question addressed is how Keynesian fiscal policies came to be adopted by the British government, with particular attention paid to the role of the Treasury and to that of Keynes himself.Drawing extensively on unpublished documents hitherto untapped by economists or historians, Roger Middleton challenges the widely held view of official economic thinking as an ill-informed group of people holding ‘the Treasury view’ in opposition to Keynes’s prescriptions for deficient demand and mass unemployment. Instead he argues that acceptance of Keynesian economics during the Second World War resulted from political and administrative factors as much as a conversion to Keynesian theory. He investigates the form and impact of fiscal policy during the 1930s and, through a constant employment budget analysis, shows convincingly that at times of rising unemployment governments ignore at their peril the effects of automatic stabilizers upon budgetary stability.Historians and economists welcomed this fresh perspective on a debate of historical as well as contemporary importance. Towards the Managed Economy is essential reading for all those interested in the rise and fall of Keynesian demand management. This classic text was first published in 1985.

In Government Versus the Market, Roger Middleton provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and controversial analysis of how Britain's relative economic decline from the late nineteenth century onwards generated an intense debate about the legitimate roles of government and the market. After a thorough analysis of Britain's long-run economic performance in a comparative context, which emphasizes how the problem of decline is frequently misunderstood, and an account of the long-run forces promoting and constraining government growth, he then charts how the economic role of government evolved in response to decline but produced a mix of macroeconomic and microeconomic policies which proved inadequate for the task. This major study emphasizes the institutional and political constraints to economic modernization and uses the specific characteristics of Britain's predicament, a combination of market failure and impotent state, to explain why by 1979 the burgeoning New Right were able to launch an attack upon big government. Dr Middleton then demonstrates how Britain's subsequent economic performance, while brilliantly propagandized as an economic renaissance, has in fact been lacklustre and why the Conservatives' economic strategy failed to address the underlying problems of decline and to reduce the size of the public sector. Government versus the Market brings an unrivalled historical, empirical and theoretical breadth to our understanding of the last century of British economic history as well as a wealth of material on economic performance and public sector growth, and the fullest bibliography yet published on Britain's economic decline.Comprehensive, authoritative and wide-ranging, this extensive study uses a long-term and comparative framework which draws upon the latest research of economists, historians and political scientists to show why successive governments have been unable to halt Britain's relative economic decline.

Charlatans or Saviours? is the first detailed analysis of professional British economists from Marshall, through Keynes and Meade to the present day. It examines the relationship between professional economists and economic policy in an attempt to answer the question: 'Can economics and professional economists be blamed for the relative decline of the British economy?'This book provides an unrivalled account of how economic policy is made in practice. It uses examples of major policy decisions to show how policy debates develop and then assesses the subsequent balance between political, bureaucratic and economic influence. In this path-breaking investigation Roger Middleton sheds new light on Britain's relative economic decline by examining the advice economists have given to government. He analyses whether economists are partly responsible for this decline or whether they are largely innocent and unnecessarily blamed by politicians. In discussing the rise of professional economics he demonstrates that from the time of Marshall onwards the market for economic policy advice in Britain has been unusually competitive. In addition, Roger Middleton explores the broader concern in contemporary economics, that is, the pursuit of rigour at the expense of relevance.This in-depth study will be welcomed by economists interested in policy making, the history of economic thought, economic historians and political scientists.

These volumes gather together a selection of autobiographical essays written by significant economists whose work is generally recognized to be at the forefront of the discipline as we enter the twenty-first century. The essays are largely based on introductions to volumes in the Edward Elgar series Economists of the Twentieth Century (which collects together the key papers of these economists). This volume focuses on leading economists who were born, or have spent the greater part of their lives, in America. The main chapters are accompanied by an introduction in which the editors place the autobiographical essays in a wider context. Economists will be fascinated by:the stories that lie behind familiar nameswhy economists approach problems the way they dohow careers develophow economists view what they are doing.These are all points that are invisible to those who simply read the published output of economics, so readers will gain personal insights into the development of the field.The books will be a valuable resource for economists, particularly historians of economic thought, as well as sociologists concerned with the economics profession, and those interested in the creative process and the social and scientific development of economics.