First published in 1960, this seminal work illuminates the interrelations of the various approaches to the theory of economic growth. Professor Meade seeks to understand the factors which determine the speed of economic growth and outlines the ways in which classical economic analysis may be developed for application to the problem of economic growth.

This book discusses a set of radical changes in economic institutions and policies designed to show an efficient but socially acceptable third way between Keynesian inflation and monetarist unemployment, and between the inefficiencies of socialist centralisation and the ravages of unrestrained capitalist competition. It consists of a reprint of Efficiency, Equality and the Ownership of Property together with four recent papers including a highly revised version of the well-known tract Agathotopia: The Economics of Partnership.

First published in 1964, this is a study of the extreme inequalities in the ownership of property, in economies across the globe. Professor Meade examines in depth the economic, demographic and social factors which lead to such inequalities. He considers a wide range of remedial policies – educational development, reformed death duties and capital taxes, demographic policies, trade union action, the socialization of property, the development of a property-owning democracy, the expansion of the welfare state. The argument is expressed in precise analytical terms, but the main exposition is free of mathematics and technical jargon and is designed for the interested layman as well as the economist.

First published in 1940, this book suggested the basic principles upon which a new international economic order should be built at the end of the Second World War. Particular attention is paid to the possibility of constructing such an international order on the basis of divergent national economic systems - whether liberal or planned, capitalist or socialist. In undertaking this task the author combines theoretical analysis with a description of the immediate pre-war economic situation and writes in a language which is equally accessible to the economist and the layman.

Discussing the main problems in the formation of an Economic Union, this book analyses the extent to which national governments would have to give up their freedom of action in domestic monetary, budgetary, fiscal and economic policies if they were to form an effective economic union. The issues of commercial policy, financial and exchange-rate policies, of migration and investment and of the finance of a common defence budget are all covered.

First published in 1952, this work is a systematic exposition of Professor Meade's geometric method, bringing together into a single coherent account the modern geometrical analysis of the theory of international trade. The work makes a number of original contributions, notably in the geometrical treatment of domestic production, of the balance of payments, and of import and export duties.

First published in 1961, this reissue examines the contemporary economic problems of Mauritius alongside those social problems which have a bearing on economic development. As a small and isolated economy, marked by a very rapid rate of contemporary population growth, by an extreme concentration on a single product, and by a great diversity of racial, religious and linguistic groups within the population, Mauritius is a representative microcosm of the economic problems of a large part of the developing world. The book considers the impact of a lower birth rate, emigration and economic development upon the economy of Mauritius, examining in detail the labour market, the prospects for agricultural and industrial development, the financial system and the education system.

First published in 1979, this fourth part of Principles of Political Economy applies the tools of economic analysis to the distribution of income and property. Professor Meade considers the problems of making interpersonal comparisons of welfare and of distinguishing between the efficiency and distributional aspects of changes in social welfare. He analyses the possible criteria for redistribution as between rich and poor members of the same generation, as between present and future generations, and – in the context of demographic policies – as between the born and the unborn. Special attention is given to the social factors (such as assortative mating, differential fertility, and laws and customs relating to the inheritance of property) in explaining the persistence of economic inequalities, and to the various forms of economic policy which may be devised for the reduction of such inequalities. An extensive mathematical model of the dynamics of social welfare in a second-best economy is appended.

This book reviews James Meade's prolific contribution to economics and its lasting impact. Few economists have written so much and on so many different topics. Meade was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1977 (jointly with Bertil Ohlin) for his contribution to international economics, but could just as easily have been awarded this for his contribution to the economics and politics of the managed economy. His commitment to the middle ground, neither free market nor command, runs through the whole of his published work, from Planning and the Price Mechanism in the shadow of post-war rationing to The Intelligent Radical’s Guide to Economic Policy and Full Employment Regained? when inflation combined with stagnation reopened the debate between the monetarists and the Keynesians. Meade was active in politics, most prominently in the debates in the 1960s about the European Economic Community and in the 1980s on the formation of Britain’s Social Democratic Party. As a person, he can best be described as a cultured Englishman, quiet and open, much in the mould of Coase, Mirrlees or Hicks. This book draws upon the whole of Meade’s published work. It incorporates insights from unpublished papers and surviving correspondence kept at the London School of Economics and Political Science as well as interviews with family members and associates. The book will be of interest to economists but also to the students of politics and philosophy that Meade himself would have wanted to reach.