In the 1980s and 1990s successive United Kingdom governments enacted a series of reforms to establish a more market-oriented economy, closer to the American model and further away from its Western European competitors. Today, the United Kingdom is one of the least regulated economies in the world, marked by transformed welfare and industrial relations systems and broad privatization. Virtually every industry and government program has been affected by the reforms, from hospitals and schools to labor unions and jobless benefit programs. Seeking a Premier Economy focuses on the labor and product market reforms that directly impacted productivity, employment, and inequality. The questions asked are provocative: How did the United Kingdom manage to stave off falling earnings for lower paid workers? What role did the reforms play in rising income inequality and trends in poverty? At the same time, what reforms also contributed to reduced unemployment and the accelerated growth of real wages? The comparative microeconomic approach of this book yields the most credible evaluation possible, focusing on closely associated outcomes of particular reforms for individuals, firms, and sectors.

During the 1980s Britain became one of the world's most market-oriented economies, an approach which resulted in three severe recessions and a deepening degree of inequality. This book argues that a rebalancing of the economy will remain elusive until proactive policies are implemented at the corporate and industrial level.

A new edition of the leading textbook on the economic history of Britain since industrialization. Combining the expertise of more than thirty leading historians and economists, Volume 2 tracks the development of the British economy from late nineteenth-century global dominance to its early twenty-first century position as a mid-sized player in an integrated European economy. Each chapter provides a clear guide to the major controversies in the field and students are shown how to connect historical evidence with economic theory and how to apply quantitative methods. The chapters re-examine issues of Britain's relative economic growth and decline over the 'long' twentieth century, setting the British experience within an international context, and benchmark its performance against that of its European and global competitors. Suggestions for further reading are also provided in each chapter, to help students engage thoroughly with the topics being discussed.

This text seeks to raise the curtain on competitive pricing strategies and asserts that businesses often miss their best opportunity for providing consumers with what they want - an experience. It presents a strategy for companies to script and stage the experiences provided by their products.

Highlights the interactions between institutions and policy choices, as well as the importance of historical constraints on Britain's relative economic decline.

Inflation targeting is now a highly popular framework for the making of monetary policy. This volume addresses the many dimensions of inflation targeting that until now have been quietly set to one side while the focus has been on macroeconomic outcomes alone.

The Schumpeterian process of 'creative destruction' is an essential ingredient of a dynamic economy. In many countries around the world, however, this process is weakened by pervasive regulation of product and factor markets. This book documents the regulatory obstacles faced by firms, particularly in developing countries, and assesses their implications for firm renewal and macroeconomic performance. Combining a variety of methodological approaches--analytical and empirical, micro and macroeconomic, single- and cross-country-- the book provides evidence that streamlining the regulatory framework would have a significant social pay-off, particularly in developing countries that are also burdened by weak governance. The book's chapters trace out analytically and empirically the links between microeconomic policies and distortions, on the one hand, and aggregate performance in terms of productivity, growth and volatility, on the other. The volume adds to a novel but increasingly influential literature that seeks to understand macroeconomic phenomena from a microeconomic perspective, and derive the relevant lessons for development policy. Such literature is still fairly scarce in the case of industrial countries, and virtually in its infancy for developing countries.

Most businesses face the choice of either competing on the 'low road' of cost, or the 'high road' of innovation and value. Much the same goes for national economies and the UK is no exception. But how do businesses - and the people who manage them - go beyond the policy prescription and the easy exhortation to make that shift, to manage change and go well beyond business as usual? This ground-breaking book - the combined insight of some of the best minds in management, grouped together in the Advanced Institute of Management Research - does just that. It presents a clear and crisp analysis of the context and the challenge; and offers managers a range of ideas on how to develop the competences, practices and values that can make a difference. It is essential reading for policy makers, analysts, academics, and managers to be who want to make a different future.

In this "lively and entertaining" history of ideas (Liaquat Ahamed, The New Yorker), New York Times editorial writer Binyamin Appelbaum tells the story of the people who sparked four decades of economic revolution. Before the 1960s, American politicians had never paid much attention to economists. But as the post-World War II boom began to sputter, economists gained influence and power. In The Economists' Hour, Binyamin Appelbaum traces the rise of the economists, first in the United States and then around the globe, as their ideas reshaped the modern world, curbing government, unleashing corporations and hastening globalization. Some leading figures are relatively well-known, such as Milton Friedman, the elfin libertarian who had a greater influence on American life than any other economist of his generation, and Arthur Laffer, who sketched a curve on a cocktail napkin that helped to make tax cuts a staple of conservative economic policy. Others stayed out of the limelight, but left a lasting impact on modern life: Walter Oi, a blind economist who dictated to his wife and assistants some of the calculations that persuaded President Nixon to end military conscription; Alfred Kahn, who deregulated air travel and rejoiced in the crowded cabins on commercial flights as the proof of his success; and Thomas Schelling, who put a dollar value on human life. Their fundamental belief? That government should stop trying to manage the economy.Their guiding principle? That markets would deliver steady growth, and ensure that all Americans shared in the benefits. But the Economists' Hour failed to deliver on its promise of broad prosperity. And the single-minded embrace of markets has come at the expense of economic equality, the health of liberal democracy, and future generations. Timely, engaging and expertly researched, The Economists' Hour is a reckoning -- and a call for people to rewrite the rules of the market. A Wall Street Journal Business BestsellerWinner of the Porchlight Business Book Award in Narrative & Biography