Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through: The surprising story of Britain's economy from boom to bust and back again

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If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Geography still dictates trade. During the high years of British imperialism, (1870) only 25% of exports went to the empire, and by 1900 only to 30%. Europe remained the UK’s most important export market. This is an amazing book of economic history, drawing on the best mainstream works and explanations, written by a journalist, so it is engaging and easily understandable. The author further sprinkles it, especially in the earlier chapters, with bits of macroeconomic theory, so it should be comprehensible for most readers.

The CapX Podcast: 200 years of muddling through - CapX The CapX Podcast: 200 years of muddling through - CapX

How has Britain managed previous periods of economic change? On each occasion, how much has our economic future been shaped by our economic past? And what can today’s policy makers learn from our history as they navigate the decade of economic change to come?Then came Brexit. This damaged economic confidence, sterling fell and the well-documented problems ensued. The global pandemic followed leading to falling economic growth and structural shifts in the heavily indebted economy. The UK is, at the same time, both one of the world's most successful economies and one of Europe's laggards. The country contains some of Western Europe's richest areas such as the south east of England, but also some of its poorest such as the north east or Wales. It's really not much of an exaggeration to describe the UK, in economic terms, as 'Portugal but with Singapore in the bottom corner'. Looking into the past helps understand why. Obviously, there's a good deal to to take issue with here. For example, in his explanation of the lead up to the industrial revolution, there's no mention of the enclosures or any of the other profound changes to English agriculture which made the rise of capitalism possible. And his treatment of the Empire is cursory and downright shameful.

Muddling-Through Theory | SpringerLink Muddling-Through Theory | SpringerLink

Globalisation ebbs and flows. The world of 1914 was much more globalised in relative terms that the world economy of 1979. Britain was the premier financial centre of the world in the late Victorian world, declined during the war years (1914 – 1970), and them boomed again between 1980 and the 2008.

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I enjoyed this - it’s exactly the sort of readable, concise narrative (interspersed with enough statistics to help assure you it’s rigorous and some good anecdotes) that you’d expect from a BBC and Economist journalist. March, J.G. 1978. Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice. Bell Journal of Economics 9: 587–608. All the major points and figures from the past 200 years are contextualised and explained - the Industrial Revolution, (the repeal of) the Corn Laws, the Attlee reforms and ‘new Jerusalem’, and the Thatcher response (and reversal?) to this. Cohen, M.D., J.G. March, and J.P. Olsen. 1972. A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly 17: 1–25. Economic rent has always been a factor in developed economies. Economic rents are a way of enriching oneself without producing anything extra, such as renting out a property, the rent of which is a product of demand and supply more than producing economic value. Open societies do not rely on economic rents for growth. Britain during the late 1600s- mid 1700s had an open internal market within the UK where goods could be sold across the country. Spain and France did not, which enabled landowners to make a lot of money, but not actually contribute to economic growth. Britain was therefore able to win the wars with countries by having a more tax producing economy. Again, the parallels to today jump out. movement of people within the UK is being hampered by high rents/social liquidity, keeping poor people and poor areas poor. Post revolution Britain was much better than the pre-version, where land/rents took nearly 24% of national income, compared to 11% after.

Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through: The surprising story

The UK is, at the same time, both one of the world’s most successful economies and one of Europe’s laggards. The country contains some of Western Europe’s richest areas such as the south east of England, but also some of its poorest such as the north east or Wales. It’s really not much of an exaggeration to describe the UK, in economic terms, as ‘Portugal but with Singapore in the bottom corner’. Looking into the past helps understand why. Eisenhardt, K.M. 1989. Making fast strategic decisions in high-velocity environments. Academy of Management Journal 32: 543–576. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.Amit, R., and P.J.H. Schoemaker. 1993. Strategic assets and organizational rent. Strategic Management Journal 14: 33–46. March, J.G. 2005. Parochialism in the evolution of a research community: The case of organization studies. Management and Organization Review 1: 5–22. The Malthus theory states that the world is governed by a brutal logic; human wants are infinite but human means were finite. Put simply, to limit starvation and masses of poor people, the best way to restrict population growth. Feeding the poor would only result in more poorer people. In some way it links in with your theory about housing and governments liking to restrict the population growth and therefore in the short run/their premiership taxation costs. Rapid population decline is not what governments want, as like Spain in the 1930, there are not enough people to harvest the corn. With the rise of the entrepreneur, the landed gentry became less influential. Despite productivity increases the working class benefited little. The great reform act of 1832 changed the structure of the House of Commons and ended the dominance of the aristocracy. A central theme to the book is how the role and shape of the state has changed and adapted over time - not often for purely ‘ideological’ reasons, but more in response to economic developments and challenges, as well as the need to cope with huge global events (WW1 and WW2 loom large).