This book is a survey of macroeconomic policy in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s which argues that there were important elements of continuity in the way decisions were actually taken year-by-year and month-by-month in the Treasury and the Bank of England in this period. It is written by Andrew Britton, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, and previously a senior economist at the Treasury, and is a sequel to the NIESR studies by Christopher Dow (1945–60) and by Frank Blackaby and others (1960–74). Part One is a chronological account of policy actions and their setting. Part Two provides a history of ideas, describing the most influential writings of economists in Britain during this period, while Part Three looks at the influence of the world economy on Britain. Parts Four and Five include several elements of new statistical analysis concerning the way in which policy instruments were used, in particular the signals to which policymakers reacted when setting interest rates.
