Britain’s Relative Economic Decline and the British State

Abstract

Amongst the litany of explanations for Britain’s relative economic decline, the British government and state have often been seen as partly the cause of the problem. Some authors have asserted that large state expenditure retarded private sector performance, while others have argued macroeconomic mismanagement slowed growth. For example, Middleton whilst not blaming successive British governments for Britain’s relative economic decline has alleged that various administrations between 1945 and 1979 exacerbated relative economic decline by policy errors (Middleton 1996: 466–7).KeywordsMonetary PolicyBusiness CycleIndustrial PolicyBritish GovernmentMilitary ExpenditureThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.