Rationalizing Incomes Policy in Britain, 1948-1979

Titolo Rivista HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY
Autori/Curatori Roger E. Backhouse, James Forder
Anno di pubblicazione 2013 Fascicolo 2013/1
Lingua Inglese Numero pagine 19 P. 17-35 Dimensione file 133 KB
DOI 10.3280/SPE2013-001002
Il DOI è il codice a barre della proprietà intellettuale: per saperne di più clicca qui

Qui sotto puoi vedere in anteprima la prima pagina di questo articolo.

Se questo articolo ti interessa, lo puoi acquistare (e scaricare in formato pdf) seguendo le facili indicazioni per acquistare il download credit. Acquista Download Credits per scaricare questo Articolo in formato PDF

Anteprima articolo

FrancoAngeli è membro della Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA)associazione indipendente e non profit per facilitare (attraverso i servizi tecnologici implementati da CrossRef.org) l’accesso degli studiosi ai contenuti digitali nelle pubblicazioni professionali e scientifiche

Prices and incomes policies, aimed at directly controlling the rate of growth of prices, wages and profits, were a central element in British macroeconomic policy making from the Second World War until 1979. This paper revisits the operation of such policies and the rationales offered during this period. The only argument that makes sense in terms of modern orthodox theory, that an incomes policy can lower expectations of inflation, was very rare. The rationales more often suggested related closely to the institutional details of wage bargaining in oligopolistic labour markets. Virtually no one perceived labour markets as competitive with the wage determined by the marginal product of labour. But this argument gave the policy a significant and later forgotten rationale.

Keywords:Incomes policy, inflation, Phillips Curve, labour markets

Jel codes:B2, E31, E62

  1. Backhouse R.E. (1983). Macroeconomics and the British Economy, Oxford, Martin Robertson.
  2. Beveridge W.H. (1944). Full Employment in a Free Society, London, George Allen & Unwin
  3. Blackaby F.T. (1972). An Incomes Policy for Britain, London, Heinemann
  4. Boston J. (1984). Incomes Policy in New Zealand, Wellington, Victoria University Press
  5. Brittan S. (1969). Steering the Economy. The Role of the Treasury, London, Penguin
  6. Caves R. and L.B. Krause (eds.)(1968). Britain's Economic Prospects, Washington DC, Brookings
  7. Chater R.E.J. and A. Dean (eds.)(1981). Incomes policy, Oxford, Oxford University Press
  8. Clegg H.A. (1971). How to Run an Incomes Policy, London, Heinemann
  9. Council on Prices Productivity and Incomes (1958). First Report, London, HMSO
  10. Council on Prices Productivity and Incomes (1959). Third Report, London, HMSO
  11. Council on Prices Productivity and Incomes (1961). Fourth Report, London, HMSO
  12. Dean A. (1981). Incomes Policy and the British Economy in the 1970s. In Chater and Dean (eds.)(1981).
  13. Department of Economic Affairs (1966). Prices and Incomes Standstill, London, HMSO. Cmnd. 3073.
  14. Department of Employment and Productivity (1969). Productivity, Prices and Incomes Policy after 1969, London, HMSO. Cmnd. 4237
  15. Dorey P. (2001). Wage Politics in Britain, Brighton, Sussex Academic Press
  16. Dorfman G. (1973). Wage Politics in Britain, Ames, Iowa State University Press
  17. Dow J.C.R. (1964). The Management of the British Economy 1945-60, Cambridge, NIESR
  18. Dunlop J.T. (ed.)(1957/1966). The Theory of Wage Determination, London, Macmillan.
  19. Fallick J.L. and R.F. Elliott (eds.)(1981). Incomes Policies, Inflation and Relative Pay, London, Allen & Unwin
  20. Fellner W.J., M. G. B. Hansen, R. Kahn, F.A. Lutz, and P. de Wolff (1961). The Problem of Rising Prices, Paris, OECD
  21. Forder J. (2010). Friedman's Nobel Lecture and the Phillips Curve Myth, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 32(3): 329-348. DOI: 10.1017/S1053837210000301
  22. Forder J. (2012). The L-Shaped Aggregate Supply Curve and the Future of Macroeconomics, in Harcourt (ed.)(2013).
  23. Harcourt G.C. (ed.)(2013) Handbook of Post-Keynesian Economics, volume 2, Oxford, Oxford University Press
  24. Kaufman B.E. (ed.)(1988). How Labor Markets Work, Lexington MA, D C Heath and Company
  25. Lester R.A. (1941). Economics of Labor, New York, Macmillan.
  26. Meade J.E. (1982). Stagflation. Volume 1: Wage Fixing, London, Allen and Unwin
  27. Morris D. (ed.)(1985). The Economic System in the UK, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  28. National Board for Prices and Incomes (1966). First General Report, London, HMSO.
  29. National Board for Prices and Incomes (1967). Second General Report, London, HMSO
  30. National Board for Prices and Incomes (1969). Fourth General Report, London, HMSO
  31. National Board for Prices and Incomes (1971). Fifth General Report, London, HMSO.
  32. Parkin M. and M. Sumner (eds.)(1972). Incomes Policy and Inflation, Manchester, Manchester University Press
  33. Parkin M., M. Sumner and A.R. Jones (1972). A Survey of the Econometric Evidence of the Effects of Incomes Policy on the Rate of Inflation. In Parkin and Sumner (eds.)(1972).
  34. Reynolds L.G. (1951). The Structure of Labor Markets, New York, Harper
  35. Robinson D. (1985). Government and Pay. In Morris (ed.)(1985).
  36. Robinson D. and K. Mayhew (eds.)(1983). Pay Policies for the Future, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  37. Robinson J.V. (1937). Full Employment, in Essays in the Theory of Employment, London, Macmillan
  38. Romanis Braun A. (1986). Wage Determination and Incomes Policy in Open Economies, Washington DC, International Monetary Fund
  39. Ross A.M. and W. Goldner (1950). Forces Affecting the Inter-industry Wage Structure, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 64(2): 254-281. DOI: 10.2307/1882695
  40. Smith D.C. (1968). Incomes Policy. In Caves and Krause (eds.)(1968).
  41. Trade Union Congress (1944). Annual Report, London, Trade Union Congress
  42. White Paper (1947). Statement on the Economic Considerations Affecting Relations between Employers and Workers, London, HMSO Cmnd. 7018
  43. White Paper (1948). Statement on Personal Incomes, Costs and Prices, London, HMSO Cmnd 7321
  44. White Paper (1956). The Economic Implications of Full Employment, London, HMSO Cmnd 9725
  45. White Paper (1965). Machinery of Prices and Incomes Policy, London, HMSO Cmnd 2577
  46. Worswick G.D.N. (1952). Personal Income Policy. In Worswick and Ady (eds.)(1952).
  47. Worswick G.D.N. and P.H. Ady (eds.)(1952). The British Economy, 1945-1950, Oxford, Clarendon Press

  • Economic Power and the Financial Machine: Competing Conceptions of Market Failure in the Great Depression Roger E. Backhouse, in History of Political Economy /2015 pp.99
    DOI: 10.1215/00182702-2007-3130463
  • The Shaping of Incomes Policy in the Eighties. The Contribution of Ezio Tarantelli Giovanni Michelagnoli, in HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY 2/2015 pp.37
    DOI: 10.3280/SPE2015-002003
  • The Neoclassical Synthesis and the Emergence of Heterodox Economics Roger Backhouse, in SSRN Electronic Journal /2014
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2782545
  • Economic Power and the Financial Machine: Competing Conceptions of Market Failure in the Great Depression Roger Backhouse, in SSRN Electronic Journal /2014
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2602710
  • Richard Kahn and Israeli Economic Policy, 1957 and 1962 Daniel Schiffman, in SSRN Electronic Journal /2013
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2373517
  • The Role of Economic Advisers in Israel's Economic Policy Daniel Schiffman, Warren Young, Yaron Zelekha, pp.51 (ISBN:978-3-319-60680-4)
  • Richard Kahn and Israeli Economic Policy, 1957 and 1962 Daniel Schiffman, in HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY 1/2014 pp.31
    DOI: 10.3280/SPE2014-001002
  • Price Stability and the Origins and Early Influence of the Phillips Curve on British Policy Debates Carlo Cristiano, Paolo Paesani, in History of Political Economy /2018 pp.483
    DOI: 10.1215/00182702-6608917
  • What Is This “Tranquility”? A Reply to Nelson Carlo Cristiano, in History of Political Economy /2024 pp.729
    DOI: 10.1215/00182702-11242685
  • A history of aggregate demand and supply shocks for the United Kingdom, 1900 to 2016 Robert Calvert Jump, Karsten Kohler, in Explorations in Economic History 101448/2022 pp.101448
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2022.101448
  • Monetary policy and price stability in British post-war debate: restatement of evidence from economists’ papers presented to the Radcliffe Committee Carlo Cristiano, Paolo Paesani, in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought /2018 pp.1311
    DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2018.1523444
  • HARRY JOHNSON ON THE PHILLIPS CURVE James Forder, in Journal of the History of Economic Thought /2017 pp.503
    DOI: 10.1017/S1053837217000554

Roger E. Backhouse, James Forder, Rationalizing Incomes Policy in Britain, 1948-1979 in "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY" 1/2013, pp 17-35, DOI: 10.3280/SPE2013-001002