Problems of British economic policy 1870–1945

Recent Books The premise of the book is that the standard Keynesian framework has serious flaws and that an alternative macroeconomic theory may be more appropriate. The author presents his own Post Keynesian macrodynamic alternative derived from three “back-ofthe-envelope” models. Of interest to intermediate students; several extensive numerical examples. Problems of British Economic Policy 1870-1945. Jim Tomlinson. London and New York: Methuen, 1981. 162 pp. $19.95 ($9.95 paperbound). The purpose of writing the book, the author stresses, is not to survey British economic policy but to raise a range of problems about the way in which economic policy decisions are discussed in the literature. Topics include unemployment as an object of policy before 1914 and in the 192Os, the gold standard in 1880-1914, and the problem of public works and the Treasury View. Of general interest. The Scourge of Monetarism. Nicholas Kaldor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. 114 pp. ($15.50 paperbound). Two Radcliffe Lectures delivered at the University of Warwick in 1981 are contained in this book as well as a reprint of Kaldor’s 1980 memorandum “Evidence to the Treasury and Civil Service Committee. ” In these, Kaldor attacks the case for monetarism as it is expounded by both British and American economists and politicians. He shows how the arguments deployed by the Radcliffe Committee in 1959, which reaffirmed Keynesian principles of economic management, still hold, how the structural problems of the British economy cannot be ascribed to Keynesianism or to the welfare state, and that unnecessary contraction has been forced upon the economy by current policy. The Stockholm School and the Development of the Dynamic Method. Bjiirn A. Hansson. London: Croom Helm, 1982. 286 pp. $29.50. A thorough analysis of the Stockholm School’s contribution to the development of dynamic methods. Hansson examines the work of Myrdal, Lundberg, Lindahl and others and provides new insights into their work. The book also discusses the connections between the Stockholm School and the Keynesian revolution and traces many contemporary ideas back to these 1930s theorists. Extensive bibliography of published and unpublished materials. 140