49 FOUR Economic policy analysis Neil Fraser Introduction Typical economic policy analysis involves trying to understand factors affecting policy objectives like the rate of employment, inflation, national product, the health of the nation, or numbers in poverty. The method is called modelling and involves theory and statistical verification. It also enables policy makers to explore the implications of the form objectives take, for example defining poverty in different ways. The Cabinet Office has recently been trying to improve such economic policy analysis
1 IMPLEMENTING ECONOMIC POLICY: An analytical framework Dr Colin Thain Thearticle presents an analytical framework developed to aid research intotheimplemen- tation of the Thatcher government's Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS). The framework utilises the growing litera- ture on the analysis of public policy in a way intended to be relevant to the study of the implementation of economic policy in the UK. Section one deals with the definition of the terms policy and implementation. This is followed by a section which sets out the assumptions which underlie the
Introduction Since 1980, the design and execution of economic policy in Colombia took place in the context of adequate institutional rules and a qualified group of professional economists. These conditions generated a positive environment for economic decision making, for addressing the volatility of the international economy and for strengthening economic rules and institutions. Furthermore, these particular factors facilitated a greater independence from political interests in the adoption of economic decisions. Based on a qualitative review of the past
Salvatore Zecchini* University of Rome 'Tor Vergata', via di Tor Vergata, 00173 Roma - Italy Italy's Economic Policy in the Age of the Euro Abstract - Italy's participation in the EMU entails majors shifts in its economic policy ap- proach, involving the full spectrum of policy domains, and not just the monetary area alone. The author presents an overview of the main changes, highlighting a number of critical is- sues that have emerged. Italy's need for higher growth over the business cycle can hardly be met through a unified monetary policy that is attuned
19 TWO The evolution of economic policy analysis in Ireland Clare O’Mahony Introduction This chapter traces the emergence of modern economic policy analysis in Ireland in the critical industrialisation drives in Ireland’s development path from independence in 1922 to joining the then European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. At independence, Ireland was in political turmoil, having fought a war of independence and subsequently a civil war. The economy was underdeveloped and predominantly agricultural. Living standards were low and emigration was high. The
The relative importance of ideas and interests in shaping economic policy has been much debated. One influential position, associated with Dicey, argues that public policy in each age is shaped by general doctrines about the nature of a society and the role of government. Individualism, which dominated the nineteenth century, was supplanted by collectivism in the twentieth, only for collectivism in its turn to be challenged by the revival of doctrines of economic liberalism in the 1970s and 1980s. An alternative tradition, represented by both public choice and
, towards a fairer distribution of income and wealth. Labour’s economic policy should be, according to Durbin (quoted in Foote, 1997, p 162, emphasis in original), ‘based upon the necessity of making a large quantity of private industry expand its demand for labour at the existing level of wages, and upon the demand of the trade unions for the maintenance of money wage rates’. Alongside Durbin, Bevin argued in the 1930s for state intervention in the world of high finance so that increased investment through the creation of credit would lead Britain away from the
Gebhard Kirchgassner University of Osnabriick, FRG, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich On the Political Economy of Economic Policy 1. - Introduction During the last decades, discussion about economic policy has been dominated by different «schools»: during the sixties we saw the debate bet- ween « Keynesians» and « Monetarists », followed in the seventies and eigh- ties by the discussion between «Neo-Keynesians» and «Monetarists mark II», to use an expression from J. TOBIN (1980), or between the «New Macroeconomics» and the «New Classical
223 FOURTEEN Making economic policy in the Labour Party, 1980-1990: Bringing economists back in Mark Wickham-Jones1 Introduction Between 1979 and 1997, years in which it was out of office, the economic policy to which Labour was committed underwent a dramatic transformation, as did many other aspects of the party’s activities and organisational structure. In this chapter I examine the development of Labour’s economic programme between 1980 and 1990. I identify some of the significant changes to the party’s proposals that took place during this period. For
3 A CANUTE POLICY FIGHTING ECONOMICS? Local economic policy industrial district: the case of Nottingham's Lace Market Louise Crewe and Zena Forster .In an This paper considers the issue of local economic pOlicy in an industrial district. We focus on the fashion system in Nottingham's Lace Market as an example of a flexibly specialised production com- plex whose success hinges on the pro- duction of quality, design based garments produced in small batches to meet custom- ised consumption preferences. Such flex- ibility is enhanced through integrated local supply
