The U.K.'s rocky road to stability / Nicoletta Batini and Edward Nelson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Batini, Nicoletta.

Contributor:

Nelson, Edward, 1971-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Monetary policy--Great Britain.

Monetary policy.

Great Britain--Economic conditions.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Economic policy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (146 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

UK's rocky road to stability

United Kingdom's rocky road to stability

Place of Publication:

New York : Nova Science Publishers, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The aim of this book is to fill this gap by carrying out an analysis that helps explain recent U.K. developments, yet focuses on past policies rather than current arrangements. As one study observed, "The British experience is one that is full of experiments in monetary regimes and switches in regimes." And that statement was written in 1982, prior to the variety of experiments undertaken in the last two decades: a switch of emphasis of monetary targeting from broad money to the monetary base; a subsequent period of informal and then formal pegging of the pound to the Deutschmark; and inflation targeting from 1992. The authors provide an up-to-date account of U.K. experiences under different policy regimes, with the emphasis on sources of policy mistakes (both in specific policy decisions and, more fundamentally, in the underlying economic analysis). Thus, the objective is not to provide yet another review of inflation targeting in the United Kingdom, but rather, a critical analysis of U.K. monetary policy developments over 1955-2004, focusing on the confusions, misconceptions, and theoretical mistakes in the economic analysis that guided U.K. macroeconomic policy over that period, and how current arrangements have shaken off the earlier sources of error.

Contents:

Intro

THE U.K.'S ROCKY ROAD TO STABILITY

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

TERMINOLOGICAL PRELIMINARIES

2A UNITED KINGDOM

2B INTEREST RATES, MONEY, AND CREDIT

2C CONSUMER PRICES

THE NONMONETARY APPROACH TO MACROECONOMIC POLICY (1955-1979)

3A THE NONMONETARY APPROACH TO DEMAND MANAGEMENT (1955-70)

3A.1 U.K. Monetary Policy in the 1950s

3A.2 Developments in the 1960s

The Bank of England

3B THE NONMONETARY APPROACH TO INFLATION CONTROL (1955-79)

3B.1 1955 to 1969

3B.2 1970 to 1979

Post-mortems on the 1970s

BROAD MONEY TARGETING

4A THE KREMLINOLOGY OF MONETARY TARGETS

4B THE CREDIT COUNTERPARTS APPROACH

4C THE CHOICE OF BROAD MONEY

FLAWS IN MONETARY POLICY EXECUTION (1955-1985)

5A SHORT-TERM INTEREST-RATE POLICY

5A.1 Interest Rates and U.K. Policy

5A.2 Real vs. Nominal Interest Rates

5A.3 Interest-Rate Reaction Functions

5B INAPPROPRIATE MONETARY CONTROL DEVICES (1955-85)

5B.1 Long-Term Debt Operations

5B.2 Credit Controls

5B.3 Cash Reserve Requirements

5B.4 Secondary Reserve Requirements

MONETARY POLICY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE 1980S

6A THE DISINFLATION OF THE EARLY 1980S

6A.1 Background to the Disinflation

6A.2 Character of the Disinflation

6B THE LATE 1980S INCREASE IN INFLATION

MONETARY POLICY DEVELOPMENTS FROM 1990 TO 2004

7A 1990 TO 1997

Bank of England Independence

7B 1997 TO 2004

7C A SUMMING UP OF THE INFLATION RECORD

FISCAL POLICY

8A 1955 TO 1969

8B THE 1970S AND 1980S

Taxation

Government Spending

Deficit Reduction and Privatization

8C THE 1990S AND 2000S

PRODUCTIVITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

CONCLUSIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

REFERENCES

INDEX.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [113]-126) and index.

ISBN:

1-60741-672-7

OCLC:

748988967