Supply Side Reform and UK Economic Growth: What Happened To The Miracle?

Nicholas Oulton

National Institute Economic Review, 1995, vol. 154, issue 1, 53-70

Abstract: Two institutions have retarded UK productivity growth in the post-war period: industrial relations and education. The failings of both were largely addressed in the 1980s. The productivity improvement of the 1980s was genuine and was largely due to the reduction in union power brought about by the trade union legislation of the 1980s. The 1980s and 1990s have also seen large falls in the proportion of the labour force which is unqualified and rises in enrolment rates in further and higher education, changes which tend to increase long-run growth. But two factors have obscured the extent o f the improvement. First, the whole climate for economic growth is less favourable than it was in the so-called Golden Age prior to the first oil shock in 1973. Second, UK macroeconomic policy compares poorly with other OECD countries: booms have been shorter and recessions longer, so that microeconomic success has been masked by macroeconomic failure.

Date: 1995
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://ner.sagepub.com/content/154/1/53.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Supply Side Reform and UK Economic Growth: What Happened To The Miracle? (1995)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:niesru:v:154:y:1995:i:1:p:53-70

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in National Institute Economic Review from National Institute of Economic and Social Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().