From Prices and Incomes Policy to Sado-Monetarism?

Adrian Williamson
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Adrian Williamson: Trinity Hall

Chapter 4 in Conservative Economic Policymaking and the Birth of Thatcherism, 1964–1979, 2015, pp 89-125 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Prices and Incomes Policy was once a key tool of British economic management. Thus, in 1966, one could find William Brown, fresh from Oxford, engaged at Labour’s new National Board for Prices and Incomes (NBPI) in a ‘very British attempt at trying to deal with a rather bewildering problem, by actually going out and finding evidence’.1 By 1973, that great Tory fixture Arthur Cockfield was complaining to Heath that his extensive powers at the Price Commission were still not strong enough.2 In any conventional reading, Prices and Incomes Policy would surely be a central plank in the post-war settlement. It combined the belief (or illusion) that governments could manage the economy with the imperative of doing so in conjunction with the trade unions. It also represented, at least tacitly, an attempt to direct the economy in a way compatible with equitable outcomes, in particular full employment: inflationary pressures were to be controlled so as to avoid placing strain on the goal of full employment.

Keywords: Interest Rate; Monetary Policy; Social Contract; Money Supply; Full Employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:psitcp:978-1-137-46026-4_4

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137460264_4

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