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The concern of this article is to locate the unfolding literature that seeks to explain the present financial crisis into three dimensions of contestability. The major areas of disagreements between various authors include: the role of government; the issues of whether the recession was unavoidable or whether it was inevitable; and the area of ideas and ideals and how economic ideas shaped and influenced the policy process. These explanations include the pragmatists and all that literature that had a time dimension of major actors trying to produce policies that aimed to stabilise the financial markets. These policy makers did not have the benefit of hindsight but were concerned that the financial markets were so fragile that there was no other choice but for governments to intervene. By contrast, there were the market fundamentalists who argued that the pragmatists had got it wrong and were therefore highly critical of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury and tended to blame the recession on government housing policy. Institutionalists have argued that the regulatory system is broken, while structuralists tend to focus on growing income inequalities, the concentration of wealth and how the changing structure explains the recession in the sense that households took the avenue of higher debt on their homes to sustain higher levels of consumption. Finally, there is the Keynesian Collectivist argument that points to the limits of Rational Expectations and Efficient markets. No one really know who is right, but the fierce debate that is emerging is highly important in that each explanation seeks to provide a framework for policy making [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay on how world governments have reacted to economic inequality during the early 21st century is presented. It also focuses upon how the British government has responded to global poverty and inequality, including the establishment of the British Department for International Development (DFID), the allocation of resources, and its financial commitments to scholarly research on economic inequality as of September 2008.

Comments on the British Treasury and Civil Service Committee's choice and implementation of economic strategy. Question on the soundness of the government's economic policy; Possible approaches to simultaneous increases in inflation and unemployment; Reason for the preference of gradualists approach by the Treasury.

The article focuses on the economics and regional policies in Great Britain. According to the author, its regional policies were essentially economic, which produce few political innovations, and its political regionalism is popular but lacks strong economic foundations. The analysis suggests for more discriminating policies based on social and economic processes. Thus, the country's regional policies have been directed to a simple but pressing needs for work and wages.

The article compares and contrasts the economic planning policies of Great Britain and France as of October 1966. According to the author, there were many similarities between Great Britain and France concerning economic difficulties and the means by which both countries dealt with them. The article discusses the philosophy of economic planning, the governmental arrangements for economic planning, and how economic policies were implemented by Great Britain and France. It also discusses how both countries relied on market mechanisms and market competition, the British National Economic Development Council (NEDC), and the French Commissions de Développement Economique Régional (CODER). The article also discusses the role of the British Department of Economic Affairs (DEA).