Search

Discusses the report `White Paper on Regional Development Agencies' published by Great Britain in December 1997 which described the economic performance of the country. Failure of the conventional regional economic policy; Examination on the flaws of the economic policies implemented by the government; Aim of the country to level with its international competitors; Strategies and policies which the government should launch to spur economic development.

The reforms instituted by the Broadcasting Act 1990 led to a period of turbulence and upheaval within broadcasting with results that were at best unintended and, at worst, seriously undermined the ideal of public service broadcasting. A Hayekian economic perspective would suggest that the reforms failed because they did not go far enough in the direction of full `marketization'. The paper develops an alternative perspective, based on an adaptation of systems theory within the context of law and economics. This approach offers a broader methodological foundation for the understanding of `economic law' and a different normative perspective on the broadcasting reforms. It is suggested that the difficulty with these reforms was not their failure to go further in the direction of the market, but rather their lack of clarity in articulating a clear alternative to the market as the basis for the organization of television production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]