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The article discusses the interpretation on the concept of "The White Paper on the Nationalized Industries." The Paper declares the governmental policy of the nationalized industries following the investigation into the role of the nationalized industries and the corresponding relationship with government undertaken at the Government's bid. The Paper also provides the Government's response to the recommendation in the report published on November 18, 1976. The discussion includes the drawing of attention towards the important aspects in the Paper, to remark major departures from the last White Paper and to comment upon the probable effectiveness of the new proposal.

The relationship between the ability of workers to change job, sector or industry and the short-run adjustment costs associated with a reallocation of labor is the subject of lively debate among academics. This paper examines recent sector and industry level labor market adjustment in the UK using data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey. We explore the link between the nature of UK trade patterns and labor adjustment within the manufacturing sector and employ a multinomial logit approach to examine the determinants of “within” and “between” industry mobility. By controlling for individual skill specificity we find some evidence of a link between intra-industry trade and intra-industry labor adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the characteristics of 354 directors of Britain's largest companies. Three sections of independent variables were analysed: those relating to the economic environ; those relating to the domestic environ—family background and educational experiences; those relating to self-concept. Directors were categorized according to the economic performance of their industries—GOGOs (industries in growth); YOYOs (industries in turbulence); and DODOs (industries in decline). Several differences emerged between the characteristics of directors and the economic success of their industries for which they were strategically influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper arises out of my practical concern for 3½ years with the industrial work of the National Economic Development Office, and in particular the establishment of some 20† Economic Development Committees, a number that is likely soon to rise to 25. These immediate concerns are, however, supported by 17 years previous experience in handling aspects of the relationship between industry and Government. I have therefore a special interest in the opportunities these committees may create for Government to improve its general relations with industry and, no less important, for industry to ensure that Government is more continuously and effectively informed of industrial needs and conditions. I shall describe how these committees came into existence and outline their formal composition and structure. This will lead to consideration of their functions, potentialities, and limitations. As for their potentialities, I shall allow myself to speculate on whether we have somewhat unwittingly stumbled on a method of providing a missing link in our industrial economic structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long relative decline of Great Britain's industrial economy has produced a voluminous literature, both polemical and academic, seeking to illuminate its causes. Recent contributions have stressed the deleterious effects of inappropriate and inconsistent government policies, in particular the deadweight of an inefficient public sector, and the contempt for industrial production on the part of a Treasury-dominated civil service elite obsessed with macroeconomic issues. They have also cited the anti-modernization ethos of the post-1945 political consensus. In a longer term perspective great stress has also been laid on the socio-cultural environment antipathetic to the industrial spirit, which, supposedly, had animated the business and investing classes in the pre-1850 phases of industrialization. The purpose of this paper is to examine the validity of the new institutional approach as an explanation of Great Britain's relative economic decline in the twentieth century. The discussion will focus on economists B. Elbaum and W. Lazonick thesis as a reference point for assessing alternative formulations of institutional rigidities.

The article discusses Great Britain's Department of Economic Affairs (D.E.A.) and Economic Planning during the 1960s. The role that the D.E.A. plays in the British economic planning, including in regard to public expenditures and in relation to the control that the government has over the British economy, is discussed. An overview of the British government's efforts to enhance economic development, including its creation of the National Economic Development Council (N.E.D.C.), is provided. The D.E.A.'s relationship with British industries is also discussed.

While it is frequently asserted that British industry has earned an inadequate return on investment, there has been little agreement among economists as to what exactly this rate has been in recent years. This note provides striking new evidence that the profitability of British industry is currently much lower than anyone had previously supposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]