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The imposition of the world's first modern income tax in 1799 prompted a revival of interest in national accounting. This article examines the extent to which William Pitt the Younger, who proposed the new tax, modelled his estimates of national wealth on those produced a century earlier by the pioneers in this field, Sir William Petty, Charles Davenant, and Gregory King. In addition, the calculations of Benjamin Bell and Henry Beeke, two of Pitt's contemporaries, are analysed in detail to highlight the fragility of these contemporary estimates of national income. This analysis has important implications for economic historians who have used this material to try to establish the structure and growth of national output. National accountants during the long eighteenth century were not, for the most part, concerned with structural change. Rather, their descriptions of economic structure should be understood as reflecting a particular set of a priori claims about what they deemed to be the proper mode and distribution of taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the composition and geographies of individual wealth holding in England and Wales in the late nineteenth century. It draws on various forms of death duty records to determine the individual ownership of wealth including both personal property and real estate. By combining information on these different kinds of property, it is possible to explore how different strata of wealth holders accumulated specific forms of wealth at the time of their death. The article then examines how the composition of that wealth varied according to the wealth holder's location in the urban hierarchy and distance from London. It points out important geographical differences in both the scale and nature of wealth holding and raises questions about the implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The culture and attitudes of any institution are shaped by history and this may affect absorptive capacity and adjustment to change or responses to challenge or opportunity. The article explores how responses to policy initiatives played out within individual universities and the implications this had for their business engagement. The patterns of business engagement are related to the histories of the individual universities, identifying those forces which helped to shape the ‘rules of the game’ and explaining the similarities and differences in experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We study collaborative and noncollaborative projects that are supported by government grants. First, we propose a theoretical framework to analyze optimal decisions in these projects. Second, we test our hypotheses with a unique data set containing academic publications and research funds for all academics at the major university engineering departments in the United Kingdom. We find that the type of the project (measured by its level of appliedness) increases the type of both the university and firm partners. Also, the quality of the project (number and impact of the publications) increases with the quality of the researcher and firm, and with the affinity in the partners’ preferences. The collaboration with firms increases the quality of the project only when the firms’ characteristics make them valuable partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delegation models make contrasting assumptions about how political disagreement affects discretion and empirical research reports contradictory findings. The authors aim to shed new light on this puzzle by distinguishing the mechanisms that drive the effect of political disagreement on discretion. Four conditions influence the strength of each mechanism: (a) policy salience, (b) actors involved, (c) their capacity, and (d) decision rule. They explore this theoretical framework on the case of economic restructuring in the United Kingdom and show that political disagreement reduces discretion. There is no significant interaction effect between salience and political disagreement on discretion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The UK Public Opinion Monitor (UKPOM) provides a unique opportunity to explore changes in attitudes of the UK public over time. This article presents findings from the UKPOM on how people in the UK have experienced the financial crisis and how, if at all, this has caused them to think differently about aid and development. We find that respondents had been affected by the economic crisis and were worried about the impact on their own finances and the UK economy. Although respondents had a feeling of interconnectedness with the world and were broadly supportive of aid in principle, these perspectives were often trumped by local and domestic priorities, particularly during such a period of financial turmoil, with support for aid spending in decline. We see some appetite for changing the way in which the world is governed, but the extent to which this encompasses aid reform is uncertain. Finally, we draw some conclusions for development policymakers and communicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the economic prospects for Great Britain. Its economy is expected to expand by 1.3% in 2011 with growth rising to 2% per annum in 2012. Estimated trend rate of growth is 2.1% and economic growth above the trend rate is expected only by 2013. In the absence of fiscal tightening, economic growth is estimated to be around 0.8 percentage points higher. It indicates that its gross domestic product (GDP) growth is constrained by planned fiscal consolidation from 2011 to 2015.

Unlike their English counterparts, Scottish partnership banks during the Industrial Revolution operated under partnership law which was similar to the French societe en commandite. The article suggests that the definitive feature of this partnership law was that it permitted partnerships to separate ownership from control and stock to be traded. Archival evidence also suggests that Scottish partnership banks had mechanisms to ameliorate potential insider opportunism arising from the separation of ownership from control. The available evidence also suggests that the ability of Scottish banks to separate ownership from control may have contributed to the relative stability of the banking system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore factors affecting workplace survival and growth using nationally representative panel data for the British private sector. We address five policy-relevant questions. First, are young workplaces more vulnerable to closure and low growth than older ‘like’ workplaces? Second, are stand-alone workplaces more vulnerable than those belonging to multi-site firms? Third, do firms’ human capital investments enhance survival and growth prospects? Fourth, do those who innovate go on to be more successful? Fifth, is there any evidence of creative job destruction? We discuss the implications for policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid rise of England's colonial commerce in the late seventeenth century expanded the nation's resource base, stimulated efficiency improvements across the economy, and was important for long-term growth. However, close examination of the interests at play in England's Atlantic world does not support the Whiggish view that the Glorious Revolution played a benign role in this story. In the decades after the Restoration, the cases of the Royal African Company and the Spanish slave trade in Jamaica are used to show that the competition between Crown and Parliament for control of regulation constrained interest groups on either side in their efforts to capture the profits of empire. Stuart 'tyranny' was not able to damage growth and relatively competitive (and peaceful) conditions underpinned very rapid increases in colonial output and trade. The resolution of the rules of the Atlantic game in 1689 allowed a consolidated state better to manipulate and manage the imperial economy in its own interests. More secure rent-seeking enterprises and expensive wars damaged growth and European rivals began a process of catch-up. The Glorious Revolution was not sufficient to permanently halt economic development but it was sufficient to slow progress towards industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an examination of the patterns and motivations behind parish apprenticeship in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London. It stresses continuity in outlook from parish officials binding children, which involved placements in both the traditional and industrializing sectors of the economy. Evidence on the ages, employment types, and locations of 3,285 pauper apprentices bound from different parts of London between 1767 and 1833 indicates a variety of local patterns. The analysis reveals a pattern of youthful age at binding, a range of employment experiences, and parish-specific links to particular trades and manufactures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influential studies by Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson claim that colonial legacies explain the origins of development-promoting property rights and thus account for the modern world income distribution. Specifically, they argue that European colonial powers engineered a global 'reversal of fortune', bringing property rights and prosperity to relatively uninhabited colonies while imposing inefficient institutions on locales with less potential for settlement. We re-evaluate their theoretical arguments and empirical findings and come to a different conclusion. We concur that British colonialism dramatically restructured four colonies, resulting in phenomenal economic success. For the majority of the world, however, colonialism had no discernible effect on property rights. We conclude that contemporary development studies must find another explanation for the modern world income distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses economic forecasts for Great Britain in 2011 and 2012. Yearly growth rate is predicted to escalate to 2% in 2011 and 2.25% in 2012. General government spendings is expected to drop about .75% from gross domestic product growth in 2011 and 2012. In 2011, growth in employment is anticipated, but will be inadequate to absorb hikes in the labor force. Forecasts for prices and earnings, demand, household sector, supply, public finances and accumulation are discussed.

The article presents a long-term growth outlook for Great Britain. It states that there was a potential output growth due to several factors such as net inflows of migrants, a decrease in the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU), and shift to high value-added sectors. It notes the existence of a link between demand shifts and NAIRU changes via hysteresis, profile changes in age affecting a potential output growth, and growth from capital stock expansion.

This article attempts to deconstruct and analyse British views of the European economies during the post-war years of fast growth, low unemployment and subdued inflation. Though there had been a great deal of academic attention paid to Britons' self-perceptions, less research has been conducted as to how they saw the most relevant 'other': the societies and economies on either side of the English Channel. Two case-studies are utilized here to suggest both how Britons saw themselves by reference to their near-neighbours, and to study how policy ideas moved around the international world of advice, interpretation and global governance that was emerging after the Second World War. The French and Soviet examples, so scrutinized and apparently fascinating at the time, are the main focus of the article, though other sources of inspiration - German, Scandinavian, Italian - are also suggested. The article concludes with a brief sketch of the main reasons other Europeans' apparent 'success' came to seem so important. These include a national sense of 'declinism'; the importance of international bodies such as the United Nations; and the intertwined relationship between domestic and foreign policy during the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the authors discuss the forecast and trends of the economy amid the global economic recession in Great Britain from 2004 to 2013. They note declines in the gross domestic product (GDP) and the production index. They forecast an overall increase by 1% on the economy of the region. Furthermore, they consider the cutback of the value added tax (VAT) and inventory as drivers for the economic growth of the country.

The article discusses the insights of economic leaders to education in Great Britain. It notes that leaders believe that the quality of a nation's human resources is rested by economic growth. It mentions that reduction of college drop-outs rates and increase in the numbers of Americans are critical for a country to employ. Moreover, it cites that the ability of educational degrees and college graduates to contribute to the economy is misrepresented. It also reveals that David Leonhardt offers his ideas in restoring growth out of and beyond recession.

This article examines the British government's commitment to Africa during Tony Blair's time as Prime Minister. Drawing on interviews with politicians from across the political spectrum and with officials involved in Africa policy, it shows how British work and relationships in Africa are described in thin and highly idealized ways, depicting a project seemingly able to transcend ordinary politics. The article suggests that this idealization of Africa has been valued by state actors for the ways in which it appeared to connect them to a 'good' and 'noble' cause, and in particular the way it enhanced their perceptions of the capacity and potency of the British state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the potential decrease of the economy in the Euro Area. It highlights the shrinking of the economy in Euro Area by 1.6 percent on quarterly basis. It noted the decrease of economic activity in the first quarter of 2009. It emphasizes that the forecast on the decline of economy came from both public and private sectors. The article also presents various charts and diagrams depicting the economic activity in the Euro Area including the contribution of stockbuilding to the growth of gross domestic product (GPD), inflation expectation and the prospects for the European Union.

Co-operation between researchers in the global North and South is critical to the production of new knowledge to inform development policies. However, the agenda-setting process is a formidable obstacle in many development research partnerships. The first section of this article examines how bilateral donor strategies affect collaborative agenda-setting processes. The second section explores researchers' motivations for entering into North-South partnerships; the obstacles that Southern researchers encounter in agenda-setting processes; and the strategies that they employ to ensure that research partnerships respond to their concerns. This analysis suggests that while strong Southern research organisations are best placed to maximise the benefits of collaboration, donors and researchers alike are well advised to recognise the limitations of this approach and use it prudently, because North-South partnerships are not necessarily the best way to advance research agendas rooted in Southern priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the impact of volatility per se on real exports for a small open economy concentrating on Irish trade with the United Kingdom and the United States. An important element is that we take account of the time lag between the trade decision and the actual trade or payments taking place by using a flexible lag approach. Rather than adopting a single measure of risk, we adopt a spectrum of risk measures and detail varied size characteristics and statistical properties. We find that the ambiguous results found to date may be due to not taking account of the timing effect, which varies substantially depending on which volatility measure is used. ( JEL C32, C51, F14, F31) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent revision to the preliminary measurement of GDP(E) growth for 2003Q2 caused considerable press attention, provoked a public enquiry and prompted a number of reforms to UK statistical reporting procedures. In this article, we compute the probability of ‘substantial revisions’ that are greater (in absolute value) than the controversial 2003 revision. The predictive densities are derived from Bayesian model averaging over a wide set of forecasting models including linear, structural break and regime-switching models with and without heteroscedasticity. Ignoring the nonlinearities and model uncertainty yields misleading predictives and obscures recent improvements in the quality of preliminary UK macroeconomic measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An overview is provided of the issues raised in the recent literature on the use of reaI-time data in the context of nowcasting and forecasting UK macroeconomic events. The ideas are illustrated through two specific applications using UK real-time data available over 1961-2006 and providing probability forecasts that could have been produced in real time over the past twenty years. In the first, we consider the reliability of first-release data on the components of UK aggregate demand by looking at forecasts of the probabiIity of substantial data revisions. In the second, we consider the estimation of the output gap, illustrating the uncertainty surrounding its measurement through density forecasts and focusing on its interpretation in terms of inflationary pressure through an event probability forecast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the wages, workload and custom in Great Britain during the industrialization period. The author focuses on the aspect of time in wages during the industrialization period, examining how time was measured, its relationship with wage and its value for those outside the economy of regularly paid work such as those who derive their income from the informal economy. It investigates the nature of piece-rate payments during the industrial revolution and their relationship to time rates. It discusses how wage rates reflected a traditional consensus and on the indirect relationship between work and reward. It also tackles perquisites, and the Poor Law in Great Britain.

This article questions the notion which has gained ground recently in the writing of Booth and others that British manufacturing did not fail in the post-Second World War long boom, 1950-1973. By all the traditional measures of performance - output growth rates, productivity growth rates and levels, exports, and profitability - it can be re-affirmed that British manufacturing was out-competed by her rivals. Booth, Broadberry and others have also argued that manufacturing is of less importance to economic growth than services; this too is questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a reprint of the article "Britain: A Case for Development?" edited by Richard Jolly and Robin Luckham, which appeared in the Volume 9, Number 2 1977 of the "IDS Bulletin." Structural unemployment, inflation and balance of payments difficulties are cited as some of the similarities between Great Britain and developing countries.

The article presents a reprint of the article "Teaching Development at Graduate Level in Britain," edited Dudley Seers, which appeared in the Volume 11, Number 3 1980 issue of the "IDS Bulletin." Courses in development studies in Great Britain are said to be in direct and active competition with similar potential or actual courses offered in developing countries.

This article explores how counterterrorism policing strategies and practices ill tile United Kingdom have changed in tile face of recent terrorist attacks. It considers tile evident limitations of these developments and how a local, democratic style of neighborhood policing could be used to manufacture the community intelligence ‘feed’ that offers the best probability of preventing and deterring future forms of such violence. These substantive concerns are set against a theoretical backdrop attending to how policing can respond to risks where the contours of the threat are uncertain. Tile analysis is informed by interviews with U.K. police officers involved in intelligence and counterterrorism work conducted during the early part of 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outside the United States and the United Kingdom, large corporations usually have controlling owners, who are usually very wealthy families. Pyramidal control structures, cross shareholding, and super-voting rights let such families control corporations without making a commensurate capital investment. in many countries, a few such families end up controlling considerable proportions of their countries' economies. Three points emerge. First, at the firm level, these ownership structures, because they vest dominant control rights with families who often have little real capital invested, permit a range of agency problems and hence resource misallocation. If a few families control large swaths of an economy, such corporate governance problems can attain macroeconomic importance-affecting rates of innovation, economy wide resource allocation, and economic growth. If political influence depends on what one controls, rather than what one owns, the controlling owners of pyramids have greatly amplified political influence relative to their actual wealth. This influence can distort public policy regarding property rights protection, capital markets, and other institutions. We denote this phenomenon economic entrenchment, and posit a relationship between the distribution of corporate control and institutional development that generates and preserves economic entrenchment as one possible equilibrium. The literature suggests key determinants of economic entrenchment, but has many gaps where further work exploring the political economy importance of the distribution of corporate control is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a potentially powerful tool for progress on development and human rights. Women's human rights activists should recognise and build on the political will mobilised around the MDGs. However, the MDGs reflect problems in the dominant development approach. They seek to use women in their existing social roles to ‘deliver’ other aims, and do not address the need to eradicate gender inequality, resulting in lack of commitment to address key issues for women, including gender-based violence. There are further problems with the MDGs' indicators, analytical approach, and accountability mechanisms. The MDGs should be reframed as human rights obligations. To this end, links should be fostered between the 2005 reviews of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and progress on the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most profound challenges facing the Labour party in the post-war period was its ability to understand and make policy to reform the private sector. Before the Attlee government, Labour had little to say on this issue, but that government's experience exposed the dangerous ‘vacuum’ this involved. In the 1950s the nature of the capitalist firm ranked alongside the alleged ‘embourgoisement’ of the working class as an issue framing Labour's ideological and policy debate. The centrality of this issue reflected the fact that understanding the firm was inextricably linked to a raft of broader arguments within the Left about the nature of modern capitalism. The benign view of the corporation that flowed from the revisionist wing of the party was challenged by the ‘declinist’ politics of the 1960s, and in office after 1964 Labour pursued a modernizing agenda which centrally involved seeking to shape the behaviour of the private sector in order to deliver the higher economic growth that Labour so much desired. The failure of this growth to materialize led to great disillusion across the party about the policies pursued by the Wilson government, and this in turn led to a fundamental rethink of policy that was to underpin the radical agenda of the party in the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents forecasts on the economic recovery and growth in Great Britain through 2006. Performance of gross national product in the third quarter of 2003; Comparison of growth in the U.S. and in Britain in the 1990s; Level of demand for exports in continental Europe.

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Discusses key experiences to show how the institutional channels linking democracy and economic growth are evolving with Great Britain's economy. Property rights; Contract enforcement; Human investment; Egalitarian human capital.

The article discusses the development of capitalism in Great Britain and in the U.S. Great pressure is currently being applied on developing countries by the developed world, and the international development policy establishment that it controls, to adopt a set of "good policies" and "good institutions" to foster their economic development. According to this agenda, "good policies" broadly are those that include restrictive macroeconomic policy, liberalization of international trade and investment, privatization, and deregulation. The key institutions include democracy, good bureaucracy, an independent judiciary, strongly protected private property rights and transparent and market-oriented corporate governance and financial institutions. This article has shown how the currently dominant neo-liberal argument for free trade and laissez-faire industrial policy is based on a fundamentally mistaken reading of the history of capitalism. Particularly important in this argument is the very selective and distorted reading of the economic histories of Great Britain and the U.S., whose ascents to industrial supremacy are erroneously attributed to their free trade policy and non-interventionism.

One of Great Britain's government's policy initiatives when taking office in 1997 concerned international development. This highlighted an intention to expand partnerships between institutions in Great Britain and poorer countries, specifically to work closely with other donors and development agencies to build partnerships with developing countries. The prime policy goal was to eliminate poverty and encourage economic growth that benefits the poor. Since children are most vulnerable to poverty, a specific intention was to support international efforts to enhance children's well-being including through the provision of effective and sustainable health services.

Presents a study which developed tests for multiple forecast encompassing which are robust to properties expected in the forecast errors and applied the tests to forecasts of growth and inflation in Great Britain. Importance of forecast evaluation; Conclusion.

The article presents information about the book "Sport, Economy and Society in Britain, 1750-1914. New Studies in Economic and Social History," Neil Tranter. The book surveys the current state of scholarship concerning a "revolution" in sporting culture in Great Britain over the period 1750-1914 and its effects on the wider evolution of cultural, social, and economic life. Estimates the increase or decrease in popular sport during the initial surge of urban industrialization in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Addresses when, precisely, the new culture of sport first effectively emerged, its principal features, and the mechanisms responsible for its spread.

The article presents information about the book "British Economic Development Since 1945," edited by Alan Booth. Collection of extracts from primary source materials intended to provide undergraduates with an overview of research on British economic development since 1945. Introduction discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the sources upon which the competing accounts are based, provides a context for the extracts, and comments on the historiography of the "British disease." Excerpts from the primary source materials, prefaced with the necessary background information, are presented under the headings of aggregate economic performance; the balance of payments; the labor market; and assessments of the causes of Britain's relative decline.

This article discusses the book "Local Economic Development: Incentives and International Trends," edited by Norman Walzer. The book examines local economic development practices in five countries and identifies the effectiveness of various approaches. Some of the topics covered in the book the main issues involved in local economic development programs and describes recent trends, bureau-politics of economic development and urban renewal in Great Britain, changing local economic development strategies in Sweden, and the extent of local government involvement in economic development in Sweden and Great Britain.

The article reports on the campaign for companies in Great Britain to adopt employee participation schemes to gain a competitive edge. The establishment of an environment of mutual trust can secure loyalty and commitment to the goals of the organization. The Trades Union Congress has stated that securing the motivation of employees as a requirement for economic success does not provide a framework.

This article focuses on the impact of economic conditions on the industrial relations in Great Britain. The year 1988 was a year of strong economic growth. Most macroeconomic forecasts at the end of 1987, including those of the Treasury. had been anticipating a significant slowdown of economic expansion in the year to come. Outside the labour market, inflation began to rise somewhat by the mid-year and the current account of the balance of payments went steadily deeper into deficit. Most of the labour market indicators in 1988 show a continuation of trends that started earlier and accelerated in 1987. The rate of decline in unemployment seems to have peaked in the second half of 1987 but was still high in 1988, unemployment is estimated to have fallen by almost 360,000, nearly 12 per cent of the total, in the first ten months of 1988. Firm official estimates for the number of self-employed go upto June 1987. Estimates for more recent periods are based on the assumption that the average rate of increase between 1981 and 1987 has continued.

Theories of firm growth are reviewed and various models examined. The firm growth and job generation process in the UK over the period 1985-87, is examined empirically, by using the very large data files of the Dun and Bradstreet credit rating organisation. In the analysis, four computer processes were carried out; the sorting and matching of files, the cleaning of the data, the validation of the cleaned data, and the scaling up the results. The final adjusted data were grossed-up to provide an overview of the growth and job generation potential of UK firms. This is compared with past results for the periods 1971-81, and 1982-84. Small firms performed well, providing 48% of all new jobs, although consisting of only 21% of all employment in 1985. The 1000+ employee range provided only 137o of all new jobs over the period, although consisting of 37% of all employment in 1985. An overall trend of positive performance in smaller firms, and negative in larger firms was apparent. The 20-49 employee cohort performed unusually poorly in firm and job creation, against the expected pattern. The effect of takeovers, mergers and rationalisations on employment was examined. As expected, there was negligible restructuring of small firms, but over 5% of employees in the largest 1000+ cohort were involved in some form of reorganisation. In this and the two previous studies for 1971-81 and 1982-84, we found a consistent pattern of small firms as net generators of jobs, and large firms as net losers. This overall net behaviour is essential for the overall stability of the population, and can not be seen in 'good' or 'bad' terms. Bolton in 1971 found that the UK had an unduly small and weak small-firm sector. That trend to concentration is being reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the expected economic development for the 21st century in Great Britain. The increased imports of feed and raw materials, enjoyed a reduction of death rates and infant mortality resulting in a considerable growth of population. The leadership in the development of applications of electricity, in lighting, in sound equipment and in calculating equipment. Predominant among the new advanced country exports have been automobiles, cookers, computers, man-made fibers and products made from them.

This section presents a compilation of reading materials, events, and organizations in the Great Britain related to poverty and community development in November 1997.