Balanced Accounts? Constructing the Balance of Payments Problem in Post-war Britain.

The article discusses the post-World War II economic history of Great Britain, focusing on how the government publicly portrayed the issue of balance of payments during the period of the 1950s and 1960s. The author considers whether the period was actually a time of economic decline; the methods used to factor macroeconomic statistics; and diplomatic and economic relations between the U.S. and Great Britain as a result of wartime lend-lease policies and the Marshall Plan. The author considers government advertising encouraging the British to increase production and limit imports as a way of addressing problems deemed inherent in the country's trade imbalance between exports and imports.