Alan Booth

Unemployment in the Interwar Period: A Multiple Problem

The principal aim of this paper is to emphasise the need for historians to re-examine the specific nature and causes of interwar unemployment. For a variety of reasons we can no longer continue to accept the assumption that Keynes and Beveridge had the final say on the subject, and it is necessary to face up to the fact that unemployment is virtually impossible to define in realistic statistical terms. Above all it is important to realise the serious limitations of National Insurance data which

The Corporate state : corporatism and the state tradition in Western Europe

Buku ini memberikan informasi tentang neo-korporatisme: teori teori politik neo-korporatisme, neo-korporatisme dan akuntabilitas, coorporatisme dan akuntabilitas, neo-korporatisme dalam praktik: studi kasus, dari pluralisme ke pluralisme, dan lainya.

The Second World War and the origins of modern regional policy 1

This paper examines the development of regional policy in Britain between 1928 and 1945, and argues that the measures evolved during the Second World War were more important influences over the shape of post-war policy than has been thought hitherto. The experimental Special Areas programme of the 1930s and the radical pre-war proposals of the Barlow Report were comparatively less significant. At a more general level, the model of war as a relatively passive ‘accelerator’ of economic and social change is far too simple. It presupposes in pre-war thought a unity which certainly did not exist during the 1930s, and undervalues the part which war plays in exposing problems and offering radical new solutions.

Economic Advice at the Centre of British Government, 1939–1941 1

Like other advanced countries in the twentieth century, Britain has witnessed a remarkable expansion in the size and functions of government.2 Increasing public intervention has necessarily been accompanied by a vigorous expansion in the number of specialists and professionals employed in the public service. In recent times there has been increasing academic interest in the role of one particular category of specialist, the economist.3 We have the definitive account by Howson and Winch of the economic advisory council and its committee on economic information, the purely advisory bodies of academic economists and representatives of producer interest groups which encouraged officials and ministers to take a longer, broader look at trends in the national and international economies in the thirties.4 From the post-I945 period we have a number of studies of specific departments and a growing collection of memoirs written by disenchanted or self-justifying economists on leaving government service.5 For the crucial period of the second world war, however, when administrators and politicians seemed to accept the need for professional economic advice from within the bureaucracy, comparatively little systematic research has been undertaken.6 There are memoirs, but many have been written long after the event and tend to be discursive and occasionally unreliable as to detail.7 Fortunately the state papers relating to the war are available and should be a reliable source from which to make judgements about the work and effectiveness of economic advisers in this crucial period.

Simple Keynesianism and Whitehall, 1936–47 1

This paper examines the development of applied Keynesian analysis and policies, principally within Whitehall, in the period between the publication of KeynessGeneral Theoryin 1936 and 1947 when Whitehall accepted the case for the management of aggregate demand in peacetime. Before 1939, the management of demand by global measures was seen as the most important part of the programme, but was dependent for success on a range of discriminatory supportive policies, particularly for labour, industry and regional/structural imbalances. However, the scope of the programme changed over time, in considerable part to make a Keynesian programme acceptable to Whitehall. These modifications had comparatively little effect on immediate policy, but the theoretical basis of applied Keynesianism accommodated itself to the needs of the bureaucracy, resulting in the evolution of a more liberal, simplified form of applied Keynesian analysis in which much more was expected of the simple manipulation of aggregate demand by gl...

The Role of Cytokinins in Tuber Development in Dahlia variabilis

Summary Fibrous root cytokinin activIty in Dahlia variabilis was examined in relation to tuber development both under long-days and short-days. Root cytokinin activity increased during tuber initiation but decreased thereafter. The initial high cytokinin levels may benefit early events of tuberization, namely cell division and differentiation, of tuberforming roots which were placed immediately above roots at the cotyledonary node. Subsequent events of tuber growth, accumulation of dry matter, may have benefited by low root cytokinin levels which influence the shoot hormonal composition leading to preferential translocation of dry matter into tubers.

Interwar Unemployment: Restatement and Comments

original paper was to emphasize the need for historians to reexamine the specific nature and causes of interwar unemployment. We also set out to confront historians with the problems of defining and measuring unemployment. In particular, we emphasized that the data arising from National Insurance returns should be handled with caution and understanding. We did not set out to analyse the prospects and possibilities for a ’Keynesian Solution’ (this has been attempted elsewhere: Glynn and Howells, ’Unemployment in the 1930s: the &dquo;Keynesian Solution&dquo; Reconsidered’, Australian Economic History Review, March 1980). It

British Protectionism and the International Economy: Overseas Commercial Policy in the 1930s.

When, in the winter of 1931–2, Britain abandoned first the gold standard and then free trade, two potent symbols of her nineteenth-century international economic predominance had gone within the space of little more than six months. Tim Rooths comprehensive 1993 study in the political economy of protectionism examines the forces behind the abandonment of free trade and the way that Britain then used protection to bargain for trade advantages in the markets of her chief suppliers of food and raw materials. Dr Rooth also examines Britains economic relations with Germany and the USA in the deteriorating international political situation of the late 1930s. The retreat from multilateral trade policies, the growth of protection and the concomitant development of regional economic groupings have obvious parallels with current developments in the world economy.

Economy and Society: European Industrialisation and Its Social Consequences. Essays Presented to Sidney Pollard.

Part 1 Introduction, Colin Holmes and Alan Booth. Part 2 Industrialization: economic growth in Europe, D.Landes economic backwardness in Europe, A.Teichova entrepreneurs in Britain, M.Kirby instability in inter-war Europe, D.Aldcroft the Irish economy, P.Ollerenshaw the Spanish economy, J.Harrison the world economy, J.Kuczynski. Part 3 Social consequences: wages, 1870-1914, C.Feinstein women and industrialization, J.Savile labour in 19th century Germany, J.Kocka urban design and architecture, A.Sutcliffe urbanization in Franch, H.Homburg urbanization in Germany, M.Wehler.

'Orator Hunt': Henry Hunt and English Working-Class Radicalism.

This first full-scale biography finally brings to light Hunts vital role in molding the English working-class into an effective political force. Converted to the reform cause during the wars against Napoleonic France, Hunt gave popular radicalism a distinctly working-class perspective that countered the contemporary belief in a laissez-faire political economy. Hero of the unrepresented and repressed, scourge of the moderate reformers and gradualists, Hunt set the standard for the Chartist challenge. This work, based on a wide range of primary sources, reassessed Hunts influential career and illuminates a formative period in the development of radical politics in England.