Brian Burkitt

The maastricht treaty: Exacerbating racism in Europe?

Abstract Ethnic discrimination is widespread in the European Community [EC] and is particularly practised against visible minorities. It operates at national borders and with member states and ranges from racist immigration legislation, through institutionalized discrimination, to physical assaults and murders. The completion of the single internal market in January 1993 stressed financial and trade factors at the expense of human rights. This encouraged the development of policies that impact adversely on people of ethnic minority status, particularly those who are black, whether EC citizens or third‐country nationals. The Maastricht Treaty of December 1991 on economic and monetary union [EMU] establishes deflation as a continent‐wide project. This will result in diminished growth and high unemployment, as well as in significant cuts in social welfare provision. Under the terms of the Maastricht Treaty, individual member states are probibited from implementing policies that could counter the adverse effe...

Publication performance in the Economic Journal and UFC research rankings

Our paper offers a partial analysis of the recent University Funding Council assesment exercise across higher education institutions. That exercise was based to a considerable extent upon a subjective evaluation of the ‘quality’ of the research submitted by each institution. Taking the Economic Journalas a proxy for a ‘quality’ outlet, we examine its performance in relation to the ratings obtained by United Kingdom universities. Using a variety of statistical tests, we conclude that an institutions/departmenapos;s publishing record in the Economic Journalcorresponds closely to the rating it received from the Universities Funding Council.

Constrained discretion: New Labour's third way for economic and social policy?

Purpose – This article attempts to unravel the ways in which New Labours economic and social policies differ from those of previous Conservative and Labour administrations. Design/methodology/approach – The article analyses Treasury documents, which outline the philosophy underpinning the Governments measures. Findings – Gordon Brown has adopted a third-way strategy between Monetarism and Keynesianism, which seeks to maintain stability whilst adapting to shocks. It is based neither upon fixed rules nor complete flexibility, but upon constrained discretion, i.e. the belief that long-term stability requires a comprehensive framework, which constrains policy to achieve sustainable goals, but provides discretion to respond to shocks. If policy-makers possess a sufficiently credible commitment to overall stability, they can exercise discretion in response to shocks without damaging long-run expectations. Originality/value – Founded upon the concept of ‘constrained discretion, the paper argues that New Labour is neither abolishing nor extending the welfare state, but rather is changing its character. Further empirical research in particular sectors is indicated.

European Integration and the Battle for British Hearts and Minds: New Labour and the Euro

Pro-Europeans have organised three concerted propaganda campaigns to date: in 1962-63 to secure public support following Britain’s first application to join the European Union, in 1970-1 to prepare the public for accession, and in 1974-5 to ensure continued EU membership in the 1975 referendum. This article looks at New Labour’s preparations and strategy for what is likely to be Britain’s fourth concerted pro-European propaganda campaign to ensure a ‘Yes’ vote in a referendum on British membership of the European single currency. The central arguments of this paper are six fold. Firstly, that the state of public opinion on euro membership currently represents an obstacle to the government’s policy of staging and winning a referendum , and joining the single currency. Second, that New Labour’s actual policy on the euro is one of ‘prepare and persuade’ rather than ‘wait and see’. Third, that the central components of the government’s euro referendum strategy can already be identified. Fourth, that – in contrast to the situation before the 1975 referendum – the press is divided on the issue of the euro, supporting both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns. Fifth, that there is an imbalance of forces between the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns in favour of the former, but to a lesser extent than during the 1975 referendum. Sixth, that, given the current balance of forces, the government’s success in any euro referendum is by no means assured. The article is divided into seven parts. The first outlines the government’s policy on euro membership. The second considers the first contention – that public opinion on euro membership is currently an obstacle to the government policy – by looking at the state of public opinion polls on the issue. The third presents evidence to support the second contention – that New Labour’s actual policy is one of ‘prepare and persuade’ – by revealing the institutional and legislative preparations for entry that have been made, the two ‘low intensity’ pro-euro propaganda campaigns, and the intervention by external actors to augment those campaigns. The fourth looks at the emerging components of the government’s euro strategy and the possible problems of winning a referendum. The fifth discusses the likely role of the media in a euro referendum propaganda campaign. The sixth looks at the present balance of forces on euro membership. The seventh part concludes.

Convergence criteria and EMU membership: Theory and evidence

This article evaluates proposed alternative criteria to determine the suitability for membership of the European single currency. They comprise the Maastricht Treaty convergence targets, the UK Treasury tests and those advanced by contemporary economic theory. Each set of criteria is analysed to reveal its ability to indicate a countrys suitability to participate in the common currency together with the probability of these targets being attained. The UK Treasury tests are found to be a superior series of indicators to those stipulated in the Maastricht Treaty, but they remain insufficient without complementary criteria derived from ‘optimum currency area’ theory. Moreover, the available evidence suggests only sporadic conformity with the Maastricht criteria, with a minority of member states consistently demonstrating prior economic convergence. UK Treasury tests indicate that Britain remains unsynchronized with continental Europe, necessitating long‐term structural convergence prior to EMU membership to...

The Maastricht Treaty's impact on the welfare state

A central theme of contemporary political and economic debate is the relationship between Britain and the European Union (EU). The most recent and controversial development has been. the evolution towards closer integration within the EU, culminating in the Maastricht Treaty signed in December 1991. This imposed a new dimension of EU control over a nations economic and political independence. The key economic criteria for convergence towards economic and monetary union concerns the ability of governments to determine their own budgetary policy. This paper addresses the possible consequences for Britains welfare state provision in light of the government debt ratio criteria specified in the Maastricht Treaty. Our conclusion suggests, at the present time at least, that continued commitment to comprehensive health, education and social security provision is incompatible with the attainment of such criteria.

Major Douglas′ Proposals for a National Dividend: A Logical Successor to the Wage

Restates the essential economic proposals of Major Douglas, whose social (BEI) movement was a substantial political force in the inter‐war years. Refutes some common misinterpretations of his work and provides a new interpretation of his collaboration with A.R. Orage, a prominent guild socialist, between 1918 and 1922. Re‐assesses Douglas’ contributions to economic thought in the light of more recent events and of the development of the newly recognized discipline of social economics. Aims to show that Douglas’ warnings fall within the boundaries of this discipline, both in questionning the purpose of the economic system and in assessing its impact on the community in which it operates.

Post-Keynesianism and a neo-liberal EMU: the case for economic independence

A crucial idea introduced by Keynes into the corpus of economic thought is that the level of output and employment under market capitalism depends upon interaction between total spending and the economy’s capacity to produce. Decisions to produce are made primarily by private profit-making firms; production, the source of employment, takes place only if companies anticipate a market in which goods and services can be sold at a profit. If demand is insufficient, productive capacity will stand idle and people will be without jobs. There is no automatic mechanism that guarantees that output and spending decisions always coincide. Imbalances between aggregate demand and aggregate supply require active government policy to change either its own or private expenditure through budgetary or monetary instruments. The neoclassical assumption of an automatic tendency towards market clearing is replaced by the necessity for active government intervention in the economy to secure simultaneous internal and external balance in the economy. Such a Keynesian framework is explicitly receded by the monetarist ideology of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), which laid the basis for EMU. A clear example of its approach is its reliance upon monetary tests of convergence rather than examining real variables of output growth and rates of unemployment. Its convergence criteria include restrictions upon discretionary fiscal policy through the implementation of maximum permitted budget deficits backed by the possibility of levying fines on non-compliant economies. The transfer of monetary and exchange rate policy to an independent ECB, whose sole legally defined objective is to secure stable prices through the use of a single economic policy instrument, a common Euroland interest rate, is at complete variance with a Keynesian approach. The political imperative to comply with this mandarin platform led to the EU suffering a prolonged period of slow growth and high levels of unemployment.

Beyond EU neoliberalisation: A progressive strategy for the British left:

Over the past two decades, the left has increasingly embraced European integration as a bulwark to globalisation. However, the view that the EU provides the potential for realising a progressive social and economic policy is problematic, since its approach is antithetical to traditional democratic-socialist objectives. Thus, the left either has to redouble its efforts to realise a fundamental reform of the EUs institutions and policy framework, or consider nationally-orientated alternatives which inevitably question the nature of the UK-EU relationship. This paper outlines a number of these policy options and evaluates their potential benefits and costs from within a political-economy framework.

The Bank that Rules Europe: The ECB and Central Bank Independence

The idea that central banks should be independent from political influence has deep historical roots and featured in the discussions leading to the establishment of many twentieth-century central banks (Toniolo, 1988). The historical desire to impose limits upon the government’s ability to fund itself through seignorage merges with the orthodox contemporary argument that politicians manipulate monetary policy to win elections; thus policy tends to exhibit a stop—go nature, reflecting an excessive concentration upon short-term macroeconomic fine tuning (Swinburne and Castello-Branco, 1991). Consequently it is argued that long-term economic efficiency requires the removal of monetary policy from the sphere of democratically accountable politics, and its delegation to an independent central bank with an effectively designed constitution and internal reward system that imposes price stability as the overriding policy objective.