Political Economy of UK

ABSTRACT In the clash between austerity and Keynesian stimulus paradigms in the advanced capitalist economies in general and the United Kingdom in particular, this paper argues that in the era of global climate change and global warming, merely proposing stimulus in opposition to austerity is flawed. In contrast, the paper proposes that an eco-socialist perspective with emphasis on green economy, sustainability and equality is of historic importance and relevance.

Transportation Infrastructure and Country Att ractiveness

Cross-country comparison conducted by the
World Pensions Council (WPC) suggests that
transportation infrastructure, although important,
is not a major determinant of institutional
investment.

The sixth annual World Pensions Forum was held on 23-24 February 2017 in London. Over 120 representatives attended: from pension and sovereign funds, central banks and government agencies including financial regulators.

Topics discussed included environmental, social and governance (‘ESG’) factors and the role of supranational institutions acting as facilitators, issuers and co-investors along- side pension funds.

The Forum also addressed the economic implications of pension reform in Europe and the United States, the empowerment of employee-nominated pension trustees and women board members, and how ‘best-in-class pension investors’ from the US, Britain, Australia, Canada, France and the Netherlands can foster a more effective form of asset ownership: fiduciary capitalism.

In the clash between austerity and Keynesian stimulus paradigms in the advanced capitalist economies in general and the United Kingdom in particular, this paper argues that in the era of global climate change and global warming, merely proposing stimulus in opposition to austerity is flawed. In contrast, the paper proposes that an eco-socialist perspective with emphasis on green economy, sustainability and equality is of historic importance and relevance.

The 2 November 2015 $31 million agreement between BAE Systems and Reaction Engines of the United Kingdom to develop the SABRE (Synthetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) powerplant has renewed interest in so-called combined cycle air-breathing rocket engines. While civilian applications have been stressed in the media, a long-range dual bomber may also be developed, perhaps in partnership with countries like Japan

We have argued above that the recent cuts in public expenditure should not be seen only in quantitative terms. They are part of a more general restructuring of the British state in response to the economic crisis and its political repercussions. This section of our book is therefore concerned to relate the cuts to the broader changes in the British state that have occurred since the early 1960s. This period has witnessed a startling increase in institutional innovations in the organisation of the state apparatus. Initially these changes were aimed at ‘modernising’ key areas of British economic, political, and social organisation and so enabling Britain to cope with and overcome the relative decline of British capital in the world economy. However, not only did these changes fail to halt this decline, they also tended to reinforce various aspects of the crisis of British capital. It is in this context that we must locate the changes in the British state as it attempts to secure greater control over public expenditure, state employees and those with whom the state comes into contact. At the same time, it attempts to ensure that the interventions of the state are better suited to the various needs of capital accumulation. Here we are concerned with the imposition of ‘bourgeois forms’ on the state apparatus rather than with the expansion of the state apparatus into growing areas of social and economic life.

On June 23, 2016, United Kingdom (UK) voters decided to leave the Euro-pean Union (EU), thereby starting a process commonly known as Brexit. British Prime Minister Theresa May invoked EU Article 50 on March 29, 2017. The invocation of EU Article 50 puts the UK on a course to leave the EU by the end of March 2019. Meanwhile, the UK remains a full member of the European Union. Since the Brexit vote, there have been several extremely pessimistic predictions of the economic and political effects of the UK's exit from the EU. For example, the London School of Economics' Center for Economic Performance forecast a loss in UK Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of from 2.3%-9.5% and a decrease in UK trade. The major economic impact of Brexit to date is the decline in the value of the British Pound (GBP), which has fallen from USD $1.467 on June 20, 2016 to $1.204 on January 16, 2017. A decline in the value of a country's currency means that its products will be less expensive on the world market. Ceteris paribus, a decline also decreases a country's unemployment rate and its citizens will pay more for imported goods. I collect data on the UK and its ten largest trading partners to determine whether those eleven countries have been harmed by the Brexit vote. These countries are:, and the United States. For each country, I estimate the effect of Brexit on exchange rates, GDP, unemployment , and other macroeconomic and political variables.

Author: L. Jan Reid

Inequality appears to be back on the intellectual and political agenda. This paper provides a commentary on this renewed interest, drawing on an empirical discussion of inequality in the UK. The paper argues that inequality should be seen as produced in the inherently unequal social relations of production, drawing attention to the role of social struggle in shaping dynamics of inequality. However, inequality is not just produced in dynamic class struggle in the formal economy, but also through the social reproduction of labour power on a day-to-day and inter-generational basis. As such, inequalities of household resources at any point in time may be reproductive of greater future inequality. It is argued that inequality has risen in the UK over recent decades because of changes in the social relations of production in the formal economy and social reproduction in the domestic sector, both of which have witnessed significant state interventions that have increased structural inequalities. It is argued that, absent of significant change, the underpinning structural dynamics in the UK will lead to further increases in inequality over the short and longer-term. Given this, we might expect to see an already emergent ‘New Politics of Inequality’ intensifying in the coming decades.

In the clash between austerity and Keynesian stimulus
paradigms in the advanced capitalist economies in
general and the United Kingdom in particular, this
paper argues that in the era of global climate change
and global warming, merely proposing stimulus
in opposition to austerity is flawed. In contrast, the
paper proposes that an eco-socialist perspective with
emphasis on green economy, sustainability and equality
is of historic importance and relevance.

On June 23, 2016, United Kingdom (UK) voters decided to leave the Euro-pean Union (EU), thereby starting a process commonly known as Brexit. British Prime Minister Theresa May invoked EU Article 50 on March 29, 2017. The invocation of EU Article 50 puts the UK on a course to leave the EU by the end of March 2019. Meanwhile, the UK remains a full member of the European Union. Since the Brexit vote, there have been several extremely pessimistic predictions of the economic and political effects of the UK's exit from the EU. For example, the London School of Economics' Center for Economic Performance forecast a loss in UK Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of from 2.3%-9.5% and a decrease in UK trade. The major economic impact of Brexit to date is the decline in the value of the British Pound (GBP), which has fallen from USD $1.467 on June 20, 2016 to $1.204 on January 16, 2017. A decline in the value of a country's currency means that its products will be less expensive on the wo...

Il commento è dedicato alle relazioni di Richard Barnett, Richard Jackman  sulle proposte di riforma della finanza locale inglese e a quella di Diane Dawson sul declino urbano. In particolare, si valuta il controllo della spesa locale e gli orientamenti per la riforma della finanza locale inglese, che sono stati gli obiettivi principali del Green Paper/86, insieme agli effetti previsti sul declino urbano.