How to use this Page

David Cameron famously got precious little from his pre-referendum attempts to negotiate a special position for the UK in relation to existing EU treaty obligations. This was despite almost certainly having held many more cards back then than UK negotiators will do when Article 50 is eventually invoked. In particular, he was still able to threaten that he would lead the Out campaign if he did not get what he wanted, whereas now that the vote to leave has happened that argument has been entirely neutralised.

The post Brexit and Article 50 negotiations: why the smart money might be on no deal appeared first on OUPblog.

In the end, the decision for the UK to formally withdraw its membership of the European Union passed with a reasonably comfortable majority in excess of 1¼ million votes. Every one of the 17.4 million people who voted Leave would have had their own reason for wanting to break with the status quo. However, not one of them had any idea as to what they were voting for next. It is one of the idiosyncrasies of an all-or-nothing referendum.

The post Brexit and article 50 negotiations: What it would take to strike a deal appeared first on OUPblog.

Austerity, uncertainty, instability … all problems we associate with Europe today as it cycles from pre-GFC exuberance to today’s austerity. But to put things in perspective, these are minor problems compared what our grandparents endured after World War Two. In Britain many people did not have enough to eat, the government had secret plans for national catastrophe, the Cold War was raging, the colonies erupting, and Sterling was in crisis. In those days there were few policy economists, and macroeconomics was caught in a battle between non-interventionist classical economics and the Keynesian revolution of demand management.

The post Who was Bill Philips? appeared first on OUPblog.

Corbynomics has yet to be unpacked. And when it is, there's danger it will be branded as a return to the bad old days of tax and spend, when the 1983 Labour manifesto was dismissed by pundits as the longest suicide note in history. To avoid this, what Labour needs are some big and positive ideas; ideas that that resonate with the public and which capture that popular mood of radicalism that has put Jeremy Corbyn where he is.

The post Social opulence: re-branding Labour appeared first on OUPblog.

As the UK General Election draws near, the economy has again been the over-riding feature of the campaign. Yet the debate itself has been pretty narrow, being principally framed around ‘austerity’ and the reduction of the size of the government’s budget deficit. The major political parties are all committed to eradicating this deficit, with the main question being the time-frame in achieving this goal.

The post Putting industrial policy back on the agenda appeared first on OUPblog.

The limited liability company was one of the most significant inventions of the nineteenth century. The state permitted the incorporation of corporate entities, with many of the legal rights of a person, whilst limiting the liability of their owners for the companies’ debts. Elegantly simple, the limited liability company proved amazingly successful. Unfortunately, the idea was so successful that today the notion has become confused and immensely complex. The entire concept needs reinventing.

The post Wither independent audit? appeared first on OUPblog.