Government Policy

Abstract

This book is intended as a contribution to the wider debate on the post-war performance of the British economy. Unlike most of the other contributions, it emphasises certain long-term weaknesses on the supply side, which have in our judgement seriously impaired the competitive efficiency of the British economy. It has attempted to show that the efficient management of technical change is central to both price and non-price competition; the former through cost reduction and the latter through product design and improvement. It has also attempted to demonstrate that the poor British performance relative to other countries in both these types of change is related to under-investment and to misdirected investment in the activities that promote such change.