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SUMMARY:Menus without prices? Manifestos\, party competition\, and public 
 finance in Britain\, c. 1955-1983 - Dr Peter Sloman (University of Cambrid
 ge)
DTSTART:20210215T170000Z
DTEND:20210215T183000Z
UID:TALK150970@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Duncan Needham
DESCRIPTION:Policy debate in contemporary British elections is strongly fr
 amed by the perception of fiscal constraint\, which focusses attention on 
 the tax and spending implications of policy choices and places the onus on
  opposition parties to show how they would pay for their promises.  During
  the Keynesian 'golden age' of the 1950s and 1960s\, however\, budgetary d
 ecisions were primarily informed and justified by a Keynesian analysis of 
 aggregate demand and the availability of real resources. Right-leaning eco
 nomists such as Samuel Brittan and James Buchanan have argued that elector
 al competition under Keynesianism contributed to rising deficits and a cri
 sis of financial control in British government by the mid-1970s.  This pap
 er will test this thesis against archival evidence by exploring how partie
 s costed their manifestos in the Keynesian era\, and will show how changes
  in political culture and economic management shaped the dynamics of publi
 c debate over the UK's fiscal choices.
LOCATION:Zoom
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