Bankruptcy, Bubbles And Bailouts - The Inside History Of The Treasury Since 1976

25th October 2022

A book perhaps for the economics nerds among you. Picked up from another blog and well worth a look if you are interested in economics.

mainly macro is the blog of Simon Wren-Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford. This blog is written for both economists and non-economists, and covers macroeconomics but also other economic issues, political economy, the media and politics.

Simon Wren-Lewis says about the book, "Aeron Davis has a new book out that is a 40 year history of the UK Treasury (HMT). As I found his previous book ‘Elites at the End of the Establishment' fascinating, and as I'm always interested in anything about the most powerful economic institution in the UK which also gave me my first job, I was looking forward to reading this. It does not disappoint.

Like that previous book it is based on lengthy interviews, in this case with the key political and civil service people at the top of the Treasury over this period. As a result, it is very far from a jargon filled analysis of the details of macroeconomic policy over 40 years. Its brush is much broader, covering many themes from the growing influence of finance (financialisation), neoliberal ideas, and an internationalist viewpoint, but also dealing with the big historical crises of the period. As the book also roughly covers the years I have been working as an economist, what follows is not so much a review as a selected mixture of my own thoughts and those of the author. I'll do my best to distinguish between the two."