Suchergebnisse

LLOYD ULMAN AND ROBERT J. FLANAGAN, Wage Restraint: A Study of Incomes Policies in Western Europe (University of California Press, 1971)JOAN MITCHELL, The National Board for Prices & Incomes (Secker & Warburg, 1972)ALLAN FELS, The British Prices and Incomes Board (Cambridge University Press, 1972)HUGH CLEGG, How to Run an Incomes Policy and Why We Made Such a Mess of the Lust One (Heinemann, 1971)MICHAEL PARKIN AND MICHAEL T. SUMNER (eds.), Incomes Policy and Inflation (Manchester University Press, 1972)FRANK BLACKABY (ed.), An Incomes Policy for Britain (Heinemann, 1972)

Once again political pressure is building up in the United Kingdom for the introduction of some form of incomes policy. This article offers a theoretical framework for investigating the macro‐consequences of different types of policy. In particular it looks at the implications for the functional distribution of National Income and the possible effects on investment policy.

The economic forecasts in Chapter I, and the examination of the problems of the medium term in Chapter IV, provide the background for the discussion about the successor policy to the £6 limit. The negotiations with the trade union leaders (and surely at some stage also with the CBI) should cover not simply questions of earnings and prices, but questions of output and employment as well. A useful starting point for discussion would be a set of forecasts with different earnings assumptions, similar to the forecasts for the 6 per cent and 20 per cent case which have been presented in Chapter I. The important point which these alternative simulations make is that a bigger increase in money earnings leads to a short-term gain in real wages net of tax, followed by a longer-term loss which exceeds the short-term gain. It is very hard to persuade people that, collectively, they will be better off with lower than with higher increases in money earnings; but over a longer period it is clearly true.