The emphasis in this paper is on the successes and problems of British economic development in an international context. The paper covers a period from the time period of Britain’s global industrial leadership to its current position as one of a number advanced economies. This paper is also taken by students in the joint school of History and Economics, in PPE and in Economics and Management. Since the overwhelming majority of students are studying an economics course, the course explicitly uses economic reasoning and students should have some familiarity with economic concepts. Students doing a straight modern history course are welcome to take the paper and the examination will contain sufficient questions that do not require economics to ensure a broad choice for those not in an economics course. There are no set texts; the formal syllabus is given below. The main themes covered include Britain in the late nineteenth-century international economy, loss of technological leadership to America, the problems of inflation, unemployment and depression between the wars, Britain’s relative performance during the post-world war two golden years, the end of the ‘golden years’ in inflation and unemployment.

The syllabus is: trends and cycles in national income, factor supplies, and productivity; changes in the structure of output, employment, and capital; foreign trade, tariffs, international capital movements, and sterling; prices, interest rates, money, and public finance; Government economic policy in peace and war; wages, unemployment, trade unions, and the working of the labour market; management and entrepreneurship; the location of industries, industrial concentration, and the growth of large firms; the distribution of incomes, poverty, and living standards.