CRISIS ECONOMY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 725, 5 June 1953, Page 14

CRISIS ECONOMY

THE BRITISH ECONOMY, 1945-1950, edited by G. D. N. Worswick and P. H. Ady; Oxford University Press. English price, 35/-, HOSE who study economic change know ‘that during the Second World War Great Britain paid out £4,000,000,000 more than she earned. This was financed by selling foreign investments, incurring foreign debts and diminishing the gald reserves. After the war Great Britain found she had lost markets and lost income, and owed thousands of millions of pounds to other countties. Since then, every two years, there has been an economic crisis. But what has been happening inside Great Britain? This book of over 500 pages is an attempt by Oxford teaching and résearch economists to guide the student to the answers;. The chapters are divided into six groups dealing with national income, the structure of the British economy at the end of the war, economic development and policies, the social services, industrial organisation and policies, and Britain and overseas. In addition, there is an extended bibliography covering, first, essential reading under each heading and, secondly, wider and more specialised reading. Thus, if one wants to study intra-Euro-pean payments, résale price maintenance, G.A.T.T., commodity agreements, trade unions, direct controls, nationalisation, thé location of industry, subsidies and incentives, and much morethen hére is a ready-made bibliography. If one wants only a genéral

picture of the raw materials, here are some of the basic facts and statistics with an explanation of what they may

mean.

W.B.

S.