The UK recession in context — what do three centuries of data tell us?

The Quarterly Bulletin has a long tradition of using historical data to help analyse the latest developments in the UK economy. To mark the Bulletin’s 50th anniversary, this article places the recent UK recession in a long-run historical context. It draws on the extensive literature on UK economic history and analyses a wide range of macroeconomic and financial data going back to the 18th century. The UK economy has undergone major structural change over this period but such historical comparisons can provide lessons for the current economic situation.

Economic History in Oxford: A Centennial Celebration : Introductory remarks to the 100th Oxford discussion paper in economic history

Discussion paperThe appearance of the 100th Discussion Paper in Economic History is a milestone, which provides a good opportunity to review the recent progress of the subject in Oxford. This note is primarily concerned with the evolution of the MSc in Economic and Social History and it seeks to place this in the broader context of the development of economic history in Oxford

Banks, Capital Markets, and the Monetary Transmission Mechanism.

This paper reviews the recent literature on bank behavior and the transmission process of monetary policy. It examines the implications of asymmetric information for the credit market and the capital market and discusses the macroeconomic significance of these results. In models with imperfect information net worth is found to play a key role in generating macroeconomic fluctuations and in the monetary transmission process. The special characteristics of banks are discussed and also the conditions required for the presence of a distinct credit channel for monetary policy. Empirical evidence on the importance of the new theories is briefly reviewed including an evaluation of the role of capital market imperfections in investment and consumption and the differential impact of monetary policy on small and large firms. The lessons to be drawn from these theoretical and empirical results for the conduct of monetary policy are briefly outlined