Regulating the British Economy, 1660�1850

Perry Gauci

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780754669692
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317068730
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: Economics

This collection of chapters focuses on the regulation of the British economy in the long eighteenth century as a means to understand the synergies between political, social and economic change as Britain was transformed into a global power. Inspired by recent research on consumerism and credit, an international team of leading academics examine the ways in which state and society both advanced and responded to fundamental economic changes. The studies embrace all aspects of the regulatory process, from developing ideas on the economy, to the passage of legislation, and to the negotiation of economic policy and change in practice. They range broadly over Britain and its empire and also consider Britain's exceptionality through comparative studies. Together, the book challenges the general characterization of the period as a shift from a regulated economy to a more laissez-faire system, highlighting the uncertain relationship between the state and economic interests across the long eighteenth century.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Regulatory Inertia and National Economic Growth: An African Trade Case Study, 1660–1714
• 2 A Proactive State? The Land Bank, Investment and Party Politics in the 1690s
• 3 Regulation and Rival Interests in the 1690s 63
• 4 Towards a British Political Economy: An Eighteenth-Century Scottish Perspective
• 5 Learning the Ropes of Sand: The West India Lobby, 1714–60
• 6 Political Convention and the Merchant in the Later Eighteenth Century
• 7 Bounties, the Economy and the State in Britain, 1689–1800
• 8 Investigation as a Prelude to Regulation: Information, Investigation and the Abolition of the Slave Trade
• 9 Facing Uncertainty: Markets, Norms and Conventions in the Eighteenth Century
• 10 Regulating Wages in Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century England: Arguments in Context
• 11 The Transition to Factory Production in the English Wool Textile Industries: Individual and Family Desires for Labour Regulation, 1720–1850
• 12 Rent Seeking or Skill Creating? Apprenticeship in Early Industrial Britain
• Further Reading
• Index