Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:45:33.217Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

UK Monetary Policy Change During the Financial Crisis: Paradigms, Spillovers, and Goal Co-ordination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2011

Adrian Kay
Adrian Kay*
Affiliation:
Public Policy, Australian National University
*
Dr Adrian Kay Associate Professor, Policy & Governance Program, Crawford School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA, e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Policy responses to the tumult of the global financial crisis of 2007–9 prompt a consideration of the critical dimensions in specifying policy change. UK monetary policy between 2007 and 2009 is characterised by a remarkable degree of innovation yet counts as a ‘normal’ period of policy making under the Hall (1993) framework of policy change, the enduring workhorse of the comparative public policy field. This exposes its lack of conceptual refinement in describing significant but within paradigm policy change. This paper traces this failing to the notion of a policy paradigm, both its scale and the ideational mechanisms which bind policy change. The paper develops the UK monetary policy case to consider the potential of the recently-minted concept of a thermostatic policy institution for the development of Hall's framework; but finds analytical limitations in coping with significant policy spillovers. Suggestions are made to meet this important challenge for future research in policy studies on the specification of policy change.

Keywords

Frameworks of policy changeUK monetary policypolicy paradigmsthermostatic policy changeglobal financial crisis
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , August 2011 , pp. 143 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bernstein, R. J. (1983) Beyond Objectivism And Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, And Praxis. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Besley, T.Sheedy, K. (2010) Monetary Policy Under Labour. National Institute Economic Review 212: R15–R32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blyth, M. (2002) Great Transformations: Economic Ideas And Institutional Change In The Twentieth Century. Cambridge: CUP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buiter, W. (2009) The Unfortunate Uselessness Of Most ‘State Of The Art’ Academic Monetary Economics, http://www.voxeu.org. Accessed 4 January 2011.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. L. (2002) Ideas, Politics And Public Policy. Annual Review of Sociology 28: 21–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cashore, B.Howlett, M. (2007) Punctuating Which Equilibrium? Understanding Thermostatic Policy Dynamics In Pacific Northwest Forestry. American Journal of Political Science 51: 532–551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clift, B.Tomlinson, J. D. (2007a) Credible Keynesianism?: New Labour Macroeconomic Policy and the Political Economy of Coarse Tuning. British Journal of Political Science 37(1): 47–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clift, B.Tomlinson, J. D. (2007b) Complexity, Constraint and New Labour's Putative Neo-liberalism: A Reply to Colin Hay. British Journal of Political Science 37(2): 378–381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colebatch, H. (2002) Policy. Buckingham: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Crafts, N.Fearon, P. (2010) Lessons from the 1930s Great Depression. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 26(3): 285–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daugbjerg, C. (1997) Policy Networks and Agricultural Policy Reforms: Explaining Deregulation in Sweden and Re-regulation in the European Community. Governance 10(2): 123–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greener, I. (2001) Social Learning And Macroeconomic Policy In Britain. Journal of Public Policy 21: 133–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, P. A. (1993) Policy Paradigms, Social Learning And The State: The Case Of Economic Policy-Making In Britain. Comparative Politics 25(3): 275–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
‘t Hart, P.Tindall, K. (eds.) (2009) Framing The Global Economic Downturn: Crisis Rhetoric And The Politics Of Recessions (chapters 1 and 2), Canberra: ANU E Press.Google Scholar
Hay, C. (2007) What's in a Name? New Labour's Putative Keynesianism. British Journal of Political Science 37(1): 187–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodson, D.Mabbett, D. (2009) UK Economic Policy And The Global Financial Crisis: Paradigm Lost? Journal of Common Market Studies 47(5): 1041–1061.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howlett, M.Cashore, B. (2007) Re-Visiting The New Orthodoxy Of Policy Dynamics: The Dependent Variable And Re-Aggregation Problems In The Study Of Policy Change. Canadian Political Science Review 1: 50–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howlett, M.Ramesh, M. (2002) The Policy Effects of Internationalization: A Subsystem Adjustment Analysis of Policy Change. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis 4(1): 31–50.Google Scholar
Kaletsky, A. (2010) Capitalism 4.0: The Birth Of A New Economy. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. S. (1962) The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions, 1st. ed.Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lindblom, C. E. (1959) The Science Of Muddling Through. Public Administration Review 19(1): 79–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblom, C. E. (1979) Still Muddling, Not Yet Through. Public Administration Review 39: 517–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindvall, J. (2009) The Real but Limited Influence of Expert Ideas. World Politics 61(4): 703–730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mason, P. (2009) Meltdown. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Oliver, M. J.Pemberton, H. (2004) Learning and Change in 20th-Century British Economic Policy. Governance 17(3): 415–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborne, G. (2010) Speech at The Lord Mayor's Dinner for Bankers and Merchants of the City of London, the ‘Mansion House’ speech, 16 June, http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/press_12_10.htm [accessed 28 June].Google Scholar
Parsons, W. (1995) Public Policy: An Introduction To The Theory And Practice Of Policy Analysis. Cheltenham: Elgar.Google Scholar
Pemberton, H. (2000) Policy Networks and Policy Learning: UK Economic Policy in the 1960s and 1970s. Public Administration 78: 771–792.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchard, J. (2009) United Kingdom: The Politics Of Government Survival. In ‘t Hart, Paul and Tindall, Karen (eds.) (2009) Framing the global economic downturn: crisis rhetoric and the politics of recessions. Canberra: ANU E Press, 99–127.Google Scholar
Posner, R. A. (2009) A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ‘08 and the Descent into Depression, Havard University Press.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, J. E. (2010) Road to Ruin? Financial Instability and the Global Economy, Crawford School Oration, The Australian National University, 3 August 2010.Google Scholar
Surel, Y. (2000) The Role Of Cognitive And Normative Frames In Policy-Making. Journal of European Public Policy 7(4): 495–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tett, G. (2009) Fool's Gold: How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted A Dream, Shattered Global Markets And Unleashed A Catastrophe. London: Little.Google Scholar
Wolf, Martin. (2009) Fixing Global Finance: How To Curb Financial Crises In The 21st Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar