The Economic History Podcast
The Economic History podcast is a platform for sharing knowledge, ideas and new research with a general interest audience. Each fortnight, we meet leading academics in the field and discuss a range of topics, including pandemics, long run economic growth, gender issues, financial crises, inequality, sustainable development and a number of weird and fun economic experiments in history. There is no time like the past to help us understand the present.
The Economic History Podcast
Macroeconomic (In)stability in UK Economic History, 1700-2010
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Seán Kenny
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Season 2
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Episode 35
In this episode, we meet Assist. Prof. Jason Lennard to discuss his work on measuring fluctuations in the UK economy. We cover the nature of the business cycle, how it is measured and how it has changed through time. We also consider the implications of rigid wages during economic downturns. We look at new evidence on the existence of "sticky wages" during the Great Depression in the UK, using disaggregated (instead of average) wage data. Finally, we chat about the effects of policy interventions in managing UK economic cycles, which began in earnest during the twentieth century. Can monetary policy be effective in achieving economic objectives?