James E. Meade

First published in 1965, this is a reissue of the first volume in Professor Meade’s highly influential Principles of Political Economy, which aimed to provide an overview of economic analysis in light of contemporary developments in the subject. This volume is based on models of economic systems in which conditions are such as to make possible a state of perfect competition, in which there are no capital goods, in which consumers’ tastes, technical knowledge, and the size and composition of the goods are static.

Comprising Wage-Fixing (first published 1982), and Demand Management (first published 1983) this two volume reissued set is a vital and stimulating analysis of the causes and consequences of stagflation – a paralysing combination of mass unemployment and rapid inflation which affected a variety of economies across the developed world in the 1970s and early 1980s. Wage-Fixing, written by James Meade, deals primarily with the needed reform of wage-fixing institutions, contrasting the Great Depression of the 1930s with the Great Stagflation of the 1970s. Meanwhile Demand Management is devoted to the design of fiscal, monetary and foreign exchange-rate policies for the control of the money demand for the products of labour. This volume deals with the theory of demand management, feedback control and the creation of a dynamic model of the UK economy. Written in clear and accessible language, this reissue will appeal to the general reader as well as students of economics and professional economists. It should be required reading for all those who wish to learn the lessons of the Great Stagflation of the 1970s to avoid a repetition in the current economic climate.