| dc.description.abstract | The spread of monetarism in the 1970s did not occur by a simple process
of intellectual conquest. In most countries monetarist ideas could not be
incorporated in policy formation until they had adapted to local economic
conditions and recognized existing traditions of monetary management.
Although the framework of financial control assumed some monetarist
characteristics in virtually all the industrial nations, each nation still
retained distinctive institutional arrangements and policy approaches. The
UK posed a particular problem. With its long history of monetary debate
and practice, and with its unusually well-established institutional structures, it did not readily assimilate Chicago School doctrines. Nevertheless,
in the late 1970s and early 1980s the media, leading politicians and the
public at large believed that British macroeconomic policy was becoming
progressively more monetarist. Perhaps the apex of monetarist influence on
policy came in the Budget of 1980 with the announcement of the MediumTerm Financial Strategy, in which targets for both monetary growth and
the budget deficit were stated for four years into the future. In a statement
to regional city editors on 9 June 1980, Mr Nigel (later Lord) Lawson,
Financial Secretary to the Treasury (later to be Chancellor of the
Exchequer), said that the ‘Medium-Term Financial Strategy is essentially a
monetary – or, if you like, monetarist – strategy’. | |
