Abstract
This article extends existing political-economic models to deal more rigorously with politics in countries with trade-dependent economies, and in particular with the policy consequences of oil-exporting in industrial countries. Models drawn from economics and finance show how much of Britain's recent unemployment results from North Sea oil, at first through speculation in sterling in rapidly-growing international currency markets and more recently through the balance of payments. In Norway, by contrast, speculation was deterred by a variety of policies on fixing exchange rates, and the unemployment problem contained by better-planned and executed employment subsidy programmes. These policy variations are explained by differences in available ideas, institutions and, ultimately, structural characteristics.
Keywords
SpeculationUnemploymentEconomicsBalance of paymentsCurrencyPoliticsSubsidyFull employmentCrude oilEconomyInternational economicsEconomic policyMacroeconomicsMarket economyPolitical science
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Publication Info
- Year
- 1987
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 149-199
- Citations
- 18
- Access
- Closed
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Cite This
James Ε. Alt
(1987).
Crude Politics: Oil and the Political Economy of Unemployment in Britain and Norway, 1970–85.
British Journal of Political Science
, 17
(2)
, 149-199.
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123400004695
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1017/s0007123400004695