Did the Thatcher Reforms Change British Labour Performance? / David G. Blanchflower, Richard B. Freeman.

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Blanchflower, David G

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w4384.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1993.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Online resources:

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Abstract: In this paper we evaluate the success of policies that were implemented in the 1980s that were designed to improve the workings of the UK labour market. Our primary conclusion is that the Thatcherite reforms succeeded in their goals of weakening union power; may have marginally increased employment and wage responsiveness to market conditions and may have increased self-employment. They were accompanied by a substantial improvement in the labour market position of women. But the reforms failed to improve the responsiveness of real wages to unemployment; they were associated with a slower transition from nonemployment to employment for men; a devastating loss in full-time jobs for male workers and produced substantial seemingly noncompetitive increases in earnings inequality.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w4384 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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June 1993.

In this paper we evaluate the success of policies that were implemented in the 1980s that were designed to improve the workings of the UK labour market. Our primary conclusion is that the Thatcherite reforms succeeded in their goals of weakening union power; may have marginally increased employment and wage responsiveness to market conditions and may have increased self-employment. They were accompanied by a substantial improvement in the labour market position of women. But the reforms failed to improve the responsiveness of real wages to unemployment; they were associated with a slower transition from nonemployment to employment for men; a devastating loss in full-time jobs for male workers and produced substantial seemingly noncompetitive increases in earnings inequality.