DIYE plus the Lobbies: Counting the Cost
The Reith Lectures
BBC
4.2 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 1985
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David Henderson, head of the Economics and Statistics Department at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), examines the influence of economic ideas on policy. He gives the fifth lecture in his series entitled 'Innocence and Design'.
In this lecture entitled 'DIYE plus the Lobbies: Counting the Cost', David Henderson puts forward two questions. The first: why do some professional economic ideas have so little influence? And secondly he questions: how much does this lack of influence matter? To answer these questions he evaluates the power of Do-It-Yourself Economics on policy makers and the current economic strategies.
He argues that the prosperity of countries depends on how far their governments are prepared to allow choices to be influenced by market forces. He highlights investment choices and international market opportunities in particular.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures. This lecture in the series |
| 0:05.5 | Innocence and Design, given by David Henderson, was originally broadcast in 1985. |
| 0:11.7 | In this lecture, I want to consider two questions. First, why is it that in some areas of |
| 0:17.4 | economics, but not in others, ideas that are characteristically professional |
| 0:21.6 | have so little influence. Second, a much larger issue. How much does this lack of influence matter? |
| 0:29.0 | I think the first of these questions is easy to answer in broad terms. I spoke in my first |
| 0:34.5 | lecture about two tiers of economic problems and issues. |
| 0:38.4 | One is that of macroeconomics. |
| 0:40.9 | The second has provided the subject matter of my last three lectures. |
| 0:45.0 | It's chiefly in this second tier that do-it-yourself economics holds sway. |
| 0:50.4 | Why is macroeconomics different? |
| 0:53.3 | The main reasons I think are two. |
| 0:55.9 | First, many of the issues are so inescapably technical |
| 0:59.0 | that the need for specialised expertise is accepted. |
| 1:03.0 | And though economics is never the only form of expertise required, |
| 1:06.8 | it's the most universally relevant one. |
| 1:09.6 | Second, macroeconomic issues are characteristically national or economy-wide rather than sectional. |
| 1:16.1 | This means that interest groups are either not much involved or less influential when they are involved. |
| 1:22.5 | Both points are true, for instance, in the question of whether Britain should become a full participating member |
| 1:27.7 | of the European monetary system, the EMS. Of course, not all first-tier macroeconomic issues |
| 1:34.4 | are so esoteric as this one, or of such limited concern to lobbyists, and even EMS membership |
| 1:41.1 | has to be considered from a political political as well as a technical standpoint. |
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