Inflation and the Making of Australian Macroeconomic Policy, 1945–85

Résumé : In the decades after World War II, inflation undermined the aspiration for full employment in Australia. This book tells the story of how the Australian state was shaped by the confrontation with monetary instability : a pre-history of neoliberalism The emergence of macroeconomics profoundly changed Australian economic policy after World War II. Though governments and the central bank pursued full employment, they soon found themselves contending with chronic inflation, and the instruments were often turned to restraint. This book explains how the problem of inflation transformed policy between the 1940s and the 1980s, well before the era of the independent inflation-targeting central bank. It explains how inflation came to undermine full employment, how governments dealt with international monetary chaos, and how the central bank pursued restraint within a rapidly evolving financial system. This is a new interpretation of Australian policy history and the pre-history of 'neoliberalism' Front Matter....Pages i-xii Inflation, the State and Economic Policy....Pages 1-28 Front Matter....Pages 29-29 ‘External Balance’ and the Counter-Inflationary Imperative....Pages 31-71 Inflation and the Keynesianism of Restraint....Pages 72-108 From the ‘Battle for the Banks’ to the ‘Credit Squeeze’: Monetary Policy in the Long 1950s....Pages 109-136 Front Matter....Pages 137-137 From Bretton Woods to the Float....Pages 139-175 Inflation and Macroeconomic Policy in the Long 1970s....Pages 176-211 Strengthening the Central Bank....Pages 212-246 Conclusion....Pages 247-277 Back Matter....Pages 278-325 Résumé : In the decades after World War II, inflation undermined the aspiration for full employment in Australia. This book tells the story of how the Australian state was shaped by the confrontation with monetary instability : a pre-history of neoliberalism