Economic Planning in the British Building Industry, 1945-1949

This volume undertakes the examination and appraisal of the economic controls employed by the British Labor Government in attempting to regulate the output of the building industry in the years immediately following the Second World War. An unfortunate consequence of earlier preoccupation with purely income-generating aspects of investment activity was that insufficient consideration was given to the allocation of investment resources. It was precisely this latter problem, however, which became a matter of major concern to the Labor Government. Its building program in the postwar years is examined here with particular reference to the program's peculiar structure and organization and the availability of building workers and materials. Discussion also covers the Government's administrative machinery for regulating building demand and for determining the uses to which building resources were put, as well as the priorities which the Government attempted to impose upon the industry and the consequences of specific policy decisions which were made in attempting to enforce these priorities. The British experience during the years between 1945 and 1949 provides numerous insights into the requirements and the problems associated with centralized planning of the operation of a private industry. The attempt to regulate the building industry is of increasing relevance in view of the growing recognition that nationalization is no panacea and that government planning must be more and more concerned with influencing the behavior of privately-operated industries. The importance of the present study is further enhanced by the fact that it deals with a strategic investment goods industry which must inevitably play a major role in the current and future "development planning" of underdeveloped countries. This work, therefore, is of special interest to economists concerned with the problems of government economic planning. Moreover, because of its strong focus upon the organizational and administrative aspects of government planning, Economic Planning in the British Building Industry is of vital interest to political scientists and all students of public administration.