Phần trăm thay đổi từ thời kỳ trước có trong GDP (hàng năm, điều chỉnh theo mùa); tăng trưởng GDP trung bình 1947-2009
Nguồn: Cục Phân tích kinh tế
Như với hầu hết các nước phát triển, suy thoái kinh tế Vương quốc Anh vào thời điểm chuyển của những năm 1980, mặc dù nền kinh tế đã bị cản trở bởi một chuỗi các cuộc khủng hoảng đối với hầu hết những năm 1970 và tỷ lệ thất nghiệp đã tăng dần kể từ giữa những năm 1960.
Khi Đảng Bảo thủ dẫn đầu là Margaret Thatcher đã thắng cuộc tổng tuyển cử tháng 5 năm 1979 và thắng đậm Đảng Lao động của James Callaghan, đã chứng kiến mùa đông bất mãn, trong đó nhiều công nhân khu vực công cộng đã tổ chức đình công. Lạm phát được khoảng 10% và khoảng 1.500.000 người thất nghiệp so với một số 1.000.000 vào năm 1974, 580.000 vào năm 1970 và hơn 300.000 vào năm 1964 [44] Margaret Thatcher bắt đầu chống lạm phát với các chính sách tiền tệ (thắt chặt) và thay đổi luật công đoàn trong một nỗ lực để giảm thiểu các cuộc đình công đã tàn lụi Anh trong nhiều năm qua.
Các cuộc bầu cử giữa kỳ của Quốc hội đã chứng minh là điểm thấp của các tổng thống Reagan.
Theo các nhà kinh tế Keynes, một sự kết hợp của chi tiêu công (hậu suy thoái, sau khi đánh thắng lạm phát) và giảm lãi suất từ từ dẫn đến sự phục hồi kinh tế [46] Từ mức cao 10,8% trong tháng 12 năm 1982, tỷ lệ thất nghiệp dần dần được cải thiện cho đến khi nó đã giảm xuống còn 7,2%. Vào ngày bầu cử vào năm 1984. [5] Gần hai triệu người có việc lại. [47] Lạm phát đã giảm từ 10,3% năm 1981 còn 3.2% vào năm 1983 [2] [48]. Lợi nhuận doanh nghiệp tăng 29% trong quý tháng Chín năm 1983, so với cùng kỳ năm 1982. Một số cải thiện đáng kể nhất trong các ngành công nghiệp ảnh hưởng nặng nhất bởi suy thoái kinh tế, chẳng hạn như giấy và lâm sản, cao su, các hãng hàng không và ngành công nghiệp xe hơi. [47]
Đến tháng 11 năm 1984, sự tức giận của cử tri từ việc suy thoái kinh tế đã bốc hơi và chuyện tái đắc cử của Reagan đã không còn nghi ngờ gì nữa [35] [36] [43] Reagan sau đó đã được bầu lại bởi đa số cao nhất trong cuộc bầu cử tổng thống 1984. Ngay lập tức sau khi cuộc bầu cử, Dave Stockman, quản lý OMB Reagan đã thừa nhận rằng thâm hụt ngân sách cao hơn nhiều so với những dự báocáo hồi tranh cử.
Recession in the United States
GDP growth in the United States in the early-1980s. The short recession at the start of the decade, followed by a brief period of growth and the deeper recession in 81–82, have led to this period being characterized as a W-shaped recession.
Percent Change From Preceding Period in RealGross Domestic Product (annualized; seasonally adjusted); Average GDP growth 1947–2009
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
The early 1980s recession was a severe recession in the United States which began in July 1981 and ended in November 1982.[2][3] The primary cause of the recession was a contractionary monetary policy established by the Federal Reserve System to control highinflation.[4]
In the wake of the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, stagflation began to afflict the economy of the United States.Unemployment had risen from 5.1% in January 1974 to a high of 9.0% in May 1975. Although it had gradually declined to 5.6% by May 1979, unemployment began rising again thereafter. It jumped sharply to 6.9% in April 1980 and to 7.5% in May 1980. A mild recession from January to July 1980 kept unemployment high, but despite economic recovery unemployment remained at historically high levels (about 7.5%) through the end of 1981.[5] Unemployment continued to grow through 1982, reaching 10% nationally, and reached a record peak of 25% in Rockford, Illinois.[6] Inflation, which had averaged 3.2% annually in the post-war period, had more than doubled after the 1973 oil shock to a 7.7% annual rate. Inflation reached 9.1% in 1975, the highest rate since 1947. Inflation declined to 5.8% the following year, but then edged higher. By 1979, inflation reached a startling 11.3% and in 1980 soared to 13.5%.[2][7]
A brief recession occurred in 1980. Several key industries—including housing, steel manufacturing and automobile production—experienced a downturn from which they did not recover through the end of the next recession. Many of the economic sectors that supplied these basic industries were also hard-hit.[8]
Determined to wring inflation out of the economy, Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker slowed the rate of growth of the money supply and raised interest rates. The federal funds rate, which was about 11% in 1979, rose to 20% by June 1981. The prime interest rate, a highly important economic measure, eventually reached 21.5% in June 1982.[3][9]
Recession in the United Kingdom
As with most of the developed world, recession also hit the United Kingdom at the turn of 1980s, although the economy had been plagued by a string of crises for most of the 1970s and unemployment had gradually increased since the mid 1960s.
When the Conservative Party led by Margaret Thatcher won the general election of May 1979 and swept James Callaghan’s Labour Partyfrom power, the country had just witnessed the Winter of Discontent in which numerous public sector workers had staged strikes. Inflation was about 10% and some 1,500,000 people were unemployed; compared to some 1,000,000 in 1974, 580,000 in 1970 and just over 300,000 in 1964.[44] Margaret Thatcher set about to control inflation with monetarist policies and change trade union laws in an attempt to reduce the strikes which had blighted Britain for so many years.
Mrs Thatcher’s battle against inflation resulted in the closure of many inefficient factories, shipyards and coalpits – mostly during her first four-year term in power. This helped bring inflation below 10% by the turn of 1982 (having peaked at 22% in 1980) and by spring 1983 it had fallen to a 15-year low of 4%. Strikes were also at their lowest level since the early 1950s.
However, it also resulted in unemployment reaching 3,000,000 by January 1982 – a level not seen for some 50 years. Even the 2,000,000 figure first seen towards the end of 1980 had not been reached in over 40 years.
By April 1983, Britain – once known globally as the “workshop of the world” due to its strong manufacturing base – became a net importer of goods for the first time ever, largely due to the loss of heavy industry under Thatcher. Areas of Tyneside, Yorkshire,Merseyside, South Wales, the West of Scotland and the West Midlands were particularly hard hit by the loss of industry and subsequent sharp rise in unemployment. The national average by January 1982 was around 12.5%, but in some of these regions it was approaching 20% and would remain similarly high for a number of years afterwards.
In the first three years of Mrs Thatcher’s premiership, opinion polls gave the Tory government approval ratings as low as 25%, with the polls initially being led by the Labour opposition and then by the SDP-Liberal Alliance which was formed by the Liberal Party and the Labour breakaway Social Democratic Party during 1981.
However, Britain’s victory in the Falklands War in June 1982 sparked a turnaround in support for the Tory government, who were re-elected by a landslide in the general election 12 months later.[45]
Recovery
The mid-term Congressional elections proved to be the low point of the Reagan presidency.
According to Keynesian economists, a combination of deficit spending and the lowering of interest rates slowly led to economic recovery.[46] From a high of 10.8% in December 1982, unemployment gradually improved until it fell to 7.2% on Election Day in 1984.[5]Nearly two million people left the unemployment rolls.[47] Inflation fell from 10.3% in 1981 to 3.2% in 1983.[2][48] Corporate earnings rose by 29% in the July–September quarter of 1983, compared with the same period in 1982. Some of the most dramatic improvements came in industries hardest hit by the recession, such as paper and forest products, rubber, airlines, and the auto industry.[47]
By November 1984, voter anger at the recession evaporated and Reagan’s re-election was not in doubt.[35][36][43] Reagan was subsequently re-elected by a landslide electoral and popular vote margin in the 1984 presidential election. Immediately after the election, Dave Stockman, Reagan’s OMB manager admitted that the coming deficits were much higher than the projections released during the campaign.
As for the United Kingdom, economic growth was re-established by the end of 1982, although the era of mass unemployment was far from over. By the summer of 1984, unemployment had hit a new record of 3,300,000 (although the depression of the early 1930s had seen a higher percentage of the workforce unemployed) and it remained above the 3,000,000 mark until the spring of 1987, when theLawson Boom – so named as it was the consequence of tax cuts by chancellor Nigel Lawson – sparked an economic boom that saw unemployment fall dramatically. By early 1988, it was below 2,500,000. By early 1989, it fell below 2,000,000, and by the end of 1989 just over 1,600,000 were unemployed – almost half the figure of three years earlier.[49] Other incentives which aided the British economic recovery after the early 1980s recession included the introduction of Enterprise Zones, on deindustrialised land where traditional industries were replaced by new industries as well as commercial developments – with businesses being given tax breaks and exemption from rates for a certain period of time, as an incentive to set up base in these areas.
Political fallout
The recession was nearly a year old before President Ronald Reagan stated on October 18, 1981, that the economy was in a “slight recession”.[22]
The “Reagan recession,”[23][24][25] coupled with budget cuts (which were enacted in 1981 but began to take effect in 1982), led many voters to believe that Reagan was insensitive to the needs of average citizens.[26][27][28] In January 1983, Reagan’s popularity rating fell to 35%—approaching levels experienced by Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter at their most unpopular.[29][30][31] Although his approval rating did not fall as low as Nixon’s during the Watergate scandal, Reagan’s reelection seemed unlikely.[32][33][34][35][36]
Pressured to counteract the increased deficit caused by the recession, Reagan agreed to a corporate tax increase in 1982. However, he refused to raise income taxes or cut defense spending. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 instituted a three-year, $100 billion tax hike—the largest tax increase since World War II.[37]
The 1982 mid-term Congressional elections were largely viewed as a referendum on Reagan and his economic policies. The election results proved to be a setback for Reagan and the Republicans. The Democrats gained 26 House seats, which at the time was the most for the party in any election since the “Watergate year” of 1974.[38][39][40][41][42][43] However, the net balance of power in the Senate was unchanged.
0 comments:
Post a Comment