Economic Growth and Employment

The United Kingdom could easily squander the benefits of North Sea oil and gas production. The opportunities provided by the discovery and exploitation of this resource will be wasted on temporary increases in private and government consumption if the pattern of economic change over the next five years or so continues to be dictated by short-term considerations, and if governments fail to appreciate that manipulating the conventional fiscal and monetary instruments of policy has not and will not reverse the long-term deterioration in Britain’s relative industrial performance.