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When turmoil strikes world monetary and financial markets, leaders invariably call for 'a new Bretton Woods' to prevent catastrophic economic disorder and defuse political conflict. The name of the remote New Hampshire town where representatives of forty-four nations gathered in July 1944, in the midst of the century's second great war, has become shorthand for enlightened globalization. The actual story surrounding the historic Bretton Woods accords, however, is full of startling drama, intrigue, and rivalry, which are vividly brought to life in Benn Steil's epic account. Upending the conventional wisdom that Bretton Woods was the product of an amiable Anglo-American collaboration, Steil shows that it was in reality part of a much more ambitious geopolitical agenda hatched within President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Treasury and aimed at eliminating Britain as an economic and political rival. At the heart of the drama were the antipodal characters of John Maynard Keynes, the renowned and revolutionary British economist, and Harry Dexter White, the dogged, self-made American technocrat. Bringing to bear new and striking archival evidence, Steil offers the most compelling portrait yet of the complex and controversial figure of White--the architect of the dollar's privileged place in the Bretton Woods monetary system, who also, very privately, admired Soviet economic planning and engaged in clandestine communications with Soviet intelligence officials and agents over many years. A remarkably deft work of storytelling that reveals how the blueprint for the postwar economic order was actually drawn,The Battle of Bretton Woodsis destined to become a classic of economic and political history.

Notions of the 'internationalization of the state' in neo-Gramscian writings are vague, ambiguous and lack empirical grounding. Here it is argued that the 'internationalization of the state' can only be understood through a focus on the social basis of the state. A case study of the UK reveals that HM Treasury and the Bank of England have been penetrated by transnational economic interests and that they subsequently act on behalf of these interests. In this respect the current prevailing global discourse or 'Washington consensus' of sound money and open markets is primarily generated, sustained and reinforced by 'internationalized' or 'transnationalized' state agencies such as HM Treasury or the Bank of England, which act on behalf of internationally mobile forms of capital. There is, however, a complex, mutually reinforcing relationship between the prevailing 'Washington consensus' and the policies and practice of these national state agencies.

Labour productivity rates are known to vary across UK regions. Although some empirical studies seek to explain the source of these differences using aggregate, regional data we argue that this may be inappropriate because labour productivity rates are firm-specific. This paper employs cross-sectional regression analysis and British, firm-level data to identify empirically whether firm-level labour productivity rates are affected by factors that vary spatially. It focuses in particular on a measure of 'economic potential' based on a gravity-type model of economic potential. Initial estimates suggest that economic potential is important but its impact diminishes with the introduction of further explanatory variables. Nevertheless, even once interaction terms are included the effect of economic potential remains important. It suggests the clear need to take account of space in firm-level regressions. JEL Classification: C21; R38; R58 Keywords: Productivity per Employee; Economic Potential; HM Treasury's key Drivers

The paper is about HM Treasury's consultation on the future of investment trusts regulation. The consultation follows the Treasury Select Committee's recommendation in 2003 that investment trusts should be regulated by FSA following the collapse of a number of split capital investment trusts. The paper argues that changes made since 2003, to the Listing Rules and the Conduct of Business Rules and the introduction of the AITC Code of Corporate Governance render further structural change unnecessary. The paper also argues that the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) should be extended so as to allow thrid party access by complaints who claim to have suffered loss as a result of having relied on a misleading financial promotion, no matter how they eventually purchased the investment.