Study title

This spreadsheet contains most of the secondary data. The spreadsheet contains all the series for which we were able to obtain permission from the publishers/owners to show in our dataset. We hope the spreadsheet will be of particular use to students and researchers of the UK's economic history and politics who are looking for historic data on UK public spending, revenues, taxes and elections, as presented in key alternative sources for the 100 year period. Note that the alternative sources (for example for revenue and expenditure) are not always comparable as the primary sources they are based on and the method of calculation can all be different. The data series are presented using the same name by which they are identified in the original data source, and users are advised to consult the original sources as a cross check, for more details of series construction. The new era of public service austerity in the 2010s, as governments aim to reduce debt and deficits, presents important research challenges: What can we learn about the politics of austerity from previous periods of cutback; How does international experience with cutbacks match UK experience;How well can propositions about cutback management from earlier periods be applied to today's age of austerity? The study aims to explore: Whether the politics of austerity requires a reversal of normal routines in politics and government; what shapes outcomes when spending is reduced; What is common across different cases; How governments shift or avoid blame from voters; What are the effects of such cutbacks. Those questions come at the intersection of writing about government growth, crisis management, blame-avoidance, and bureaucratic politics and budgeting behaviour. The study will match analysis of historical cases of austerity politics in the UK with real-time observation of efforts to restrain expenditure in the 2010s. It will put UK experience into context by examining a set of...