ABSTRACT
Like many of those who are drawn to study economics, my major initial motivation was an interest in economic policy—not so much the macro-policy issues of inflation or the exchange rate that seem to many to be the essence of economics, but the micro-policy issues of taxation and welfare benefits, of regional or training policy, of policy towards the nationalized industries (as they then were) and so on. In short, the myriad ways in which government economic policy decisions impact on the everyday lives of individuals. As an undergraduate, I took options in courses concerned with taxation and public finance, industrial economics, the economics of the nationalized industries and so on. On graduating, I decided to pursue these interests further by taking a post graduate degree at the United Kingdom department which (at that time) specialized most strongly in the analysis of the public sector and its policies—the University of York. My first year at York was spent in the relatively standard pursuit of taught courses at the Masters level, but once I was admitted to study for a DPhil, I began to think seriously of research for the first time.
