Chancellor Philip Hammond has been urged to increase government infrastructure spending to counteract any economic slowdown (demand management) and to improve the productive potential of the economy (supplyside reform). Yet the ‘Keynesian’ function of infrastructure spending ignores the...

Taxation and government spending as a proportion of GDP have increased dramatically since World War I. Spending has increased from one-eighth of national income to somewhere between 40% and 45% of GDP today, the actual figure depending on how GDP is measured. Despite widespread hysteria, there...