Abstract: | ![]() The NEDC (Neddy) was established in 1962 through a joint initiativeof leading industrialists and the Conservative Government. Itsbroad aim was to improve economic co-ordination between companiesand policy-makers, and thus enable Britain to steer a courseaway from stop-go and towards stable growth. Thisarticle examines the sources of the Neddy's swift demise intoirrelevance by 1964. Aspirations for the NEDC were multipleand conflicting. Leading industrialists considered it a vehiclefor increasing their influence over the course of economic policy.The government, however, was jealous of its policy-making autonomy,and interested in the NEDC primarily as a signal to currencyspeculators of their commitment to tackling the various supply-sideproblems of the UK economy. The article stresses two sets ofinstitutional factors which doomed the NEDC'stransformative potential even as it was being set up. First,business was suspicious of co-operation with (and, more particularlyrevealing sensitive firm level information to) a body that wasso close to central government. Employers were justifiably worriedthat the NEDC would be used by future governments as the basisfor more dirigiste rather than merely indicative planning. Second,companies wedded to the economic organizational principle ofcollective laissez-faire resisted peak-level effortsto induce co-ordination. Thus, paradoxically, the very co-ordinationproblems in British business that prompted the NEDC's creationwere the primary reasons for its failure. |