Avner Offer, FBA

avner.offer@all-souls.ox.ac.uk 

 

Current Research: ‘From Social Democracy to Market Liberalism, c. 1970-2015’ 

 

The postwar 'golden age' of economic growth also built up American and European welfare states. This settlement was successfully challenged in the 1970s by a coalition of business, taxpayers, consumers, ideologists and social scientists. From this core of discontent, market liberalism retrieved the intellectual and political hegemony it had previously lost, although the recent financial crisis has cast doubt on many of its premises. The project investigates the origins, attributes, and drivers of this movement, its successes, failures, and prospects. In particular, it considers the role of human capital, technological change, economic fundamentals, social disruption and cognitive constraints in explaining the New Right, The Washington Consensus, the fall of communism, de-regulation, privatisation, and globalisation. The focus of investigation is on policy norms. 

 I have recently completed two papers (available on request): 

'The Economy of Obligation: Contract Ambiguity and the Welfare State'. This argues that financial markets are poorly adapted for long-term saving, except for the rich. In particular, stock markets have too small a resource base to handle the volume of transfers required. In contrast, pay-as-you-go taxation relies on the fiscal base, which consists of the bulk of the current income of society. It is more efficient and less volatile than the financial industry. 

'A Warrant for Pain: Market Liberalism c. 1970-2010'
This is in two parts. The first applies Just-World Theory ('everyone gets what they deserve') to the core doctrines of economics. In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith puts forward an alternative model of reciprocal approbation and interdependent preferences which is more realistic and ethically attractive than economic orthodoxy. In the second part, this is demonstrated in a case study of ethical conflict between the medical duty to 'do no harm' and the market norm of 'let the buyer beware', in the American healthcare system since the 1970s. 

I am currently working on three topics:

'Psychological  Impacts of Market Liberalism' -- a study of attitudes to individualism by USA high school seniors and college freshmen,  c. 1976-2008. With Meng Miao (Oxford)

'The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics' -- with Gabriel Soderberg (Uppsala) and Philip Mirowski (Notre Dame), funded by INET. 

'Obesity and Welfare Regimes' -- In affluent societies, obesity prevalence varies with welfare regimes. It is particularly high in English-speaking market-liberal societies. The hypothesis is that obesity is response to stress, and that market-liberal societies are more stressful. Our research (see under articles) estimates the relative contribution of 'fast-food-shock', economic insecurity, and economic inequality. The first two are substantial, and economic insecurity is the most powerful determinant. An article has been published; an edited conference volume is in the press, and will be published by the British Academy in 2012. (with Rachel Pechey and Stanley Ulijaszek, Oxford)

I continue to keep up with, to research and occasionally to publish in my other fields of interest, international political economy (with special reference to war), c. 1870-1920, rural and urban land tenure, and the economic determinants of well-being and quality of life. In all of these fields, I have a secondary interest in law. 

CURRICULUM VITAE, October 2011

Academic Positions

2011— Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Senior Research Fellow and Principal  Investigator, Nobel Prize INET Research Project, University of Oxford

2000—2011 : Chichele Professor of Economic History, University of Oxford, and Fellow of All Souls College.

1992—2000: Professorial Fellow, Nuffield College, Reader in Recent Social and Economic History, University of Oxford.

1990-1991: Reader in Economic and Social History, University of York.

1979-1990: Lecturer in Economic and Social History, University of York.

Research Fellowships

Nov. 2011-Oct. 2012: Principal Investigator, INET Research Project on the Nobel Prize in Economics

Oct. 2008-Oct. 2011: Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. 

Jan.—May 1999: Senior Visiting Fellow, Remarque Institute, New York University

Sept.—Dec. 1991: Senior Fellow, Center for Historical Analysis, Rutgers  University, New Jersey, U.S.A.

Sept. 1985—Sept.  1988:  Research  Fellow,  Research  School  of  Social  Science, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University,  Canberra.

Sept.—Dec. 1984: Visiting Associate, Clare Hall, Cambridge

Oct. 1981—Sept. 1982: Hartley Research Fellow, University of  Southampton.

Oct. 1976—Dec. 1978: Junior Research Fellow, Merton College, Oxford.

Student Record

1979: D.Phil. Faculty of Modern History, University of Oxford.

1973-1976: Research Student, St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

1973: B.A.(cum laude), Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (History  and  Geography).

Honours

Economic History Society Teaching Prize, 2010

Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, 2008-2011 

Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK, 2003

Fellow of the British Academy, 2000

Trevor Reese Memorial Prize for Imperial and Commonwealth History, 1992

Publications

a. Books and Pamphlets

Property and Politics 1870-1914: Landownership, Law, Ideology and Urban  Development  in England (Cambridge: Cambridge  University  Press, 1981), xviii+445 pp. Reissued, Aldershot: Gregg Revivals 1992. Paperback reprint, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford  University Press, 1989), xix+449 pp. Paperback edition, 1991. Reprinted,  New York: Oxford  University Press, 1997, reissued Oxford, 1998. [Trevor Reese Memorial Prize for Imperial and Commonwealth History, 1992]

(editor) In Pursuit of the Quality of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), viii+302 pp.

Why has the Public Sector grown so large in Market Societies? The Political Economy of Prudence in the UK, c. 1870-2000 [Inaugural lecture] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 45 pp.

The Challenge of Affluence: Self-control and Well-being in the United States and Britain since 1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Xviii+454 pp. Paperback edition  2007.

(editor, with Rachel Pechey and Stanley Ulijaszek) Insecurity, Inequality, and Obesity in Affluent Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2012) in press.

b. Parts of Books

‘War Economy’ in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economic Theory and Doctrine, ed. John Eatwell et al. (London 1987; Macmillan), vol. 4, pp. 875-7.

‘Pacific Rim Societies: Asian Labour and White Nationalism’, in D. Schreuder and J. Eddy (eds.), The Rise of Colonial Nationalism 1880-1914 (Sydney and London: Allen & Unwin, 1988), pp. 227-47.

‘Bounded Rationality in Action: The German Submarine Campaign, 1915-1918’ in W. Gerrard and J. Hodge (eds.), Rationality and Economics (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 179-202.

‘Going to War in 1914: A Matter of Honour?’, in Craig Wilcox (ed.), The Great War: Gains and Losses – Anzac and Empire (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1995), pp. 117-161. [see also under ‘articles’].

‘Foreign Farming in British Eyes’, in Negley Harte and R. Quinalt (eds.), Land and Society in Britain, 1700-1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 78-89.     

‘The Technological Revolution that Never Was: Gender, Class, and the Home Appliance Market in Interwar England’ (with Sue Bowden), in V. de Grazia and E. Furlough (eds.), The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 244-274.

‘Introduction’, pp. 1-17, and 

 'The Mask of Intimacy: Advertising and the Quality of Life’ in Avner Offer (ed.), In Pursuit of the Quality of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) and 211-255.

‘The American Automobile Frenzy of the 1950s’, in K. Bruland and P.K. O’Brien (eds.), From Family Firms to Corporate Capitalism: Essays in Business and Industrial History in Honour of Peter Mathias (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 315-353.

‘Costs and Benefits, Prosperity and Security, 1870-1914’ Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 3: The Nineteenth Century, ed. Andrew Porter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 690-711.

‘The Blockade of Germany and the Strategy of Starvation, 1914-1918: An Agency Perspective’, in R. Chickering and Stig Förster (eds.) Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 169-188.  

‘A Dialogue with the Past’, in Pat Hudson (ed.), Living Economic and Social History (Glasgow: Economic History Society, 2001), pp. 254-257.

‘Welfare Measurement and Human Well-being’, in Paul A. David and Mark Thomas (eds.), The Economic Future in Historical Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 371-399.

‘Response to Joanna Bourke’, in Chris Miller (ed.), ‘War on Terror’: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 2006 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), pp. 248-252. [Topic is Torture and Trade in the 'War on Terror'].

‘Capitalism and Self-Control’, in  Kurt Almqvist and Alexander Linklater (eds.), On Capitalism (Stockholm: Ax:son Johnson Foundation,  2011), pp. 213-222.

‘Consumption and Well-Being’, Oxford Handbook on the History of Consumption, ed. Frank Trentmann,  (forthcoming, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).  

‘Regard’, in Handbook on the Economics of Philanthropy, Reciprocity and Social Enterprise, ed. Luigino Bruni and Stefano Zamgni (forthcoming, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).

 ‘Introduction’ and

 ‘Obesity under Affluence Varies by Welfare Regimes’, in Avner Offer, Rachel Pechey and Stanley Ulijaszek (eds.), Obesity, Inequality, and Insecurity in Affluent Societies (forthcoming, Oxford:  Oxford University Press for the British Academy,  2012). [adapted from journal article]

c. Refereed Journal Articles

‘The Origins of the Law of Property Acts, 1910-1925’, Modern Law Review, vol. 40 (1977), pp. 505-22.

‘Ricardo’s Paradox and the Movement of Rents in Britain, c.1870-1910’, Economic History Review, vol. 33 (1980), pp. 236-52.  Reprinted in J. C. Wood, David Ricardo: Critical Assessments (1985), vol. 4, 156-173.

‘Empire and Social Reform: British Overseas Investment and Domestic Politics, 1908-1914’, Historical Journal, vol. 26 (1983), pp. 119-38.

‘Using the Past in Britain: Retrospect and Prospect’, The Public Historian, vol. 6, 4 (Fall 1984), pp. 15-34.

‘The Working Classes, British Naval Plans and the Coming of the Great War’, Past and Present, no. 107 (May 1985), pp. 204-226.

‘Morality and Admiralty: The Royal Navy, Economic Warfare and International Law, 1900­-1919’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 23 (Jan. 1988), pp. 99-119.

‘Economic Interpretation of War: The German Submarine Campaign 1915--1918’, Australian Economic History Review, vol. 24 (1989), pp. 21-41.

‘Farm Tenure and Land Values in England, c. 1750-1950’, Economic History Review, vol. 44, no. 1 (Feb. 1991), pp. 1-20.

‘The British Empire 1870--1914: A Waste of Money?’, Economic History Review, vol. 46 (May 1993), pp. 215-238.

 ‘Household Appliances and the Use of Time in the U.S.A. and Britain Since the 1920s’, (with Sue Bowden)  Economic History Review, vol. 47, (Nov. 1994), pp. 725-748.

‘Lawyers and Land Law Revisited’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 14, 2 (1994), pp. 269-278.

‘Going to War in 1914: A Matter of Honor?’, Politics & Society, vol. 23, 2 (June 1995), pp. 213-241.

‘Between the Gift and the Market: The Economy of Regard', Economic History Review, vol. 50, 3 (Aug. 1997), pp. 450-476.

‘Social and Economic Mobilization in the First World War’, Zmanim, no. 65 (Jan. 1999), pp. 95-111. [in Hebrew]

‘Household Appliances and “Systems of Provision”: A Reply’,  (with Sue Bowden), Economic History Review, vol. 52, 3 (Aug. 1999), pp. 563-567.

‘Body-Weight and Self-Control in the USA and Britain since the 1950s’, Social History of Medicine, vol. 14, 1 (2001), pp. 79-106. 

‘The Markup for Lemons: Quality and Uncertainty in American and British Used-Car Markets, c. 1953-1973’ Oxford Economic Papers, vol. 59, 5, Supplementary issue (2007), pp. i31-i48.

‘British Manual Workers: From Producers to Consumers, c. 1950-2000’, Contemporary British History, vol. 22, 4 (2008), pp. 538-571.

 ‘Obesity Under Affluence varies by Welfare Regimes: The Effect of Fast Food, Insecurity and Inequality’, Economics and Human Biology vol. 8 (2010), pp. 297-308 (with Rachel Pechey and Stanley Ulijaszek) Discussion paper version.

Unpublished papers

‘Contract Ambiguity and the Welfare State’, (Feb. 2010). Available on request.

'A Warrant for Pain: Market Liberalism 1970-2010' (Oct. 2011).  Available on request. 

d. Non-refereed Journals

‘The Challenge of Affluence—Interview with Avner Offer’, Challenge, 50, 1 (2007), 1-13.

‘A Vision of Prosperity’, Position paper for the Sustainable Development Commission, UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (17 Nov. 2007). 

'Charles Hilliard Feinstein', Transactions of the British Academy, 153. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows, 6 (2008), pp. 189-212. Discussion paper version (with list of his publications).

‘Obesity: The Welfare Regime Hypothesis’, British Academy Review, 15 (March 2010), 30-32 (with Rachel Pechey and Stanley Ulijaszek).

e. Book reviews

Albion, American Journal of Sociology, ANU Reporter, Australian Economic History Review, Australian Historical Studies, Economic History Review, Economic Journal, English Historical Review, EH.Net, Geographical Journal, German History, History, International History Review, Journal of Historical Geography, Journal of Economic History, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Overland, Oxford Today, Planning History Bulletin, Times Literary Supplement, Zmanim.

f. Editor

Joint-editor (with Prof. F.M.L. Thompson) of a series of Historical Handbooks: short books designed to provide an historical perspective on current issues, written mainly by economic and social historians. The series was published by Faber and Faber:

W.D. Rubinstein, Wealth and Inequality in Britain (1986).

Alison Ravetz, The Government of Space: Town Planning in Modern Britain (1986).

Michael Sanderson, Educational Opportunity and Social Change in England (1987).

Martin Daunton, A Property-Owning Democracy? Housing in Britain (1987).

John Saville, The Labour Movement in Britain: A Commentary (1988).

Tony Mason, Sport in Britain (1988).

Frank Prochashka, The Voluntary Impulse: Philanthropy in Modern Britain (1988).

Anne Digby, British Welfare Policy: Workhouse to Workfare (1989).

J.A. Sharpe, Judicial Punishment in England (1990).

Noel Whiteside, Bad Times: Unemployment in British Social and Political History (1991).

Sean Glynn, No Alternative? Unemployment in Britain (1991).

Colin Holmes, A Tolerant Country? Immigrants, Refugees and Minorities in Britain (1991).

Joint editor -- Cambridge Studies in Economic History (Cambridge University Press)

g. Video Recordings

Interviewer, Interviews with Historians: Michael Thompson [F.M.L. Thompson], London: Institute of Historical Research (1996).