Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in

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 Young Women, Girls and
Postfeminism in Contemporary
British Film
 Library of Gender and Popular Culture

From Mad Men to gaming culture, performance art to steampunk fashion,

the presentation and representation of gender continues to saturate popular
media. This series seeks to explore the intersection of gender and popular
culture, engaging with a variety of texts – drawn primarily from Art, Fashion,
TV, Cinema, Cultural Studies and Media Studies – as a way of considering
various models for understanding the complementary relationship between
‘gender identities’ and ‘popular culture’. By considering race, ethnicity, class,
and sexual identities across a range of cultural forms, each book in the series
adopts a critical stance towards issues surrounding the development of
gender identities and popular and mass cultural ‘products’.

For further information or enquiries, please contact the library

series editors:

Claire Nally: claire​.nally​@northumbria​.a​c​.uk

Angela Smith: angela​.smith​@sunderland​.a​c​.uk

Advisory Board:

Dr Kate Ames, Central Queensland University, Australia

Dr Michael Higgins, University of Strathclyde, UK
Prof Åsa Kroon, Örebro University, Sweden
Dr Andrea McDonnell, Emmanuel College, USA
Dr Niall Richardson, University of Sussex, UK
Dr Jacki Willson, University of Leeds, UK
 Published and forthcoming titles:
The Aesthetics of Camp: Post-Queer Gay Pornography: Representations of
Gender and Popular Culture Sexuality and Masculinity
By Anna Malinowska By John Mercer

Ageing Femininity on Screen: The Gender and Austerity in Popular

Older Woman in Contemporary Culture: Femininity, Masculinity and
Cinema Recession in Film and Television
By Niall Richardson By Helen Davies and Claire
O’Callaghan (Eds)
All-American TV Crime Drama:
Feminism and Identity Politics The Gendered Motorcycle:
in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit Representations in Society, Media and
By Sujata Moorti and Lisa Cuklanz Popular Culture
By Esperanza Miyake
Bad Girls, Dirty Bodies: Sex,
Performance and Safe Femininity Gendering History on Screen: Women
By Gemma Commane Filmmakers and Historical Films
By Julia Erhart
Beyoncé: Celebrity Feminism in the Age
of Social Media Girls Like This, Boys Like That:
By Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs The Reproduction of Gender in
Contemporary Youth Cultures
Conflicting Masculinities: Men in
By Victoria Cann
Television Period Drama
By Katherine Byrne, Julie Anne The Gypsy Woman: Representations in
Taddeo and James Leggott (Eds) Literature and Visual Culture
By Jodie Matthews
Fat on Film: Gender, Race and Body
Size in Contemporary Hollywood Love Wars: Television Romantic Comedy
Cinema By Mary Irwin
By Barbara Plotz
Masculinity in Contemporary Science
Fathers on Film: Paternity and Fiction Cinema: Cyborgs, Troopers and
Masculinity in 1990s Hollywood Other Men of the Future
By Katie Barnett By Marianne Kac-Vergne

Film Bodies: Queer Feminist Moving to the Mainstream: Women On

Encounters with Gender and Sexuality and Off Screen in Television and Film
in Cinema By Marianne Kac-Vergne and Julie
By Katharina Lindner Assouly (Eds)
Paradoxical Pleasures: Female Television Comedy and Femininity:
Submission in Popular and Erotic Queering Gender
Fiction By Rosie White
By Anna Watz
Gender and Early television: Mapping
Positive Images: Gay Men and HIV/ Women’s Role in Emerging US and
AIDS in the Culture of ‘Post-Crisis’ British Media, 1850–1950
By Dion Kagan By Sarah Arnold

Queer Horror Film and Television: Tweenhood: Femininity and Celebrity

Sexuality and Masculinity at the in Tween Popular Culture
Margins By Melanie Kennedy
By Darren Elliott-Smith
Women Who Kill: Gender and Sexuality
Queer Sexualities in Early Film: in Film and Series of the post-Feminist Era
Cinema and Male-Male Intimacy By David Roche and Cristelle Maury
By Shane Brown (Eds)

Steampunk: Gender and the Neo- Wonder Woman: Feminism, Culture

Victorian and the Body
By Claire Nally By Joan Ormrod
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 Young Women, Girls and
Postfeminism in Contemporary
British Film

Sarah Hill
 BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks
of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain 2021
Copyright © Sarah Hill, 2021
Sarah Hill has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as Author of this work.
For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xi constitute an extension
of this copyright page.
Cover design: Charlotte Daniels
Cover image: Maisie WIlliams and Florence Pugh in The Falling (2014)
(© Cannon and Morley Pictures / Collection Christophel / ArenaPAL)
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regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hill, Sarah (Lecturer in media studies) author.
Title: Young women, girls and postfeminism in contemporary British film / Sarah Hill.
Description: London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. | Series: Library of
gender and popular culture | Based on the author’s dissertation (doctoral)–
University of East Anglia, 2012. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2020005802 (print) | LCCN 2020005803 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781788310369 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350120310 (pdf) |
ISBN 9781350120327 (epub) | ISBN 9781350120334
Subjects: LCSH: Girls in motion pictures. | Teenage girls in motion pictures. |
Femininity in motion pictures. | Motion pictures–Great Britain–History–21st century.
Classification: LCC PN1995.9.G57 H55 2020 (print) | LCC PN1995.9.G57
(ebook) | DDC 791.43/65342–dc23
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 Contents

List of Figures viii

Series Editors’ Introduction ix
Acknowledgements xi

Introduction: Girlhood and contemporary British cinema 1

1 Education and ‘sexualization’ in the British girls’ school film 25
2 The ambitious girl and the British sports film 67
3 Girl friendship and the formation of feminine identity 111
4 Young femininity and the British historical film 143
Conclusion: Young femininity in contemporary British cinema 175

Notes 183
Bibliography 213
Filmography 233
Teleography 236
Music 237
Index 238
 Figures

1.1 St Trinian’s (2007) Annabelle (Talulah Riley) becomes a St Trinian 37

1.2 Wild Child (2008) Poppy’s (Emma Roberts) make-under is revealed 45
1.3 An Education (2009) Jenny (Carey Mulligan) and David (Peter
Sarsgaard) in Paris 52
1.4 The Falling (2015) Lydia (Maisie Williams) as an icon of rebellion 62
2.1 Fish Tank (2009) Mia (Katie Jarvis) lost in her own world 80
2.2 StreetDance (2010) The London skyline 84
2.3 Chalet Girl (2011) Georgie (Tamsin Egerton) gives Kim (Felicity
Jones) her make-up 96
2.4 Chalet Girl (2011) Kim’s makeover 97
2.5 Fast Girls (2012) The final relay 109
3.1 Me Without You (2001) Marina’s (Anna Friel) changing appearance 117
3.2 Kicks (2008) Minute details and Nicole (Kerrie Hayes) within
Liverpool’s circular landscape 127
3.3 Kicks (2008) Starting again 136
4.1 The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) Anne’s (Natalie Portman) coronation 150
4.2 The Young Victoria (2009) Victoria’s (Emily Blunt) coronation 157
4.3 The Duchess (2008) Georgiana (Keira Knightley), ‘the Empress
of Fashion’ 164
4.4 Belle’s (2013) re-creation of Zoffany’s (1779) painting next to
the original 173
 Series Editors’ Introduction

One of the legacies of postfeminism could be said to be the way in

which young women perceive themselves, and in how popular culture
in turn perceives them. As Sarah Hill’s monograph shows, in the first
part of the twenty-first century, there was a blossoming of films showing
young women as the protagonist, and many of these films proved to
be commercially successful. This is a neat counterpoint to the parallel
increase in films and television shows offering positive depictions of
central characters who are older, as explored in Niall Richardson’s
Ageing Femininity on Screen (2019). Set against the traditional
Hollywood films, British films have often been seen as lacking such
glamour and aspiration. The can-do attitude that is embedded in
postfeminism is something that, Hill argues, informs British films
featuring girls and young women in the early part of the twenty-first
century. While Hill focuses on British film output, other books in this
Library show this is not a specifically British phenomenon (see Melanie
Kennedy’s Tweenhood (2019) which explores femininity in popular
culture in the United States, and Victoria Cann’s Girls Like This, Boys
Like That (2018) which explores the lived experience of British girls).
Postfeminism brought into popular consciousness the notion of choice
and empowerment for women of all ages, but perhaps most habitually
in the case of young women, such as those who feature in the films Hill
examines. As many theorists of postfeminism have argued, the body is
at the centre of postfeminism, and bodily maintenance is key to female
success, often through the ‘makeover’. However, as Hill suggests here,
the consumerist slant on the makeover in US popular culture is largely
eschewed in British film, where friendship and relationships are the
currency on the road to self-discovery and authenticity. Hill explores the
ambivalent, particularly British approach to the makeover in the films
under discussion in this book, ranging from the revisionist St Trinian’s
(Parker and Thompson 2007) to films derived from contemporary
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x Series Editors’ Introduction

books and novels, such as The Duchess (Dibb 2008). The inclusion of
a chapter on historical films offers a link with Julia Erhart’s Gendering
History on Screen (2018), where Hill provides a different perspective on
this popular genre.
In focusing on British film, Hill is able to explore issues of class and
race in a context where the former is at the heart of national identity,
and the latter only recently receiving concentrated critical attention.
What Hill shows here is that, while British films are often characterized
by ‘grit’ and a lack of glamour, what the postfeminist films offer is an
ambivalence to these polar opposites, with ‘naturalness’ favoured
in place of glamour, and ‘respectability’ prized without necessarily
being associated with grit. This ambivalence in the British films Hill
explores is a theme that she returns to time and time again throughout
the book, offering a nuanced view of British cinema which provides
a counterpoint to the unquestioned Hollywood glamour examined in
other books in this Library.
The films in this book are taken from a very specific period of
production when, as Hill convincingly argues, postfeminist sensibilities
were in the ascendancy and before the startling arrival of the #MeToo
movement.
Angela Smith and Clare Nally
 Acknowledgements

Parts of the discussion of Chalet Girl in Chapter 2 were originally

published in ‘The Ambitious Young Woman and the Contemporary
British Sports Film’, Assuming Gender, 5:1 (2015), pp. 37–58. I thank
the editors for their kind permission in allowing me to include that
work here.
The research for this book originated as my PhD thesis undertaken
at the University of East Anglia, and I am hugely grateful to Melanie
Williams for her guidance, support and enthusiasm during the
supervision process. Thank you also to Yvonne Tasker and Vicky Ball
who provided very generous and helpful feedback on that earlier work. I
am also grateful to the anonymous peer reviewers for their constructive
and thoughtful feedback on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
I am indebted to the friends I made during my time at UEA, who
supported this research in the form of many stimulating conversations.
I am especially thankful to Marie-Alix Thouaille for her insightful and
supportive comments on earlier drafts of this work, and for all our
conversations about postfeminism.
Thank you to my colleagues in Media, Culture, Heritage at Newcastle
University for their support and encouragement, particularly Karen
Ross for taking the time to read drafts of this work. I am also grateful to
the NU Women’s Writing Group for providing the much-needed time
and space that enabled me to complete this project.
I thank Anna Coatman, Camilla Erskine and the editorial team at
Bloomsbury for all their hard work and patience.
I am immensely grateful for Jack’s unwavering support and
encouragement – thank you.
Finally, the biggest, and most important, thank you must go to
my family. Thank you to Becky for always being there and believing
in me, and to my parents for their unconditional love and support in
everything I do.
xii
 Introduction
Girlhood and contemporary British cinema

This book presents a study of young femininity in contemporary

British cinema. Girls and young women – whether they be fictional
characters, celebrities or ‘real-life’ people – have become ubiquitous
across all areas of twenty-first-century media culture, including pop
music, adverts, television, young adult literature, social media and, of
course, film. Some of the most successful recent films are films with
a young woman protagonist, which Sarah Projansky terms ‘girl films’.1
These include films such as Frozen (Buck and Lee 2013), The Hunger
Games trilogy (Ross 2012, Lawrence 2013, 2014, 2015) and Fifty Shades
of Grey (Taylor-Johnson 2015), which span a variety of genres and
intended audiences, from Disney animations and adaptations of young
adult novels to erotic literature. The huge success of these films has
led to a number of popular press articles proclaiming that women are
‘taking over’ the box office that has long been thought of as the domain
of blockbuster-watching young men.2
British cinema also experienced a proportionate increase in films
with a young woman protagonist between 2000 and 2015, as part
of a concerted effort to attract youth audiences. Analysis of the film
magazine Sight & Sound during the period revealed three such films
produced in 2000, rising to a peak of fourteen in 2008.3 In 2007, Ealing
Studios revived the St Trinian’s series (Parker and Thompson 2007),
which earned over £12 million at the UK box office and was followed by
a sequel in 2009.4 The British film industry also produced its first film
in 3D with StreetDance 3D (Giwa and Pasquini 2010) starring Nichola
Burley, which made £11 million in the first five weeks of its release.5
Alongside this, the period also witnessed the development of the careers
of a number of British women filmmakers, including Andrea Arnold,
2 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

Amma Asante, Carol Morley and Lynne Ramsay, all producing films
with young women protagonists, although these filmmakers did not
necessarily seek to specifically attract young audiences. The success of
these films reinforces Melanie Bell and Melanie Williams’ assertion that
female-centred British films are not ‘cuckoos-in-the-nest or exceptional
observations but rather form the very core of popular national cinema’.6
However, British cinema is often thought to be ‘far more at ease with
masculine stories and imagery’, which means that contemporary British
cinema’s girl films have remained largely overlooked.7
This book offers the first comprehensive study of how young
femininity has been constructed in British cinema since the
millennium. Certain films in this corpus have been written about
previously – either as a single case study like Lucy Bolton’s examination
of Fish Tank (Arnold 2009) as a phenomenology of British girlhood8
or as part of a generic cycle, such as Louise Wilks’ examination of
British ‘tween’ films St Trinian’s, Wild Child (Moore 2008) and Angus,
Thongs and Perfect Snogging (Chadha 2008).9 There has also been
a tendency to focus more on British art-house cinema as explicitly
feminist, such as So Mayer’s exploration of British cinema’s ‘runaway
girl’ in films such as Movern Callar (Ramsay 2002) and The Unloved
(Morton 2009).10 By contrast, this monograph takes into account a
range of British girl films produced during this period through a variety
of genres and modes of production, and intended audiences, in order
to capture the state of British cinema’s representations of girlhood by
tracing the commonalities and differences between the films and their
constructions of young femininity, as well as showcasing the dynamism
and diversity of British film production during this period.
In mapping the construction of young femininity in contemporary
British cinema, this book seeks to make the case for a nationally specific
articulation of postfeminism by examining how postfeminism is
modified and articulated in a British context. Postfeminism is a ‘pervasive
phenomenon of contemporary culture’ that has been the focus of a wealth
of academic attention,11 although more recently its continued relevance
has been questioned.12 Since the 1980s, postfeminism has variously
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 Introduction 3

been thought of as a ‘historical shift within’ feminism, a ‘backlash’

against feminism and an ‘epistemological break’ from feminism. I
use the term here to signify the period ‘after’ second-wave feminism,
while acknowledging that the wave metaphor is highly contentious
as ‘feminism ebbs and flows within generations, with various issues
resurfacing in a cyclical fashion’.13 As with Angela McRobbie’s ‘double
entanglement’,14 Rosalind Gill’s ‘sensibility’15 and Sarah Projansky’s
‘cultural discourse’ (original emphasis),16 I understand postfeminism
as defined by a complex and contradictory set of characteristics. As
Gill argues, ‘postfeminism is a critical analytical term that refers to
empirical regularities or patterns in contemporary cultural life’.17 This
includes the incorporation of feminist gains, which are then filtered
through a grammar of ‘choice’, empowerment and individualism which
work to relegate feminism to the past; an entanglement of feminist and
anti-feminist ideas that allows for a reinvestment in traditional markers
of heterosexual femininity; an imperative of self-monitoring – both of
the body and of one’s psychological interior; and the dominance of the
makeover paradigm.18 In postfeminist culture, the body is seen as the key
to a woman’s identity and must be subject to constant self-monitoring
and discipline in order to maintain a suitably feminine identity that
closely resembles the kind of ‘heterosexual male fantasy found in
pornography’.19 It is this notion that women in particular are compelled
to enact physical and psychological self-monitoring and transformation,
and that this is achieved primarily through consumption, which is
seen to account for the dominance of the makeover paradigm within
postfeminist culture. The imperative to monitor and work on the self
is indicative of late modern theories of identity that purport that the
self must be reflexively constructed through a range of choices in order
to construct a coherent narrative of the self as part of an authentic
identity.20 This mode of self-making is situated within the context of
neoliberalism, whereby the free-market economics and privatization
that characterized the Conservative governments in the 1980s – led
by Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Regan in the United
States – constructed the individual as entrepreneurial, autonomous
4 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

and self-governing. Rosalind Gill has noted the synergy between

the freely choosing, self-monitoring postfeminist woman who must
transform herself through consumption and the autonomous and self-
regulating subject of neoliberalism. Like neoliberalism, postfeminism
has been ‘taken for granted’ in its everyday ability to speak to ‘meaning-
making’ about gender so that it ‘operates as a kind of gendered form
of neoliberalism’.21 It is neoliberalism, therefore, that has enabled the
hegemonic spread of postfeminism.22
Although postfeminism is regarded as a transnational concept,
very little attention has been paid to how postfeminism is discursively
engaged in a British context. As Justine Ashby argues, ‘We should not
assume that these discourses can simply be grafted onto the rather
different contours of British political and popular culture.’23 Where
British incarnations of postfeminism have been thought about, it is
often in relation to singular texts such as Angela McRobbie’s (2004,
2007) examination of Bridget Jones’ Diary (Maguire 2001). Although
considered an emblematic postfeminist text, we need only to think
about the differences between the hapless, clumsy and ordinary
Bridget (Renee Zellweger) and her glossy and fashionable American
counterparts such as the women from Sex and the City (HBO 1998–
2004) and Ally McBeal (20th Century Fox 1997–2002) to see that,
although they are all considered to be canonical transit texts,24 their
articulations of postfeminism differ according to national context.
This book seeks to map how postfeminism is modified in a British
cultural context by examining how young femininity is constructed in
contemporary British cinema. A key point of distinction is in the films’
ambivalent engagement with the postfeminist makeover. Postfeminist
culture constructs women as autonomous ‘empowered consumers’ who
must continuously work on themselves to ensure appropriate femininity
and subsequently reveal their authentic self.25 As Diane Negra argues,
the postfeminist makeover allows for the kind of ‘transformative
consumption so valued by postfeminism’ and is the ‘key ritual of the
female coming into being’ that allows for the ‘revelation of the self that
has “been there all along”’.26 British girl films, however, eschew the
 Introduction 5

overt consumption inherent within the Hollywood makeover, instead

swapping clothes with friends or buying them second-hand. Rather
than enabling the revelation of the ‘authentic’ self, the makeovers in
these films are frequently presented as inauthentic and false, providing
only temporary respite in the protagonists’ quest for the ‘perfect’
feminine self. Where makeovers are successful, such as in St Trinian’s
(Parker and Thompson 2007) and Wild Child (Moore 2008), which I
analyse in Chapter 1, the revelation of the authentic self is linked to
the revelation of a distinctly British feminine identity. British cinema’s
ambivalence towards the postfeminist makeover can be situated, I
argue, within the broader history of British cinema’s (and Britain
more broadly) ambivalent relationship to glamour and consumption.
Although the meaning of glamour has shifted over time, ‘connotations
of charm, artifice and allure still remain’.27 As Melanie Williams argues,
British cinema has frequently struggled to accommodate glamour, and
glamour has often been used as a marker of differentiation between
British films (and its female stars) and Hollywood.28 Furthermore,
Jackie Stacey’s study of British women’s film spectatorship in the
1940s and 1950s placed Britain and America’s relationship to glamour
in opposition with one another, with British stars being described as
having natural beauty, talent and charm in comparison with the ‘cheap’
and ‘artificial’ glamour offered by Hollywood stars. This equating of
British femininity with ‘natural’ beauty goes some way to explaining
British cinema’s ambivalence towards the postfeminist makeover, as
although the makeover facilitates the revelation of the authentic self,
it nevertheless draws attention to the process and the products used
to achieve this via the prolonged makeover scene, which is the ‘scene
par excellence of postfeminist identity making’, troubling the idea
of naturalness.29 Classed discourses are evident within this too: the
‘assertion of “respectable” British femininity becomes an assertion
of middle-class norms: “true” British femininity is middle class and
is not “painted” or glamorous, and by implication, not explicitly
sexual’ (original emphasis).30 As I argue in the following chapters, this
positioning of British femininity as ‘natural’ and classy persists in these
6 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

contemporary British girl films, in both the films themselves and the
extra-textual discourses that circulate around them and the young
women who star in them.
The ideal postfeminist subject is young, white, able-bodied and
middle class, and at the heart of the postfeminist makeover is the idea
that ‘the right clothes, worn properly, have the power to shatter class
boundaries and allow characters to climb social ladders’, allowing
the subject to occupy the ideal middle-class position.31 A focus on
class continues to be a defining feature of British cinema,32 and class
plays a key role in how postfeminism is articulated within a British
context. Class occupies a tricky position within these films given that
contemporary postfeminist girlhood is ideally middle class. Working-
class protagonists are repeatedly required to transcend class boundaries
and become appropriately feminine, usually via a makeover, but are
ultimately unsuccessful because class barriers remain insurmountable,
such as in Kicks (Heymann 2008) and My Summer of Love (Pawlikowski
2004), which I discuss in Chapter 3. Occasionally, the working-class
protagonist is able to transcend her classed identity in accordance with
meritocratic neoliberal and postfeminist discourses, such as in the
sports films Chalet Girl and StreetDance, which I explore in Chapter 2.

Postfeminist girlhood

Youthful femininity is key to postfeminist culture, and the figure of the

girl has become increasingly visible in popular culture in the twenty-first
century. This has coincided with the development of girl studies as an
academic discipline. Developing out of disciplines such as psychology
and sociology, as well as film, media and cultural studies, girl studies
combines feminist and critical youth studies to explore the variety of
ways in which the girl functions as a representational figure in popular
culture, while also capturing how girls’ subjectivities are constructed in
various cultural, social and historical contexts through studying girls’
lived experiences.33 While young people have always carried a peculiar
 Introduction 7

‘burden of representation’ as indicators of the sign of the times,34 young

women in particular have had to carry most of the weight of this
burden in modernity.35 As Sarah Projansky suggests, in the twenty-first
century the ‘convenient figure of the girl’ resurfaces to work through
contemporary issues such as neoliberalism and postfeminism.36 As
has been well established, postfeminist culture of the 1990s and 2000s
privileged individualized and celebratory discourses of girlhood.
Confident, successful, sexy, assertive and independent ‘can-do girls’
were made ubiquitous through the idea of ‘girl power’.37 Girl power was
associated with a number of iconic female characters within popular
culture such as Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in Buffy the Vampire
Slayer (20th Century Fox 1997–2003) and Lara Croft from the Tomb
Raider video game series, while in the UK, the language of girl power
was popularized by 1990s girl pop group Spice Girls. As Ashby notes,
girl power all at once seemed to ‘link being sexy with being ballsy, to
celebrate female camaraderie while privileging individualism’.38 Girl
power was, therefore, inherently contradictory and depoliticized.
As Rosalind Gill states, can-do girlhood and girl power were about
individual achievement, not feminism.39 Postfeminist ‘can-do’
girlhood, then, put forth a narrow version of ‘acceptable’ girlhood that
encapsulated neoliberal ideologies via the ‘fantasy promise’ that girls
can achieve anything as long as they work hard enough,40 and failure to
succeed is due to an individual lack of effort and character rather than
structural inequalities.
The figure of the ‘can-do’ girl embodies Western neoliberal ideals
around hard work, success and social mobility. In the UK, the figure of
the ‘top girl’ emerged to exemplify New Labour’s desire to present the
UK as an aspirational meritocracy by making the most of their new-
found ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’, by being highly productive in work and
education and displaying their success by investing in consumer culture.
Education was central to New Labour’s campaign to raise the aspirations
of the nation, and young women were at the forefront of New Labour’s
expansion of higher education. ‘Top girls’, as Angela McRobbie argues,
are hard-working, high-achieving, white, middle-class girls destined for
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8 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

elite universities such as Oxford and Cambridge,41 as young women were

‘marked by the possession of grades, qualifications and occupational
identities’, more so than their male peers.42 New Labour missed their
target to get 50 per cent of young people into higher education by
2010, but, as of 2017–18, this target has now been reached, with young
women’s participation in higher education exceeding that of young
men at 57 per cent.43 At the same time that girls’ successes, along with
their new confidence and resilience, were being celebrated, research,
journalism and government policy articulated and reinforced anxieties
around young women, including concerns about eating disorders, low
self-esteem and ‘mean girl behaviour’.44 Jessica Ringrose has identified
these gender-specific concerns as ‘postfeminist panics’. Such panics, she
argues, position girls as ‘overly successful’, ‘overly aggressive’ and ‘overly
sexy’ as a direct consequence of feminist gains; a sign of ‘girl power
taken too far’.45
The (hyper-)visibility afforded to girls means that they have become
‘luminous’,46 ‘sparkling’47 and ‘spectacular’.48 This ‘luminosity’ has been
thought of as regulatory – a moving spotlight that works to soften and
disguise the regulatory dynamics49 – but it is literal as well as symbolic.
As Mary Celeste Kearney argues, sparkle is ubiquitous, dominating
‘girlhood’s visual landscape’ and ‘making our world twinkle and shine
as if it is bedazzled by pixie dust’.50 Unlike earlier forms of sparkle,
such as the magical creation of the dress in Cinderella (1950), in the
twenty-first century sparkle operates as a specific form of postfeminist
glamour, signifying ‘empowerment, visibility and independent
wealth’ in a manner that is easily accessible to girls.51 Despite the
dominance of sparkle in contemporary girl culture, British cinema’s
ambivalent relationship to glamour means that incorporating sparkle
is sometimes difficult for a national cinema associated with realist
modes of filmmaking. As Justine Ashby and Andrew Higson argue,
British cinema ‘has always been promoted in terms of cultural value,
pitting the authentic, indigenous culture of “ordinary people” against
the Americanised culture of glamour, spectacle, commercialism and
mere entertainment’.52 British cinema’s close association with social
 Introduction 9

realism means that British films are often referred to as ‘gritty’, which
has connotations of greyness and discomfort, along with implicitly
aesthetically unambitious filmmaking in comparison with Hollywood
spectacles.53 British cinema’s ambivalence towards sparkle is also
driven by financial as well as cultural concerns, given that budgets for
British film are significantly lower than their Hollywood counterparts,
limiting Britain’s ability to produce sparkling spectacles. Nevertheless,
contemporary British cinema’s girl films have made some deliberate
attempts to incorporate sparkle as part of wider efforts to attract
youth audiences. In 2015, Kenneth Branagh directed a fantasy live-
action remake of Disney’s Cinderella – the exemplar figure of girlhood
– starring Lily James who sparkled in a series of dazzling costumes
by Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell. In addition, as
I argue in Chapter 2, the sports film StreetDance offered sparkle and
spectacle through its incorporation of teen dance film aesthetics and
its presentation of London as a city full of glittering skyscrapers akin
to New York. The amazed reactions of the film’s reviewers here suggest
that sparkle is occasionally welcomed, even if it is not considered
typically British. The incorporation of sparkle in this way is also further
evidence of the continuous ‘push and pull of influence and distinction’
that characterizes British cinema’s relationship with Hollywood.54

British girlhood and celebrity

The increased visibility of girls and girlhood is closely intertwined with

contemporary celebrity culture, both of which are intensely public.55
Celebrity culture is also recognized as a ‘key site in which the “successful
girl” discourse of neoliberalism is reproduced’ through an emphasis on
‘compulsory success’, self-monitoring and transformation and social
mobility.56 At the same time, there is increasing concern about girls’
relationship to celebrity culture in both governmental and media
discourses that express concern about girls’ ‘inappropriate’ ambitions
that entail foregoing hard work for quick and easy fame.57 It is worth
10 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

considering, then, the young women who have emerged as stars of

British cinema during this period, whose stardom exists within the
wider celebrity culture.58 These include Emma Watson, Carey Mulligan,
Lily James, Keira Knightley and Felicity Jones. As Melanie Williams
argues, these stars are all indicative of a ‘reiterative white middle class
femininity’ that is perpetuated by the ‘stranglehold of the “English rose”
ideal in relation to British femininity, which is tied to nostalgic visions
of the past’.59 The star discourse that circulates around Emma Watson
and Felicity Jones in particular, positions them as British postfeminist
‘top girls’ through an emphasis on their elite education (both attended
Oxford University, although Watson as a visiting student), along with
hard work and the fact that they began their careers at an early age. I
discuss the significance of Jones’ ‘top girl’ persona in Chapter 2 in relation
to her role in Chalet Girl. In their study of the role that celebrities play
in young people’s aspirations, Heather Mendick et al. highlight Watson
as a celebrity whom young people frequently referred to as an example
of an ‘achieved’ celebrity whose hard work makes her deserving of
fame, and it is Watson’s middle-class femininity that enables her to
occupy this position.60 I would further add that Watson’s Britishness
also plays a role here, particularly as British femininity is consistently
defined by notions of middle-class respectability in opposition to
artificial American glamour and overt self-display.61 Britain, and
British cinema, has always had a deeply ambivalent relationship with
stardom and celebrity due to connotations of promoting glamour at the
expense of talent and an emphasis on self-display, which sits uneasily
with a national culture that has frequently been represented in terms
of restrained respectability.62 This ambivalence is also apparent within
contemporary British cinema’s girl films, which both acknowledge
contemporary girlhood’s investment in discourses of celebrity and
display unease, with occasional attempts to distance themselves from
a celebrity culture that is closely associated with America. This British
ambivalence towards celebrity culture is inherent within a number of
the films I analyse in the following chapters. The schoolgirl films St
Trinian’s and Wild Child, which I discuss in Chapter 1, suggest that
 Introduction 11

Britain needs to be taught the codes and requirements of celebrity

culture from America, as British girls learn about celebrity from their
American peers, while Kicks in Chapter 3 presents a more overt parable
about the risks of girls’ investment in celebrity culture.

British girlhood and ‘post-postfeminism’

This book examines the mediation of young femininity in British

cinema in films produced between 2000 and 2015. This fifteen-year
period experienced a series of significant political, economic and socio-
cultural shifts that prompted questions about the continued relevance
of postfeminism. As a result of the 2008 financial crash, which triggered
a global economic crisis, the UK entered a period of austerity led by
the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition, which continued under
Theresa May’s Conservative government. Heather Mendick et al.
conceptualize this cultural moment as an ‘austere meritocracy’, which
works to capture the tension between the simultaneous intensification
of meritocratic ideals at the very time that opportunities for upward
social mobility are being diminished due to austerity and the decimation
of the welfare state.63 Although the self-responsible neoliberal subject
remains constant, the context of austerity gave rise to a specific set of
regulative discourses, such as an intensified emphasis on ‘hard work’,
‘optimism’ and ‘resilience’, along with the ‘regulation of consumption
through discourses of “(un)deserving wealth” and “thrift”’.64 This,
in turn, prompted a renewed interest in the British class system in a
recessionary media culture that is characterized by themes of wealth and
inequality.65 These shifting discourses reflect how, as Diane Negra and
Yvonne Tasker argue, postfeminism ‘reads differently now the economic
bubble has burst’66 because the celebratory image of the postfeminist
consumer now looks like a ‘luxury that can no longer be afforded’.67
Instead, postfeminism’s emphasis on choice and empowerment takes
the form of female resourcefulness that draws on British wartime
notions of ‘pluck’ and ‘making do’ as a way of managing and adapting
12 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

to precarity,68 as exemplified by the image of the female cupcake baker

who signifies a comfortably gendered form of entrepreneurialism.69
While postfeminism ‘reads differently now’ post-2008, I argue that
it remains highly relevant as a critical term. As Rosalind Gill argues,
far from receding, postfeminism has ‘spread out and intensified’ across
all aspects of contemporary culture and it is now much more difficult
to identify postfeminism’s distinctive characteristics because ‘its “edges”
have become blurred’.70 In addition to its individualized emphasis
on the body, postfeminism has become increasingly dependent on a
psychologicalized register that is ‘built around cultivating the “right”
kinds of disposition’ necessary to survive in the neoliberal society, such
as aspiration, confidence, resilience, happiness and a positive mental
attitude.71 The intense ‘spread’ of postfeminism means that we can no
longer assume that white, middle-class young women are its sole subjects,
and more recent work has explored postfeminism’s racialized contours
and how it interpellates women of colour,72 while also acknowledging
that postfeminist discourses are intertwined with post-racial discourses,
which both work to relegate gender and race inequality to the past,
while historicizing the political struggles into a linear narrative that
comfortably explains how we arrived at the contemporary ‘post’
moment.73 Postfeminism’s classed dynamics have also been explored.74
As well as adopting intersectional approaches, others have also identified
specific features of postfeminism, such as Alison Winch’s concept of
‘the girlfriend gaze’, which I utilize in an analysis of British cinema’s
depictions of girls’ friendships in Chapter 3.75 The sheer range and reach
of postfeminism in contemporary culture therefore demonstrate that
a nationally specific postfeminist framework is more urgent than ever,
into which this book seeks to make an intervention.
The intensification of postfeminism exists alongside an increased
visibility of feminism in popular culture, particularly in online spaces,
such as Laura Bates’ Everyday Sexism Project,76 which Nicola Rivers
argues characterizes the ‘fourth wave’ of feminism.77 Celebratory
discourses praising the potential that online spaces offer for feminist
activism, however, often obscure the fact that women are frequently
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 Introduction 13

subjected to intense violence and misogyny in these spaces.78

Feminism’s new visibility online also co-exists with the intensification
of (self-) surveillance and regulation via self-determined goals in
pursuit of ‘the good life’ which McRobbie refers to as ‘the perfect’. For
young women in particular, social media sites such as Instagram offer
images of ‘the virtual good life’, as users regulate their posts in the goal
of perfection. ‘The perfect’, and the harsh scrutiny that constitutes
part of its apparatus, consequently evokes forms of suffering that have
become commonplace – a ‘space of everyday femininity’ – such as
cyberbullying.79 Celebrity culture is another key site in which feminism
has become increasingly visible, perhaps best demonstrated by
Beyoncé’s 2014 MTV Video Music Awards performance which saw her
perform in front of a giant illuminated sign stating ‘feminist’, along with
Harry Potter star Emma Watson’s role as a UN Goodwill Ambassador
where she advocates for gender equality as part of her #HeForShe
campaign.80 In interviews, Watson has described how she equates
feminism with ‘choice’ for women,81 indicating a neoliberal imperative
that is key to celebrity feminism.82 This ‘neoliberal feminism’, Catherine
Rottenberg argues, ties individualized mainstream feminism with the
market values of neoliberalism.83 The neoliberal feminist acknowledges
inequalities between men and women but not the social, economic and
cultural forces that produce these inequalities; rather, she internalizes
this by setting goals and taking responsibility for her own self-care.84
Contemporary feminist visibilities are, subsequently, highly uneven.85
The chapters that follow will trace how contemporary British cinema
mediates and responds to these shifting discourses through its
representations of young femininity.

Contemporary British cinema

British cinema has ‘always been a complex site of representation’;86

both an industry with economic structures and particular methods
of classification and a cultural practice that establishes ‘nationhood as
14 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

a distinct, familiar sense of belonging’, defined through comparison

with other national cinemas.87 Any attempts to define Britishness
itself, however, are beyond the scope of this book. While it is naive to
assume that British cinema simply ‘reflects’ British society, it is possible
to trace how British cinema mediates contemporary discourses of
young femininity, as well as the wider political, social and cultural
context in which films are produced and received. When Bend It Like
Beckham was released in 2002, Prime Minister Tony Blair reportedly
enthused that he and his wife Cherie loved the film because ‘this is
my Britain’.88 The postfeminist ‘girl power’ film revolves around two
teenagers Jess (Parminder Nagra) and Jules (Keira Knightley), who
dream of becoming professional footballers but must first overcome
the obstacle of discrimination. Justine Ashby notes how this ‘girl
power movie’ frames ‘questions of racial and sexual identity within an
upbeat, postfeminist idiom’,89 and the film’s feel-good ending, in which
Jess and Jules depart for their new footballing careers in the United
States, assuages a number of social issues, such as racism and sexism, in
keeping with its ‘upbeat postfeminist message’ and presents Britain as
an unproblematically multicultural nation that glosses over continuing
problems of racial discrimination in line with New Labour rhetoric.90
Contemporary British cinema’s girl films are symptomatic of the
British film industry’s organizational structures during this period,
which were characterized by attempts to make British cinema more
mainstream while also remaining culturally British with a distinctive
identity. Efforts to make British film more mainstream began in the
1990s, where film played a key part in a shift towards the ‘creative
industries’, which included a more neoliberal ‘market-savvy and
business-minded approach to film’ that combined mainstream appeal
and commercial success while maintaining a culturally British film
culture.91 The New Labour government introduced a number of
changes as part of this mainstreaming of film culture, including a tax
rebate scheme for production and National Lottery funding. Most
significantly, perhaps, was the introduction of the UK Film Council
(UKFC) in 2000, overseen by the Minster for Culture, Media and Sport,
 Introduction 15

Chris Smith. The UKFC was ‘intended as a single well-funded entity’ that
consolidated a number of single organizations such as the British Film
Institute (BFI), which was responsible for the cultural and educational
promotion of British film.92 These changes were part of Labour’s broader
‘Cool Britannia’ campaign that sought to rebrand the UK as a modern,
multicultural, youthful and creative country, which included focusing
on films that had mainstream appeal while being distinctly British
that were attractive to younger audiences. Elements of this approach
are evident in Gurinder Chadha’s Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
– the follow-up to her earlier British girl film Bend It Like Beckham.
Based on the Confessions of Georgia Nicholson series of young adult
novels by Louise Rennison, Angus is narrated by its fourteen-year-old
protagonist Georgia (Georgia Groome) as she attempts to get a ‘sex
god’ boyfriend with the help of her ‘ace gang’ of girlfriends within the
confines of the seaside town of Eastbourne. When she was approached
to make the film, Chadha saw an opportunity to ‘make a British high
school teen movie in a way that we don’t make them here’.93 The teen
film – a Hollywood construct – is at odds with perceived notions of
British cinema, and yet Chadha was determined to make a culturally
specific teen film. For the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye, Chadha achieves
her aim as she ‘takes on Hollywood’s teenage girl genre movies, like
Mean Girls and Clueless, and gives them a perfect English pitch.94 The
Times’ Kevin Maher also references Hollywood girl teen film Clueless
(Heckerling 1995) in his assertion that the world of Angus is ‘half
Clueless, half Byker Grove’.95 Maher’s comments reflect the tension
between the desire to create a mainstream British film that is influenced
by (and seeking to compete with) Hollywood while also remaining
recognizably British. Contemporary British girl films are therefore
part of a long history of ‘cross Atlantic flows’ of culture between
Britain and the United States.96 Angus incorporates key elements of the
American teen high school film, such as the pursuit of heterosexual
romance and a prom-style moment of visibility for the heroine in the
form of a birthday party at the end of the film. The film is also pre­
sented as distinctly British, which here is configured through its use of
16 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

British slang, and an emphasis on ‘natural’ beauty. Georgia is, as the

Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw claims, a ‘realistically not-conventionally-
pretty heroine’.97 This emphasis on ‘realistic’ and ‘natural’ beauty is
indicative of British cinema’s ambivalent relationship with glamour,
which is a key characteristic of how postfeminism is modified and
articulated in a British context. This more mainstream approach is
particularly evident in Chapter 1, where, I argue, St Trinian’s and Wild
Child attempt to emulate teen high school film conventions while
remaining distinctly British. Similarly, the influence of the Hollywood
sports film is evident in StreetDance, Chalet Girl (Traill 2011) and
Fast Girls (Hall 2012), which I discuss in Chapter 2.
While a more market-driven approach to British film was clearly
evident, the policies introduced in this period ‘typically possessed
implicit cultural underpinnings’ that sought to distinguish the British
film industry.98 In 2007, a new tax rebate scheme was launched for films
with a budget of under £20 million; British films could claim 25 per
cent of their UK expenditure if they passed the ‘cultural test’.99 Films
had to score at least sixteen out of a possible thirty-one points, with
an emphasis on films with themes that evidenced a national cultural
heritage.100 The cultural test, therefore, represented an attempt to create
a specifically British national cinema that was distinct from Hollywood’s
production practices. In practice, the test proved to be largely arbitrary,
meaning that films often considered Hollywood blockbusters, such as
the Harry Potter franchise, could be considered British via their British
themes (the public school system) and their source material. Indeed,
this Britishness is often key to their marketing and appeal.101
The symbiotic relationship between British cinema and television
continued during this period, with public service broadcasters
(PSBs) Channel Four and the BBC becoming ‘key players in the
commercialised British film culture at the turn of the twenty-first
century’.102 Channel Four, in particular, is noted for its support of
British film culture, having focused on making ‘uniquely British films’
for budgets under £10 million throughout the 1980s and 1990s.103 Led
by the increased emphasis on a more commercialized film culture,
 Introduction 17

in 1998 Channel Four consolidated its filmmaking operations into

a ‘single, semi-vertically integrated mini-studio’ in the form of
FilmFour.104 By 2002, FilmFour had scaled back its operations after a
number of expensive disappointments, with production re-integrated
into Channel Four’s Drama department under Tessa Ross before
becoming Film4, a free-to-air digital channel, in 2006.105 The limited
success of FilmFour is, according to Hannah Andrews, indicative of
the tension between its commercial ambitions and its raison d’être: ‘to
produce innovative, non-mainstream work’ for Channel Four.106 Like
Channel Four, the BBC supported films intended for the mainstream,
initially focusing on ‘middle-budget features’ via co-production or
distribution deals with Hollywood studios. Notable examples include
Becoming Jane (Jarrold 2007), in which Hollywood star Anne Hathaway
plays a young Jane Austen opposite James McAvoy, co-produced by BBC
Films and distributed by Miramax in the United States. Similarly, the
middle-budget film (£13.5 million) The Duchess (Dibb 2008), starring
Keira Knightley (discussed in Chapter 4), was co-produced by BBC
Films and the French company Pathé, as well as Paramount Vantage.107
The BBC has also aided efforts to attract youth audiences,
particularly via the various ‘micro-budget schemes’ established in
recent years, which address the BBC’s public service remit through
an emphasis on finding new talent. Micro-budget film schemes such
as Digital Departures support films with budgets of under £1 million
and ensure that a certain percentage of the budget is spent on training
and skills development.108 Digital Departures supported three films
that were developed, filmed and produced in Liverpool in order to
celebrate the city’s status as Capital of Culture 2008: Of Time and City
(Davies 2008), Salvage (Gough 2008) and Kicks (Heymann 2008).
Kicks depicts the friendship between teenagers Nicole (Kerrie Hayes)
and Jasmine (Nichola Burley) who bond over their love for Liverpool
footballer Lee Cassidy (Jamie Doyle), as discussed in Chapter 3. A ‘low-
budget, slightly edgier film’ like Kicks is more contemporary than BBC
Film’s usual output, and is suggestive of attempts by the BBC to attract
a more youthful audience.109 Similarly, Film London’s Microwave
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18 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

scheme, established in 2006 to provide first-time filmmakers with

funding, training and support, produced micro-budget films aimed
at younger and under-represented groups that created more localized
representations of Britain.110 This included films such as Freestyle (Lee
2010), a film about two teenagers who fall in love on the basketball
court, and Ill Manors (Drew 2012), written and directed by the rapper
Plan B and starring Riz Ahmed.
Following the departure of New Labour, the incoming Coalition
government sought to make its own mark on British film policy,
most notably via the dramatic and unexpected closure of the UKFC.
Following the global banking crash of 2008, the UKFC was viewed as a
quango that could no longer be justified within the context of austerity.111
Despite concerns about the quality of some of the films supported by
the UKFC, overall it was considered successful. Its closure came as a
shock to many in the industry, particularly because the announcement
of the closure in 2010 came off the back of a ‘record-breaking year’ for
the British box office, which took £944 million. Furthermore, Culture
Minister Ed Vaizey’s speech following the announcement highlighted
British cinema’s recent successes, including women-centred films such
as Made in Dagenham (Cole 2010) – about the women workers at the
Dagenham Ford factory and their fight for equal pay – and the Gemma
Arterton vehicle Tamara Drewe (Frears 2010), both of which received
funding from the UKFC. Nevertheless, the majority of the UKFC’s
operations were consolidated into the BFI, which was now responsible
for distributing Lottery money and the certification of the new cultural
test introduced in 2014. Now films had to score eighteen points out of
a possible thirty-five. The criteria were expanded to include characters
from the whole of the EU, as long as the dialogue was in English, and an
increase in the number of points available for special effects produced in
the UK. The Regional Screen Agencies in their current form were also
deemed ‘no longer sensible or sustainable’ and reconfigured into a single
national body in Creative England, with ‘hubs’ in the north, Midlands
and south of England.112 This was all part of the government’s plan
to make the British film industry more ‘sustainable’ and mainstream,
 Introduction 19

to create ‘more films that people want to watch’, as Prime Minister

David Cameron said.113 Overall, the Coalition’s film policy was more
or less consistent with New Labour. However, as Hannah Andrews
observes, attempts to make British cinema more commercialized have
manifested through British cinema’s relationship with PSBs. These
include an increased keenness to produce with foreign investors, which
has resulted in a number of films that deal with American themes,
stories and characters, but with ‘British personnel at the helm’ that are
more international in scope rather than ‘straightforwardly British’ such
as Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011).114
While multiculturalism and diversity were held up as markers of
contemporary British cinema in the New Labour period,115 there is still
a considerable lack of diversity in British cinema, and I argue that this
is intensifying. As Melanie Williams suggests, a lack of black, Asian and
ethnic minority (BAME) representation ‘seems to have been a particular
problem of British cinema’.116 Indeed, in 2017, the BFI’s Black Star
research found 59 per cent of British films released in the last ten years
did not feature a single black actor.117 The ‘accelerating gentrification of
British cinema stardom’ via the rise of public school–educated stars such
as Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne is highly noticeable,118
prompting older working-class actors like Julie Walters to remark that
the British film industry seems to be ‘going back the other way’ now,
and how, in this period of austerity, there are very limited opportunities
in the British film industry for those working-class young people who
lack cultural and economic capital.119 This lack of diversity is not just
limited to male actors, however, as demonstrated through this chapter’s
consideration of the young (white and middle-class) female stars who
have made considerable contributions to contemporary British cinema.
Of course, there are exceptions, such as Gugu Mbatha-Raw who plays
the titular Belle (Asante 2013), discussed in Chapter 4. Mbatha-Raw
won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Rising
Star award in 2015 for her performance, and her image was used to
promote the BFI’s new ‘three ticks’ model aimed at promoting on- and
off-screen diversity, as well as creating opportunities for ‘new entrants
20 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

from diverse backgrounds’.120 According to So Mayer, the BFI’s ‘three

ticks’ model is an example of ‘representational justice in action’ that has
led to the increase of women of colour behind the camera in the UK.121

Outline of the book

The key aim of this book is to explore contemporary British cinema’s

construction of young femininity in the period 2000–2015. The
fifteen-year cycle functions to create manageable research boundaries,
although many of the sociopolitical, cultural and industrial factors
I discuss throughout this book both precede and exceed this
periodization. In particular, I explore how contemporary British cinema
mediates postfeminist discourses of girlhood. Discourses are a way of
‘constructing knowledge about a particular topic or practices: a cluster
(or formation) of ideas, images and practices’ which ‘provide ways of
thinking or talking about topics, groups or institutional sites within
society’,122 and I am interested in how British cinema discursively (re)
produces British young femininity.
I conceive of youth as a social construct that is contextually
dependent rather than a biologically fixed category that implies a
‘natural’ state of being.123 The period characterized as youth is also seen
to have extended under neoliberalism due to increased participation
in higher education, and increasingly precarious employment
practices which make traditional markers of adulthood, such as home
ownership, more difficult to obtain.124 Youth is also increasingly defined
as a commercial marketing category, which places the limit of the age
of youth at twenty-five.125 Although these age-based distinctions are
problematic, they are nevertheless useful in providing manageable
research parameters, and as such I define ‘young’ as protagonists
who are between fifteen and twenty-five years old. Similarly, I refer
to characters as ‘girls’ and ‘young women’ as appropriate, given that
girlhood is also not a ‘natural, fixed state of being’.126 This fluidity is
also indicative of what Tasker and Negra refer to as ‘the “girling” of
 Introduction 21

femininity’ in postfeminist culture as part of its celebration of young

women, with the effect of treating women as girls.127
Both the films themselves and their critical reception function
as primary sources, and I have afforded them equal status as far as
possible. The film reviews analysed here are all from UK newspapers
obtained via the Nexis UK newspaper database. These film reviews
act as types of ‘social discourse’ that contribute to the mediation of
young femininity in contemporary British cinema, showcasing how
postfeminist discourses of girlhood circulate around the films in
the wider media culture.128 This is supplemented by extra-textual or
paratextual materials such as interviews, production notes and press
books, where available, in order to provide a thorough understanding
of how these films are both informed by, and contribute to, ideas
about young British femininity in the twenty-first century. The
range of case study films is diverse, encapsulating a variety of genres,
intended audiences and production trends and yet they all sit together
comfortably within their thematic clusters, indicating the dynamism
and variety of British film production during this period, as well as
the pervasiveness of these discourses that work to produce British
cinema’s mediation of young femininity. The book is made up of four
thematic case study chapters – schooling and education, ambition,
friendship, and the search for identity or ‘becoming’ – with four case
studies in each. These themes are common in cultural texts produced
for and about young people, particularly young women, and are not
specific to British cinema. What I am interested in is how British
cinema specifically explores these themes in relation to its mediation
of young femininity. After identifying every British film with a young
woman protagonist released in this period, the films I analyse in the
following chapters exemplify the thematic concerns of each chapter.
Every case study film has been identified as a UK production using
the classification provided by the BFI’s Sight and Sound magazine,
with the occasional UK-US co-production, such as Wild Child and The
Other Boleyn Girl (Chadwick 2008), both of which are thematically
British.
22 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

This book also seeks to identify how postfeminism is modified

and articulated within a British context. Two key components are
present throughout the chapters. First, class plays a prominent role
in these representations. While class is a defining feature of British
cinema more broadly,129 it occupies a tricky position within these
films given that contemporary postfeminist girlhood is ideally middle
class. Working-class protagonists are frequently expected to undergo
a makeover in order to become appropriately feminine and thus
transcend class boundaries, but are ultimately unsuccessful. The second
distinction lies within the use of the postfeminist makeover trope. In
postfeminist culture, the makeover works to ‘reveal the self that has
been there all along’.130 The expression of an ‘authentic’ self is a moral
imperative; in contemporary culture ‘we must know – and express –
who we really are’.131 This is particularly important for young people, as
developmental discourses of youth characterize it as a critical period of
identity formation in which young people undergo an often turbulent
search for the ‘true’ self.132 However, British cinema’s articulation of the
makeover trope is complicated as it is closely tied to its aforementioned
ambivalence towards glamour and sparkle, and consumer culture. As
such, not only is the self revealed by the makeover temporary within
this development of identity but it is also deemed to be not ‘authentic’,
and attention is frequently drawn to the artificiality of the makeover,
particularly for working-class characters.
I first examine how contemporary British girl films discursively
engage with the postfeminist makeover in order to construct a British
postfeminist identity in Chapter 1 via an analysis of schoolgirl films St
Trinian’s and Wild Child. This chapter takes up the theme of schooling
and education by examining how the British girls’ school functions
as a site through which to explore ideas and concerns related to the
‘sexualization’ of teenage girls. The chapter begins with an examination
of two contemporary-set films – St Trinian’s and Wild Child – both of
which are aimed at young girls. The schools in these films are presented
as relics from a past era, but often inherent within this is a critique
of twenty-first-century schooling and the limitations of the national
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 Introduction 23

curriculum. While both of these films engage with ideas about girls’
sexualization, I argue that the characters are not as sexually knowing
or experienced as they wish to be, or as the ‘sexualization’ discourse
suggests, and films’ critical reception discourses similarly demonstrate
that the films are not viewed as colluding with these moral panics. The
second section of this chapter discusses two girls’ school films set in
the 1960s: An Education (Scherfig 2009) and The Falling (Morley 2014).
These films explore girls’ sexuality in relation to the changing mores of
the 1960s, and concerns about promiscuity and increased female sexual
autonomy. Despite their period setting, I demonstrate how a number
of parallels can be drawn between these concerns in the 1960s and the
contemporary discourses surrounding girls’ sexuality discussed in this
chapter.
Chapter 2 uses the British girl-centred sports film to explore how
discourses of aspiration are mediated. This is primarily achieved via
a focus on more mainstream, commercially orientated films like
StreetDance 3D (2010), Chalet Girl (Traill 2011) and Fast Girls (Clarke
2012). While the girl protagonist’s working-class identity is presented as
a significant barrier to success in these films, this is easily overcome in
keeping with meritocratic discourses of aspiration and an emphasis on
feel-good optimism. The production and critical reception discourses
of these films also contribute to the films’ mediation of aspiration by
highlighting the ambition of the British film industry itself through
emphasizing the films’ deliberately glossy aesthetics as a distinct move
away from British realist traditions. The chapter begins, however, with a
discussion of Fish Tank (Arnold 2009). Although, as a social realist text,
Fish Tank seems like an anomaly, when considered along with these
other films, Fish Tank and its mediation of girls’ ambitions functions
as part of a dialogue about what it means to be a British ambitious girl.
Class is also a significant concern in Chapter 3, which is concerned
with ambivalent and ambiguous depictions of girl friendship, and the
impact friendship has upon the formation of identity, drawing on the
notion of the ‘postfeminist sisterhood’.133 I argue that British cinema’s
girlfriends most often come in pairs, with one working-class and
24 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

one middle-class girl. In Me Without You (Goldbacher 2001), Kicks,

Albatross (MacCormick 2011) and My Summer of Love (Pawlikowski
2004), the girlfriends support each other in their quest for visibility and
their ‘authentic’ self. The makeover trope is key here but rather than
producing the ideal postfeminist self by revealing the ‘true self ’, these
makeovers are deemed to be temporary and inauthentic and fail to
lead to the postfeminist ‘perfect self ’.134 This is particularly the case for
the working-class characters, such Nicole (Kerrie Hayes) in Kicks and
Mona (Natalie Press) in My Summer of Love, who are shown to know
that they will not achieve this, despite their best efforts.
The final chapter takes on the British historical films that are ‘filtered
through the lens of the postfeminist movement’ through depictions
of four aristocratic and royal young women – Anne Boleyn, Queen
Victoria, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and Dido Elizabeth Belle.135
I explore the production discourses of these films that emphasize
a deliberate move away from the Merchant Ivory–style of British
heritage films as part of the films’ attempts to construct these well-
known historical figures as twenty-first-century British girls. Overall,
these films raise pertinent questions about young women’s freedom
and power, and the idea that attempting to maintain postfeminist
ideals leads to anxiety and a fragmented sense of identity. However,
these become depoliticized through being either subsumed into a love
story or merely accepted. Finally, I conclude by summarizing how the
depictions of young femininity in these films help us to understand
postfeminism within a specifically British context.
 1

Education and ‘sexualization’ in

the British girls’ school film

In the introduction, I argued that British cinema has seen a significant

increase in the number of girl films in the twenty-first century as part of
a more concerted engagement with girl culture and an increased effort
to attract youth audiences. One of the ways in which this is apparent
is through the increase in girls’ school films during this period. These
films, I argue, function in part to explore contemporary postfeminist
anxieties about girls’ sexualities and ‘sexualization’ (Ringrose 2013).
The school film has always been considered a quintessentially British
genre. As Stephen Glynn argues, ‘the school film constitutes part of the
DNA of British cinema and society’,1 its narrative allowing filmmakers
to ‘comment on explicit education and broader socio-cultural issues’.2
Films such as Goodbye, Mr Chips (Wood 1939) presented the boarding
school as a safe and unchanging world that ‘promoted the wisdom of
the traditional value system’.3 British cinema’s interest in the school film
intensified during the 1950s, along with an increased desire to attract
youth audiences in the face of competition from television and other
leisure activities.4 By the 1960s, the Labour government was making
plans to introduce comprehensive secondary education that moved
away from selection. By 1965, the boarding school film had virtually
disappeared, with Lindsay Anderson’s If (1968) signalling a violent
end to the boarding school film through post-war rebellion against
public school order and tradition as the school is literally blown up.5
Historically, girls have largely been absent from the British school film
genre, except for notable examples such as the St Trinian’s series (1954–
66, 1980) and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Neame 1969), which
26 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

centred around the charismatic Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith) and her
select group of pupils at a school in the 1930s. There is a much richer
tradition of British girls’ school stories in literature, however, through
the work of Angela Brazil and Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers series.
British cinema’s renewed interest in the school film was undoubtedly
fuelled by the phenomenal international success of the Harry Potter film
franchise, which offered not just magical fantasy but also a nostalgic
fantasy version of the past and traditional notions of Britishness.6 The
cultural influence of Harry Potter on perceptions of the British boarding
school and the British school film is evident in the two contemporary-
set school films discussed in this chapter – St Trinian’s (Parker and
Thompson 2007) and Wild Child (Moore 2008) – as both ironically draw
attention to its legacy. On arriving at Abbey Mount boarding school,
Wild Child’s Poppy (Emma Roberts) remarks, ‘What is this place,
Hogwarts?’, while the ramshackle St Trinian’s is disparagingly deemed
‘Hogwarts for pikeys’.7 The girls’ school film has been a key feature of
this increased interest in the British school film, encompassing a variety
of genres and intended audiences, including St Trinian’s, Wild Child and
the horror film The Hole (Hamm 2001). A number of recent girls’ school
films have also been set in the past, such as An Education (Scherfig
2009), Cracks (Scott 2008) – centred around a charismatic Jean Brodie-
esque teacher Miss G (Eva Green) in a remote girls’ school in the 1930s
– The Falling (Morley 2014) and (more ambiguously) Never Let Me Go
(Romaneck 2010). In a number of these films, girls’ education takes
place within the confined and highly regulated space of the single-sex
school, where tensions, passions and jealousies destabilize the school’s
order. This has historically been a key feature of the British girls’ school
film and one to which it continues to return. The British school film also
continues to be ‘most unyielding in its depiction of social class’, with
an emphasis on upper-middle-class hegemony.8 The films analysed in
this chapter – St Trinian’s, Wild Child, An Education and The Falling –
all tend towards depictions of middle-class girlhood, or at least, not
overtly working class. Even St Trinian’s, which has historically provided
an antidote to this by featuring shabbier gentile girls or nouveau-riche
 Education and ‘Sexualization’ in the British Girls’ School Film 27

girls, has moved towards depicting the characters as middle class in

line with dominant discourses of postfeminist girlhood, which present
white, middle-class femininity as the default ideal.9 Although still
presenting a more ambiguous class status, the characters in the revived
St Trinian’s were considered to have ‘gone posh’ in comparison with the
girls from the original films of the 1950s and 1960s.10
This chapter explores how the same-sex school functions in
British cinema as a representational site through which to explore
contemporary anxieties about girls’ sexuality and sexualization. As
Stephen Glynn notes, in the British school film ‘burgeoning female
sexuality has been a constant source of quasi-terror and demonised
as corrosive to a fully functioning society’.11 The contemporary British
girls’ school film is therefore ideally placed to explore ‘postfeminist
panics’ over girls’ sexuality and sexualization, which have emerged
alongside girls’ increased visibility within educational discourses via
the figure of the ‘top girl’.12. As Angela McRobbie has argued, since the
1990s, young women have been cast as the key beneficiaries of social
change and offered a notional form of equality in the guise of ‘the
new sexual contract’. Education is a key site in which this new sexual
contract is mobilized, where young women are encouraged to use their
newly acquired ‘freedom’ to gain qualifications and earn enough money
to enable them to participate in consumer culture.13 Here, girls, more
so than boys, are marked by their grades and occupational identities,
with a particular ‘luminosity’ on the ‘top girl’, a figure mobilized on
the values of the new meritocracy promoted by New Labour that
coincided with a period of expansion of higher education.14 The ‘top
girls’ are hard-working, high achieving – usually white and middle
class – and destined for Oxford or Cambridge.15 This increased focus
on girls’ educational success has, somewhat inevitably, led to a backlash
in the form of a moral panic about boys’ failure that is centred around
white working-class boys in particular.16 This concern is exemplified
by comments made by the Conservative minister for Universities and
Science, David Willetts, in 2011, when he claimed that feminism was
the ‘key factor’ contributing to the economic decline in the UK, as the
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28 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

increase in education and employment opportunities for women since

the 1970s had led to a lack of social mobility for working-class men.17
The rise of the ‘top girl’ has occurred simultaneously with a moral
panic over girls’ sexuality and ‘sexualization’, particularly the idea
that girls are being ‘adultified’ and sexualized before they are ready.
This panic reached fever pitch in the 2000s via a ‘consistent stream of
newspaper headlines’,18 government reviews such as the ‘Review on the
Sexualization of Young People’19 and campaigns such as Mumsnet’s ‘Let
Girls be Girls’, which was concerned that ‘an increasingly sexualised
culture was dripping toxically into the lives of children’.20 This concern
over the sexualization of girls in particular exists alongside the rise
of what journalist Ariel Levy has termed ‘raunch culture’, a strand of
postfeminism that emerged in the early years of the twenty-first century,
promoting a ‘pornified’ version of female sexuality that encourages
women to make sex objects of themselves in order to feel empowered.21
Younger girls were also incorporated into this raunch culture through
media imagery and consumer culture, such as clothing with ‘sexy’
slogans, which fuelled concern that girls were being encouraged to
become sexually active at a (too) young age. As Jessica Ringrose argues,
this concern over sexualization is a specifically postfeminist panic
because sexualization is poisoned as a result of ‘too much and too
early sexual liberation on the back of feminist gains’.22 Girls’ sexuality
is therefore simultaneously presented as ‘at-risk’ from sexualization
via media and consumer culture and ‘risky’ through their supposed
participation in such a culture.
This chapter examines how young femininity is constructed within
recent British girls’ school films via the mediation of the postfeminist
‘sexualization’ discourse, as well as educational discourses more broadly,
beginning with two contemporary-set boarding school films: St Trinian’s
and Wild Child. I analyse these films in relation to the ways in which
they engage with contemporary discourses around girls’ education and
sexuality, and also how they utilize the postfeminist makeover trope
to construct a nationally specific postfeminist feminine identity as the
ideal. St Trinian’s and Wild Child are two examples of British tween
 Education and ‘Sexualization’ in the British Girls’ School Film 29

films. As Melanie Kennedy has theorized, the tween is a gendered,

aged, raced and classed subject engaged in a transitional process of
‘becoming’ from girlhood to young womanhood. Emerging in the
1990s, the tween is a discursive construct of the postfeminist context,
‘marked by the distinct coming together of the rhetoric of choice and
authenticity, together with the themes of makeover, princesshood and
celebrity’.23 Tween popular culture grew exponentially during the 2000s,
dominated by Disney, via texts such as the Hannah Montana television
series (2006–2011) and the High School Musical film franchise (2006,
2007, 2008). These texts construct and address the tween as needing
to build and maintain an appropriate ‘authentic’ feminine identity
through a rhetoric of choice that presents a postfeminist identity as the
ideal and ‘natural’ choice.24 While, on the one hand, the tween (and
tweenhood) is a discursive construct, on the other hand, it is also a
consumer demographic consisting of girls aged between nine and
fourteen years. St Trinian’s and Wild Child represent British cinema’s
attempts to address this audience within an area of popular culture that
has been dominated by the United States. In doing so, I argue, these
films construct a British postfeminist identity as the ideal.
Following this, I discuss two girls’ school films set in the 1960s: An
Education and The Falling. The 1960s setting is significant here because
it marked another period when concerns and anxieties around young
women’s sexuality came to the fore. This was the decade that witnessed
key moments of political and social change, such as the introduction
of the contraceptive pill in 1961, although initially only for married
women, and the legalization of abortion in 1967. The idea of the
‘swinging sixties’ dominates cultural representations of the period,
particularly via the figure of the ‘single girl’, a youthful, liberated and
mobile figure as depicted in British cinema by Julie Christie in films
such as Billy Liar (1963) and Darling (1965). The figure of the ‘single
girl’ chimes closely with the ‘empowered’ young woman of postfeminist
culture, so it is unsurprising that texts set in the 1960s function as a
site of, what Lynn Spigel terms, ‘postfeminist nostalgia’. Using the US
television series Mad Men (2007–2015) as an example, Spigel argues
30 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

that this postfeminist nostalgia offers a reimagining of the past, where

urbane and cosmopolitan women have a certain amount of power and
mobility but do not yet have feminism.25 However, An Education and
The Falling trouble this idea of postfeminist nostalgia via the confined
space of the British girls’ school where the 1960s are yet to swing.

Postfeminist (school)girl power in

St Trinian’s (2007) and Wild Child (2008)

In 2002, Ealing Studios announced that it was reviving the iconic St

Trinian’s films as part of a £50 million redevelopment plan. Based on
the cartoons of Ronald Searle, the St Trinian’s series began in 1954 with
The Belles of St Trinian’s (Launder 1954). The original series consisted
of five films produced between 1954 and 1980 and dealt with the
exploits of the unruly pupils of the infamous St Trinian’s School for
Young Ladies. As Emma Bell notes, the films ‘play[ed] on the postwar
decline of the British upper class’ with its depiction of a crumbling
relic of a boarding school, the elitist ‘cradle of the British class system’.
More importantly, the films depicted young womanhood as unruly,
offering the pleasure of the ‘spectacle of the destructive female group
that challenged established social order’.26 The legacy of the films and
their depictions of law-breaking schoolgirls who liked to drink, smoke
and gamble mean that ‘St Trinian’s has become shorthand for anarchic
female subordination’.27
The St Trinian’s films are associated with a ‘peculiarly British’
representation of girlhood,28 so it is unsurprising that this iconic girl-
centred series should be revived during a period when British cinema
showed a significant interest in girls and young women, and made
a concerted effort to attract youth audiences. St Trinian’s (2007) was
directed by Oliver Parker and Barnaby Thompson and produced by
Ealing Studios with support from the UKFC, with a budget of £7 million.
The film stars Rupert Everett as headmistress Camilla Fritton and
 Education and ‘Sexualization’ in the British Girls’ School Film 31

Talulah Riley as new girl Annabelle Fritton, who arrives at St Trinian’s

as an ex-pupil of the prestigious boarding school Cheltenham Ladies’
College. In order to revive the school’s finances and prevent its closure,
the girls devise a heist to steal Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl
Earring from the National Gallery. The film was a surprise success,
making around £12.5 million at the UK box office.29 Producer Barnaby
Thompson attributes the film’s success in part to the fact that the film
targeted girls aged between ten and sixteen, which he highlights as an
underserved demographic within British cinema: ‘For them to see other
girls up on screen leading the story was something they found thrilling
that they could relate to.’30 With the redevelopment of Ealing, and its
reputation hinging on St Trinian’s, it was hugely important that the
revival was a success not only at home but also internationally. Ealing’s
Head of Sales, Natalie Brenner, was fully aware of the challenges of
selling a very ‘British’ film series that ‘has a history of being successful
only in the UK’ to international audiences.31 It was therefore crucial
that the film included a mix of this ‘peculiarly British’ representation
of girlhood that St Trinian’s is known for, along with transatlantic
elements that are usually found in American high school movies, such
as the division of girls into cliques and a postfeminist makeover, which
I discuss later. Actress Talulah Riley best sums up the approach by
describing the film as ‘Hogwarts meets Mean Girls’.32
In this revival, the rebellious and anarchic spirit of the earlier films
has been subsumed into the language of ‘girl power’. Girl power is part
of the postfeminist lexicon of female success and empowerment that, in
the UK, was closely associated with the 1990s girl group Spice Girls. As
Justine Ashby argues, the ‘boisterous’ language of girl power presented
a logic that ‘somehow managed to link being sexy with being ballsy,
to celebrate female camaraderie while privileging individualism’.33 The
film’s emphasis on girl power can be attributed, in part, to the fact that
Barnaby Thompson was also the producer of Spice World (Spiers 1997).
The aesthetic similarities between the two films are also highlighted
in reviews of the film, with the Daily Mail’s Chris Tookey noting how
‘the movie it most resembles is not any of the St Trinian’s movies of
32 Young Women, Girls and Postfeminism in Contemporary British Film

the Fifties and Sixties, but Spiceworld [sic]: The Movie, which had very
much the same mixture of high spirits, camp and cheerful trashiness’.34
The boisterous attitude of girl power therefore dovetails with the figure
of the fearless and assertive St Trinian’s girl, as Gemma Arterton, who
plays Head Girl Kelly, explains in an interview in the Evening Standard:
‘Our film is more about girl power. It’s the message we really want to
push. I don’t think there’s a point in the film where the girls aren’t in
control: they’re doing the trampling rather than being trampled on.’35
However, due to the prevalence of the girl power discourse in
contemporary media culture, St Trinian’s girls are no longer viewed as
anarchic or subversive. As Damon Smith writes in the Herald Express,
‘Unlike the naughty hockey-stick wielding minxes’ of the original films,
the new St Trinian’s girls ‘don’t seem fearsome at all’.36 The spectacle
of girls behaving in such an incongruously aggressive way was one of
the main attractions of the original films, but this kind of ‘unladylike’
behaviour is now considered commonplace through the evocation of
girl power. Throughout the film reviews, there is a strong sense that not
only have the St Trinian’s girls lost their shock value but the behaviour
of the characters on screen also could not be any worse than some
real-life girls today. As Smith writes, ‘keeping in mind the nightmarish
headlines about drugs, violence and bullying in our classrooms, the
pranks of these girl cliques are now rather tame’.37 Similarly, the Daily
Mail’s Chris Tookey claims that the original girls were a ‘refreshing
corrective to the straight-laced image of British public schoolgirls; now,
they merely look like girls at any inner-city comprehensive, but with
fewer knives and pregnancies’.38 These kinds of comments draw on and
perpetuate the ‘postfeminist panics’ within the media around girls and
their education that suggest that girl power has ‘gone too far’.39 This
includes panic around the so-called ‘mean girl’ behaviour and bullying,
as well as concerns about the ‘at-risk’ working-class girls who leave
school without qualifications and are more likely to become pregnant
at a young age.40 This discourse of girl power ‘gone too far’ is discussed
not just within education but also in relation to society more broadly. In
his review for the Sunday Times, Cosmo Landesman claims the original
This is other document not relate ebook and scribd .
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Finance, Saving and
A Closer Look at Part-Time Employmen t 161
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
PART 1
The Short-Run Policy
Price: A Marke t's Automatic Regulato r 96
Appendix : Measuring Real GDP 147
Aggregate Expenditure
of Parkin, Economics (Pearson) and Foundations of Economics (Pearson) . They
A Stu den t's CPI 193
12.4 The AD Curve and Equilibrium
and edited volumes, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political
1.2 The Economic Way of Thinking 8
What in the Global Economy? 40
high school mathematics and physics, she enrolled as a Ph.D. student at ANU,
5.3 The Uses and Limitations of Real
Demand Sched ule and Deman d Curve 85
Why Did the Price of Coffee Fall? 101
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
11 .2 Aggregate Demand 296
GDP and Related Measures of Production and
3.4 Specialisation and Trade 71
The Standard of Living Over Time 133
Curve 351
CHAPTER REVIEW 314
A Closer Look at Part-Time Employmen t 161
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
REVIEW 4.4 112
Western Ontario.
• EYE on the DREAMLINER
• EYE on the PAST
Imports and Real GDP 322
New Growt h Theory 218
Income 119
The Multiplier, Impor ts and Income Taxes 332
Is Wind Power Free? 66
Comparative Advantage : An Example 72
• EYE on the TRADEOFF
Copyright e Pearson Australia (a division ol Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2011>-9781486019632-
Parkin/Macroeconomics le
Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking. He became most visible to the public with his
Cons tructing the CPI 176
Changes in the Demand for Money 278
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 373
Australian Economic Growth, Inflation and the
APPENDIX REVIEW 150
Hit? 192
The "Invention" of Banking 267
Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Monetary Economics and the
of Monetan; Economics. His research in macroeconomics, monetary economics and
• EYE on th e NEWS
1 3.2 Short-Run and Long-Run Phillips Curves 356
Effects of Changes in Demand 98
How Do We Track the Booms and Busts in Our
• EYE on the PAST
• EYE on the PAST
Deflatio n and the Great Depress ion 308
CHAPTER 12
Nominal GDP and Real GDP 189
12.3 Expenditure Multipliers 330
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 201
Aggregate Supply and Aggregate
CHAPTER 13
• EYE on the DREAMLINER
Interpre ting Graphs Used in Economic Models 24
GDP and Related Measures of Production and
Changes in the Natural Unemp loyme nt Rate 359
How Do We Track the Booms and Busts in Our
CHAPTER2
IX
Multiplier? 334
CHAPTER REVIEW 226
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
CHAPTER 12
Western Ontario.
growing body of students.
XII I
Money Today 260
Economic Growth 201
CHAPTER REVIEW 114
Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking. He became most visible to the public with his
Induced Expendi ture and Auto nomous
REVIEW 12.3 335
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
REVIEW 5.3 142
CHAPTER REVIEW 114
• EYE on the PAST
12.1 Expenditure Plans and Real GDP 318
has served on the editorial boards of the American Economic Review and the Journal
1 Getting Started 1
Consensus 381
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
2.2 The Global Economy 39
Employment 163
• EYE on the PAST
REVIEW 4.1 89
Your Labour Market Status and Activity 166
Inflation Cycles 306
Is Wind Power Free? 66
7.2 The CPI and Other Price Level Measures 182
Insolvency and Illiquidity 234
Cheques, Cred it Cards, Debit Cards and Smart
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 31
3.2 Opportunity Cost 64
The Functions of Money 258
Calculating the CPI 178
What We Produce 33
REVIEW 5.1 124
Money and Your Role in Its Creation 270
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 57
Demand 289
Have Changes in the Natural Unemployment Rate
CHAPTER SUMMARY 197
Nominal GDP and Real GDP 189
How Does the Reserve Bank Create Money and
REVIEW 3.1 63
Tradeoff 349
How Long Does It Take to Find a Job? 164
REVIEW 12.4 340
• EYE on the PAST
Regulate Its Quantity? 275
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
• EYE on the NEWS
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Changes in Aggregate Demand 298
Oppo rtun ity Cos t Is a Ratio 65
Have Changes in the Natural Unemployment Rate
Illustra ting Changes in Buying Plans 88
Expan ding Prod uction Possibilities 69
13.1 The Short-Run Phillips Curve 350
Nominal Wage Rate and Real Wage Rate 190
REVIEW 3.3 70
Expected Inflation 357
What, How and For Whom? 3
Music, theatre, opera, art and walking on the beach provide their relaxation
The Law of Supply 90
The Austra lian and Global Economies in Your Life 45
• EYE on the UNEMPLOYED
CHAPTER9
Rational Choice 9
IX
• EYE on the NEWS
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
The CPI Market Basket 176
REVIEW 4.2 95
Economic Growth 201
• EYE on the PAST
The Money Market in the Long Run 281
"Natural" Unemployment 164
CHAPTER SUMMARY 53
• EYE on the BOOMS and BUSTS
9.3 Government in Loanable Funds Market 246
The Aggregate Demand Multiplier 300
7 .1 The Consumer Price Index 176
Changes in the Natural Unemp loyme nt Rate 359
from which she graduated in 1970. She has held faculty appointments at the
Say's Law and Keynes' Principle of Effective
A Live Test of the Natural Rate Hypothesis 359
CHAPTER SUMMARY 143
A Closer Look at Part-Time Employmen t 161
14.1 The Commonwealth Budget 374
9.1 Financial Institutions and Markets 230
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Expan ding Prod uction Possibilities 69
3 The Economic Problem 57
Interpre ting Graphs Used in Economic Models 24
UNIVERSITY
• EYE on the NEWS
REVIEW 13.3 368
8.1 The Basics of Economic Growth 202
The Money Multiplier 274
REVIEW 6.1 156
4 .1 Demand 85
Supply Sched ule and Supply Curve 90
The Income Approach 127
• EYE on th e NEWS
Looking for Mul tipliers 333
REVIEW 1 0.1 263
Are We Heading for a Recession? 140
CHAPTER SUMMARY 225
Nominal Wage Rate and Real Wage Rate 190
Australian Economic Growth, Inflation and the
Official Measures of Money: Ml and M3 260
CHAPTER REVIEW 314
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The Budget Time Bomb 378
Preconditions for Prod uctivity Growth 216
CHAPTER4
Living? 139
Science 13
Circu lar Flows in the Global Economy 50
Budget Balance and Debt 376
The Budget Time Bomb 378
Music, theatre, opera, art and walking on the beach provide their relaxation
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1
Labour Force Survey 152
Aggregate Supply and the Shor t-Run Phillips
How Open Market Operations Change the
Expected Inflation 357
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 317
Economics Defined 2
The Money Multiplier 274
Expenditure 336
where she earned degrees in mathematics and economics. After a spell teaching
Unemployment Around the World 158
Effects of Changes in Both Demand and Supp ly 102
United States 191
How Do We Track the Booms and Busts in Our
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 317
What We Produce 33
The Money Market in the Long Run 281
Cost: What You Must Give Up 8
Aggregate Supp ly Basics 290
independence of the new European Central Bank, but its constitution and the
Broader Measures of Unemp loyment 154
Living 175
Differences in H ow We Produce 43
8.1 The Basics of Economic Growth 202
Demand and Supply 83
Changed the Tradeoff? 360
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
Achieving Gains from Trade 74
The Economic Problem 57
Investment 229
PART 2 MONITORING THE MACROECONOMY
CHAPTER REVIEW 114
10.1 What is Money? 258
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
REVIEW 4.2 95
CHAPTER REVIEW 370
The Business Cycle 305
Robin and Michael are a wife-and -husband team. Their most notable joint
CHAPTER 13
IX
CONTENTS XIX
4 .2 Supply 90
Is a Computer Program an Intermed ia te Good or a
Aggregate Expenditure
The Pace o f Productivity Growt h 217
The Expenditure Mul tiplier in Reverse Gear 338
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
• EYE on the PAST
CHAPTER REVIEW 54
REVIEW 7.1 181
REVIEW 11.1 295
7.3 Nominal and Real Values 188
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
• EYE on the PAST
7.2 The CPI and Other Price Level Measures 182
Opportun ity Cos t and the Slope of the PPF 65
Financial Institutions 233
REVIEW 3.2 67
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 229
PA RT 4 M A CROE CONOMIC POLI CY
The Monthl y Price Survey 177
The Nominal Interest Rate 279
• EYE on the PAST
What in the Global Economy? 40
Comparative Advantage : An Example 72
Multiplier? 334
Who Makes the Dreamline r? 41
CHAPTER SUMMARY 79
Business Cycle 304
Adam Smith and the Birth of Economics as a Social
XVIII C ONTENTS
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
Labour Force Survey 152
Production Possibilities Frontier 58
GDP Defined 120
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
• EYE on th e PRICE of COFFEE
Science 13
in England and began his university teaching career immediate ly after graduating
Structural Unemp loyment 163
7 The CPI and the Cost of Living 175
spawned a vast amount of research on that topic. They don't claim credit for the
2.3
Economic Growth 201
2.3
• EYE on the NEWS
Economies 31
CHAPTER REVIEW 114
PART4
and edited volumes, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political
The CPI Market Basket 176
XIV C ONTEN TS
Aggregate Expenditure
in this text while conducting tutorials with her students at the University of
How in the Global Economy? 42
Interpre ting Data Graphs 22
A Government Budget Surp lus 246
• EYE on the NEWS
The Monthl y Price Survey 177
The Labour Force Survey 155
REVIEW 12.1 323
Australian Economic Growth, Inflation and the
REVIEW 12.3 335
Are We Heading for a Recession? 140
Why Bother with the Phillips Curve? 354
Effects of Changes in Supply 100
REVIEW 3.1 63
• EYE on th e GLOBAL ECONOMY
To Harry, Lucy, Ruby, Madeleine
The Budget Making Process 374
To Harry, Lucy, Ruby, Madeleine
Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Monetary Economics and the
• EYE on the NEWS
CHAPTER 1
REVIEW 5.3 142
youngest full professors. His many visiting positions include spells at the Reserve
Changes in How We Prod uce in the Informatio n
• EYE on the NEWS
The Supply of Money 279
Your Production Possibilities Frontier 62
Economic Growth Versus Business Cycle
REVIEW 12.4 340
Living? 139
3.3 Economic Growth 68
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
are dedicated to the challenge of explaining economics ever more clearly to a
Definition of Money 258
Induced Expendi ture and Auto nomous
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
Can the Pursui t of Self-Interest Be in the Social
Preconditions for Prod uctivity Growth 216
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
GDP and Related Measures of Production and
7.3 Nominal and Real Values 188
REVIEW 10.3 276
Who Makes the Dreamline r? 41
How You Influe nce and Are Influenced by Economic
The Short-Run Policy
6.3 Unemployment and Full
The CPI and the Cost of
Rational Choice 9
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
REVIEW 6.2 162
The Markets for Cocoa and Chocolate 99
REVIEW 8.2 215
Brief Contents
Business Cycle 304
Hong Kong's Rapid Economic Growth 70
The Supply of Money 279
Money Today 260
Nominal Wage Rate and Real Wage Rate 190
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Induced Expendi ture and Auto nomous
• EYE on the BUSINESS CYCLE
Economics Defined 2
Price Ceiling or Price Cap 107
About the Authors
CHAPTER SUMMARY 17
Employment 163
3 The Economic Problem 57
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
CHAPTER REVIEW 370
The Problem With Base-Year Prices 147
Why Are Some Nations Rich and Othe rs Poor? 221
• EYE on CREATING MONEY
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
Economies 31
The U.S. Phillips Curve 354
The Money Market in the Long Run 281
Production and Income 119
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Economic Ideas 8
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Your Participation in the Loanab le Funds
Changes in What We Prod uce 34
CHAPTER 13
Nominal Wage Rate and Real Wage Rate 190
CHAPTER SUMMARY 197
Hit? 192
REVIEW 9.2 245
Illustra ting Changes in Buying Plans 88
Pred icting Price Changes : Three Questio ns 97
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Macroeconomics (Prentice -Hall), Modern Macroeconomics (Pearson Education
GDP 133
Business Cycle 304
Pred icting Price Changes : Three Questio ns 97
Choices Respond to Incentives 11
14.2 Fiscal Stimulus 381
Price: A Marke t's Automatic Regulato r 96
Circular Flows in the Australian Economy 121
Australian Economic Growth, Inflation and the
are dedicated to the challenge of explaining economics ever more clearly to a
INTRODUCTION
Bank of Australia, the University of New South Wales, Bond University and the
REVIEW 7.2 187
Unemployment Around the World 158
6.2 Labour Market Trends and
Macroeconomics (Prentice -Hall), Modern Macroeconomics (Pearson Education
Economic Ideas 8
Aggregate Supply and Aggregate
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Living 175
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
United States 191
CHAPTER REVIEW 54
Appendix : Making and Using Graphs 21
4 .3 Market Equilibrium 96
INTRODUCTION
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 373
CHAPTER REVIEW 198
The Basic Idea of the Multiplier 330
Interpre ting Data Graphs 22
Cheques, Cred it Cards, Debit Cards and Smart
MACROECONOMIC POLICY
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
The Multiplier, Impor ts and Income Taxes 332
Unemployment 363
REVIEW 2.3 52
has served on the editorial boards of the American Economic Review and the Journal
appears in the International Economic Review and the Economic Record.
What We Produce 33
Deriving the AD Curve from Equilibrium
CHAPTER REVIEW 254
REVIEW 2.3 52
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16 International Trade Policy 433
Some Finance Defini tions 230
• EYE on the UNEMPLOYED
Deriving the AD Curve from Equilibrium
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 317
Jobs and Unemployment 151
The Magnitu de of the Bias 183
Multiplier 317
REVIEW 13.2 362
Calcu lating Grow th Rates 202
9 Finance, Saving and Investment 229
United States 191
Illustra ting Changes in Buying Plans 88
Scarcity 2
Sticky Price 109
2008? 309
United States 211
Equilibrium Expenditure 326
Did You Make the Right Decision? 15
REVIEW 5.1 124
appears in the International Economic Review and the Economic Record.
CHAPTER REVIEW 370
Can We Have Low Inflation and Low
15 Monetary Policy 403
Scarcity 2
700 Years of Inflation and Defla tion 180
Scarcity 2
Economic Ideas 8
PART 1
from which she graduated in 1970. She has held faculty appointments at the
Looking for Mul tipliers 333
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
• EYE on the DREAMLINER
Changes in Demand and Supply 244
Grow th of the Supp ly of Labour 208
11 Aggregate Supply and Aggregate Demand 289
Unemployment Rate 157
Macroeconomic Equilibrium 302
The Consumptio n Function 318
The Fluctuating Size of Governme nt 50
Three Types of Macroeco nomic Equilibrium 303
REVIEW 8.3 224
CHAPTER REVIEW 114
12 Aggregate Expenditure Multiplier 31 7
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
1 3.3 Influencing Inflation and
Curve 351
REVIEW 2.2 45
in this text while conducting tutorials with her students at the University of
The Functions of Money 258
Aggregate Supply and Aggregate
REVIEW 1 0.1 263
How Big Is the Government Expend iture
of Parkin, Economics (Pearson) and Foundations of Economics (Pearson) . They
Hong Kong's Rapid Economic Growth 70
research created the Bade-Parkin Index of central bank independence and
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 317
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
The U.S. Phillips Curve 354
Price Ceiling or Price Cap 107
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• EYE on th e NEWS
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A Stu den t's CPI 193
CHAPTER2
are dedicated to the challenge of explaining economics ever more clearly to a
CHAPTER SUMMARY 79
Deflatio n and the Great Depress ion 308
Your Production Possibilities Frontier 62
How Does the Reserve Bank Create Money and
Appendix : Making and Using Graphs 21
The Law of Supply 90
Robin and Michael are a wife-and -husband team. Their most notable joint
Effects of Changes in Demand 98
REVIEW 4.3 104
Curve 351
12.1 Expenditure Plans and Real GDP 318
Inflation and Unemployment 353
• EYE on MULTIPLIER
Multiplier? 334
Markets 46
CHAPTER 1 Q
6.1 Labour Market Indicators 152
Production and Income 119
Expans ion 202
Expenditure 336
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
REVIEW 4.4 112
Official Measures of Money: Ml and M3 260
A Government Budget Surp lus 246
CHAPTER REVIEW 286
REVIEW 9.2 245
Effects of Changes in Demand 98
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
REVIEW 10.4 284
CHAPTER REVIEW 80
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 119
Calculating the CPI 178
REVIEW 1.1 7
Increasing Opportunity Costs Are Everyw here 66
from which she graduated in 1970. She has held faculty appointments at the
CHAPTER SUMMARY 253
Labour Prod uctivity in Aus tralia, Europe and the
Which Country Has the Highest Standard of
most exciting new university of the 1960s, and at the age of 30 became one of the
CHAPTER REVIEW 226
8.3 What Makes an Economy Grow? 216
Achieving Gains from Trade 74
14.2 Fiscal Stimulus 381
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Changes in Demand 87
most exciting new university of the 1960s, and at the age of 30 became one of the
12 Aggregate Expenditure Multiplier 31 7
11 .2 Aggregate Demand 296
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
CHAPTER REVIEW 226
XIV C ONTEN TS
CHAPTER SUMMARY 313
14 Fiscal Policy 373
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
REVIEW 3.3 70
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 201
Expenditure 336
Economic Growth and Inflation Trends 304
CHAPTER SUMMARY 171
The Participation Rate 158
CHAPTER REVIEW 370
Grow th 220
What, How and For Whom? 3
• EYE on th e GLOBAL ECONOMY
Reading the CPI Numbers 176
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 349
Changing the Interest Rate 280
CHAPTER REVIEW 54
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER4
Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Monetary Economics and the
What in the Global Economy? 40
REVIEW 1.2 16
12.4 The AD Curve and Equilibrium
Grow th of Labour Productivity 211
Insolvency and Illiquidity 234
REVIEW 6.3 170
CHAPTER REVIEW 18
The Fluctuating Size of Governme nt 50
REVIEW 6.1 156
2 The Australian and Global Economies 31
For Whom Do We Produce? 37
• EYE on the PAST
Contents
Demand 328
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Changes in Aggregate Supp ly 293
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
The Economies 39
The Nominal and Real Wage Rates of Presid ents of the
Alternative Measures of Unemploymen t 160
Money, the Price Level and
The Demand for Money 277
Stand ards 212
Changing the Interest Rate 280
spawned a vast amount of research on that topic. They don't claim credit for the
REVIEW 8.1 205
Changes in Demand 87
REVIEW 7.3 196
Illustra ting Changes in Buying Plans 88
How You Influe nce and Are Influenced by Economic
4 Demand and Supply 83
Is a Computer Program an Intermed ia te Good or a
11 Aggregate Supply and Aggregate Demand 289
The Monthl y Price Survey 177
Business-Cycle Turni ng Points 334
CHAPTER SUMMARY 143
growing body of students.
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
CHAPTER9
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of Parkin, Economics (Pearson) and Foundations of Economics (Pearson) . They
The Expenditure Mul tiplier in Reverse Gear 338
Expenditure 324
REVIEW 10.4 284
and Maggie
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
The Problem With Base-Year Prices 147
4 .1 Demand 85
A Government Budget Deficit 247
appears in the International Economic Review and the Economic Record.
CHAPTER 14
REVIEW 12.4 340
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1
The Long-Run Phillips Curve 356
Househo lds and Firms 46
Robin has been teaching introductory economics (alongside macroeconomics
Broader Measures of Unemp loyment 154
• EYE on th e NEWS
Living 175
How in the Global Economy? 42
Interpre ting Graphs Used in Economic Models 24
REVIEW 11 .2 301
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
• EYE on the PAST
The Law of Demand 85
The Law of Supply 90
Price Ceiling or Price Cap 107
A Choice Is a Tradeoff 8
The Supply of Money 279
How You Influe nce and Are Influenced by Economic
2.1 What, How and For Whom? 32
Food Prod uction Possibilities and Oppor tunity Cost 76
REVIEW 2.2 45
CONTENTS XIX
REVIEW 5.1 124
The Functions of Money 258
The Aggregate Demand Multiplier 300
Economy 36
Demand and Supply: The Price of Iron Ore 11 0
REVIEW 6.3 170
MONITORING THE MACROECONOMY
• EYE on MULTIPLIER
REVIEW 9.2 245
Some Finance Defini tions 230
The Quantity of Labou r 206
Deflatio n and the Great Depress ion 308
3.1 Production Possibilities 58
The Budget Making Process 374
A Stu den t's CPI 193
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 57
The Fluctuating Size of Governme nt 50
The Reserve Bank's Policy Tools 271
Expenditure 324
Interpre ting Data Graphs 22
Fiscal Policy 373
with a B.A. He learned the subject on the job at the University of Essex, England's
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Cons tructing the CPI 176
PART2
Final Good? 126
Changing the Interest Rate 280
Unemployment and Real GDP 165
The People 39
3.4 Specialisation and Trade 71
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 317
What, How and For Whom? 3
REVIEW 13.2 362
Science 13
REVIEW 9.3 252
REVIEW 4.3 104
4 .2 Supply 90
• EYE on the PAST
CHAPTER REVIEW 18
4 .2 Supply 90
• EYE on the PAST
CHAPTER SUMMARY 53
13.1 The Short-Run Phillips Curve 350
CHAPTER REVIEW 286
Inflation Cycles 306
6.3 Unemployment and Full
6.1 Labour Market Indicators 152
Influencing the Expected Inflation Rate 363
1 3.3 Influencing Inflation and
About the Authors
2008? 309
Induced Expendi ture and Auto nomous
XIV C ONTEN TS
How Much? Choos ing at the Margin 10
What We Produce 33
Your Increasing Oppo rtunity Cost 66
Governments in the Circu lar Flow 49
Are We Heading for a Recession? 140
Changes in Aggregate Supp ly 293
• EYE on the PAST
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
The Australian Labour Marke t in 2015 168
Macroeconomics (Prentice -Hall), Modern Macroeconomics (Pearson Education
Structural Unemp loyment 163
Changed the Tradeoff? 360
The Australian and Global
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Illustra ting Changes in Buying Plans 88
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 349
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 201
The Multiplier and the MPC 331
• EYE on the NEWS
4.4 Price Rigidities 105
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 151
CHAPTER 11
Demand 328
3.4 Specialisation and Trade 71
The Ups and Downs in Interna tional Trade 52
CHAPTER 1 Q
What, How and For Whom? 3
• EYE on FINANCIAL MARKETS
were aided by their pioneering work. Their joint textbooks include
The Labour Force Survey 155
Markets 46
11 .1 Aggregate Supply 290
Did You Make the Right Decision? 15
• EYE on the PAST
Labour Force Survey Criteria 152
Macroeconomics (Prentice -Hall), Modern Macroeconomics (Pearson Education
REVIEW 11.1 295
CHAPTER 6
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
Hong Kong's Rapid Economic Growth 70
Copyright e Pearson Australia (a division ol Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2011>-9781486019632-
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9 Finance, Saving and Investment 229
• EYE on the PAST
11 Aggregate Supply and Aggregate Demand 289
12 Aggregate Expenditure Multiplier 31 7
A Live Test of the Natural Rate Hypothesis 359
Aggregate Supply and the Shor t-Run Phillips
Alternative Measures of Unemploymen t 160
The Monthl y Price Survey 177
youngest full professors. His many visiting positions include spells at the Reserve
REVIEW 3.4 78
Expected Inflation 357
Economic Ideas 8
Demand and Supply: The Price of Iron Ore 11 0
Economic Growth and Inflation Trends 304
The Outlook for the Australian Economy in 2015 310
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Interes t Rates and Asset Prices 234
are dedicated to the challenge of explaining economics ever more clearly to a
Measur ing Infla tion and Deflation 179
Defla ting the GDP Balloon 189
CHAPTER 14
Aggregate Planned Expend iture and Real GDP 324
Economies 31
CHAPTER REVIEW 114
11 .1 Aggregate Supply 290
• EYE on MULTIPLIER
Your Labour Market Status and Activity 166
CHAPTER REVIEW 226
youngest full professors. His many visiting positions include spells at the Reserve
Money and Your Role in Its Creation 270
CONTENTS XIX
12.1 Expenditure Plans and Real GDP 318
The Functions of Money 258
Changes in the Natural Unemp loyme nt Rate 359
How Does the Reserve Bank Create Money and
Market 248
4.4 Price Rigidities 105
Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Monetary Economics and the
Three Types of Macroeco nomic Equilibrium 303
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Bank of Japan. He is a past president of the Canadian Economics Association and
REVIEW 12.1 323
Cards? 261
Inflation 257
PART 3 UNDERSTANDING THE MACROECONOMY
• EYE on the NEWS
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are dedicated to the challenge of explaining economics ever more clearly to a
5.1 GDP, Income and Expenditure 120
Curve 351
Alterna tive Measures of the Price Level and Inflatio n
6.2 Labour Market Trends and
REVIEW 7.2 187
• EYE on the NEWS
from which she graduated in 1970. She has held faculty appointments at the
Expans ion 202
Changing the Interest Rate 280
Other Influences on the Standard of Living 138
Governments 48
A Government Budget Deficit 247
• EYE on the NEWS
Unemployment? 361
The Supply of Money 279
Have Changes in the Natural Unemployment Rate
The Magnitu de of the Bias 183
Interpre ting Graphs Used in Economic Models 24
REVIEW 8.3 224
Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking. He became most visible to the public with his
Demand Sched ule and Deman d Curve 85
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
at the University of Western Ontario, Canada . Professor Parkin studied economics
CHAPTER SUMMARY 253
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 257
Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Monetary Economics and the
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
3.1 Production Possibilities 58
6.2 Labour Market Trends and
Index 1-1
are dedicated to the challenge of explaining economics ever more clearly to a
REVIEW 7.2 187
Index 1-1
REVIEW 2.3 52
A Government Budget Deficit 247
A Choice Is a Tradeoff 8
XII I
CHAPTER SUMMARY 225
Multiplier 317
The Functions of Money 258
Changes in Demand and Supply 244
REVIEW 10.4 284
Changes in Aggregate Demand 298
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
"Natural" Unemployment 164
Cards? 261
Making an Economy Grow 222
New Growt h Theory 218
XVIII C ONTENTS
The U.S. Phillips Curve 354
Measur ing the Effect of the Minimum Wage 107
Using the Real GDP Numbers 131
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
• EYE on the PAST
Circu lar Flows in the Global Economy 50
• EYE on the PAST
and edited volumes, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political
• EYE on the NEWS
The Economic Problem 57
Food Prod uction Possibilities and Oppor tunity Cost 76
Economic Growth 201
9.1 Financial Institutions and Markets 230
Unemployment Rate 157
REVIEW 1 0.1 263
UNDERSTANDING THE MACROECONOMY
• EYE on MULTIPLIER
CHAPTER2
appears in the International Economic Review and the Economic Record.
in England and began his university teaching career immediate ly after graduating
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
Glossary G-1
Using the Real GDP Numbers 131
• EYE on the PAST
Aggregate Demand Basics 296
Cons tructing the CPI 176
Expenditure 324
Effects of Changes in Both Demand and Supp ly 102
University of Edinburgh, Bond University, and at the Universities of Manitoba,
Employment 163
Is Wind Power Free? 66
Stand ards 212
Final Good? 126
CHAPTER REVIEW 144
Expenditure 324
Canada), Economics: Canada in the Global Environment, the Canadian adaptation
Sticky Price 109
2.3
Who Makes the Dreamline r? 41
Flows in the Loanable Funds Market 236
• EYE on the PAST
CHAPTER SUMMARY 341
• EYE on BOX OFFICE HITS
REVIEW 1 0.1 263
XVIII C ONTENTS
13 The Short-Run Policy Tradeoff 349
Deriving the AD Curve from Equilibrium
Final Good? 126
Economics as Policy Tool 14
How Do We Prod uce? 34
Converge nce to Equilibrium 327
An Embryonic New Money: e-Cash 262
REVIEW 12.2 329
"Natural" Unemployment 164
The Business Cycle 305
CHAPTER SUMMARY 53
Circular Flows in the Australian Economy 121
The People 39
The Reserve Bank in Action 282
PART 2 MONITORING THE MACROECONOMY
Preconditions for Prod uctivity Growth 216
6.1 Labour Market Indicators 152
Economics as Policy Tool 14
The "Invention" of Banking 267
A Closer Look at Part-Time Employmen t 161
CHAPTER4
12.2 Equilibrium Expenditure 324
3.3 Economic Growth 68
Changes in Aggregate Demand 298
The Law of Demand 85
in England and began his university teaching career immediate ly after graduating
7.3 Nominal and Real Values 188
Robin Bade was an undergraduate at the University of Queensland
The Economies 39
A Choice Is a Tradeoff 8
Robin and Michael are a wife-and -husband team. Their most notable joint
REVIEW 3.4 78
REVIEW 12.4 340
1.2 The Economic Way of Thinking 8
8 Economic Growth 201
Music, theatre, opera, art and walking on the beach provide their relaxation
"Natural" Unemployment 164
Why Did the Price of Coffee Fall? 101
CHAPTER REVIEW 370
Absolu te Ad van tage and Compara tive Ad van tage 71
XI
Production Possibilities Frontier 58
REVIEW 7.2 187
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
XIV C ONTEN TS
CHAPTER SUMMARY 313
and fun.
Inflation and Unemployment 353
REVIEW 4.3 104
Business-Cycle Turni ng Points 334
Demand 328
5.2 Measuring Australian GDP 125
REVIEW 3.3 70
• EYE on the AUSTRA LIAN ECONOMY
How Did Aus tralia Escape t he Global Recession of
A Government Budget Surp lus 246
• EYE on the PAST
CHAPTER9
To Harry, Lucy, Ruby, Madeleine
• EYE on the PAST
4.4 Price Rigidities 105
REVIEW 3.3 70
3.2 Opportunity Cost 64
spawned a vast amount of research on that topic. They don't claim credit for the
3.1 Production Possibilities 58
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
Unemployment Rate 157
REVIEW 13.3 368
3 The Economic Problem 57
• EYE on the UNEMPLOYED
GDP Defined 120
Aggregate Demand Basics 296
REVIEW 9.3 252
REVIEW 13.2 362
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
Alternative Measures of Unemploymen t 160
9.1 Financial Institutions and Markets 230
5.3 The Uses and Limitations of Real
Income 128
Multiplier? 334
The Reserve Bank's Policy Tools 271
How Open Market Operations Change the
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
CHAPTER REVIEW 342
Getting Started 1
• EYE on the BUSINESS CYCLE
Your Comparative Ad van tage 74
Stand ards 212
Demand and Supply 83
The Natural Rate Hypot hesis 358
Economic Growth and Inflation Trends 304
Differences in H ow We Produce 43
The Multiplier and the MPC 331
Grow th of the Supp ly of Labour 208
Changing the Interest Rate 280
and fun.
Calcu lating Grow th Rates 202
Regulate Its Quantity? 275
The Expend iture Approach 125
• EYE on the PAST
The Ups and Downs in Interna tional Trade 52
GDP 133
Western Ontario.
6.1 Labour Market Indicators 152
• EYE on the UNEMPLOYED
Bank of Japan. He is a past president of the Canadian Economics Association and
Getting Started 1
The Natural Rate Hypot hesis 358
Changes in Supply 92
The CPI and the Cost of
CHAPTER SUMMARY 197
Tracking the Course of the Business Cycle 134
CHAPTER 7
The Short-Run Policy
REVIEW 8.1 205
Market 248
Expans ion 202
1 3.2 Short-Run and Long-Run Phillips Curves 356
• EYE on the NEWS
Two Conseque nces of the CPI Bias 184
CHAPTER SUMMARY 79
The Australian and Global
Index 1-1
international economics has resulted in more than 160 publications in journals
• EYE on the PAST
CHAPTER SUMMARY 113
Inflation 257
GDP 133
REVIEW 2.3 52
Expected Inflation 357
Definition of Money 258
Increasing Opportunity Costs Are Everyw here 66
Broader Measures of Unemp loyment 154
• EYE on CREATING MONEY
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 349
Economy? 136
REVIEW 4.1 89
• EYE on the TRADEOFF
Making GDP Persona l 138
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
10.3 Regulating the Quantity of Money 270
The Reserve Bank's Policy Tools 271
The Labour Force Survey 155
13.1 The Short-Run Phillips Curve 350
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Converge nce to Equilibrium 327
Targe ting the Unemployment Rate 364
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Economic Ideas 8
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12.3 Expenditure Multipliers 330
CHAPTER REVIEW 18
13.1 The Short-Run Phillips Curve 350
Demand Sched ule and Deman d Curve 85
Policies to Achieve Faster Grow th 220
Expenditure 336
3.2 Opportunity Cost 64
Your Participation in the Loanab le Funds
Economic Growth Versus Business Cycle
• EYE on th e AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
CHAPTER 6
11 .3 Explaining Economic Trends and
Equilibrium Expenditure 326
Nominal Wage Rate and Real Wage Rate 190
Nominal Interest Rate and Real Interest Rate 192
• EYE on th e AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
M ichae/ Parkin is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics
12.1 Expenditure Plans and Real GDP 318
CHAPTER REVIEW 198
• EYE on MULTIPLIER
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REVIEW 4.2 95
• EYE on the PAST
How Did Aus tralia Escape t he Global Recession of
Basic Idea 21
The Reserve Bank of Australia 266
REVIEW 1.1 7
7 .1 The Consumer Price Index 176
The Australian Labour Marke t in 2015 168
Is a Computer Program an Intermed ia te Good or a
Cost: What You Must Give Up 8
Deflatio n and the Great Depress ion 308
Interest Rates Low but Fall 250
Definition of Money 258
The Markets for Cocoa and Chocolate 99
The Money Multiplier 274
The Aggregate Demand Multiplier 300
The Outlook for the Australian Economy in 2015 310
CHAPTER 5
Why Did the Price of Coffee Fall? 101
Economies 31
Calculating Real GDP 130
• EYE on the PAST
Aggregate Planned Expend iture and Real GDP 324
PART 3
and edited volumes, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political
Demand and Supply 83
A Government Budget Surp lus 246
The Law of Demand 85
Western Ontario.
Robin and Michael are a wife-and -husband team. Their most notable joint
• EYE on the BENEFIT AND COST of
The Business Cycle 305
UNIVERSITY
Calculating Real GDP 130
Music, theatre, opera, art and walking on the beach provide their relaxation
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The Aus tralian Cons umptio n Functio n 322
REVIEW 3.2 67
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
A Stu den t's CPI 193
independence of the new European Central Bank, but its constitution and the
Definition of Money 258
Insolvency and Illiquidity 234
MACROECONOMIC POLICY
XII I
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
Choices Respond to Incentives 11
Getting Started 1
REVIEW 4.3 104
4 .2 Supply 90
Multiplier 317
Changes in Supply 92
REVIEW 2.3 52
Cards? 261
4 .1 Demand 85
Imports and Real GDP 322
Looking for Mul tipliers 333
The Magic of Sustaine d Growth 202
Preconditions for Prod uctivity Growth 216
APPENDIX REVIEW 30
• EYE on the PAST
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
Effects of Changes in Both Demand and Supp ly 102
The Austra lian and Global Economies in Your Life 45
3 The Economic Problem 57
6.2 Labour Market Trends and
4 .1 Demand 85
Income 119
Interest Rates Low but Fall 250
3.4 Specialisation and Trade 71
and Maggie
Expans ion 202
Appendix : Making and Using Graphs 21
5.1 GDP, Income and Expenditure 120
The Basic Idea of the Multiplier 330
PART2
Fiscal Policy 373
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
Did You Make the Right Decision? 15
The Expenditure Mul tiplier in Reverse Gear 338
3.2 Opportunity Cost 64
of Monetan; Economics. His research in macroeconomics, monetary economics and
Imports and Real GDP 322
CONTENTS XVII
Business-Cycle Turni ng Points 334
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 201
10.4 Money , the Interest Rate and the Price
PART 3 UNDERSTANDING THE MACROECONOMY
PART 3
3 The Economic Problem 57
• EYE on th e GLOBAL ECONOMY
Changes in Supply 92
The Reserve Bank of Australia 266
Production and Income 119
Making GDP Persona l 138
Sources of Bias in the CPI 182
CHAPTER 11
How Long Does It Take to Find a Job? 164
2008? 309
Governments 48
• EYE on the AUSTRA LIAN ECONOMY
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1
CHAPTER 11
REVIEW 6.3 170
Appendix : Measuring Real GDP 147
CHAPTER REVIEW 172
of Parkin, Economics (Pearson) and Foundations of Economics (Pearson) . They
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
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United States 191
CHAPTER SUMMARY 313
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Why Are Some Nations Rich and Othe rs Poor? 221
Expenditure 336
Interes t Rates and Asset Prices 234
REVIEW 12.4 340
Cyclical Unemployment 164
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 83
Scarcity 2
A Live Test of the Natural Rate Hypothesis 359
How Big Is the Government Expend iture
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 57
REVIEW 14.1 380
CHAPTER 1
The Fall in the Price of Oil: Nominal or Real? New or
Which Movie Really Was the Biggest Box Office
How Does the Reserve Bank Create Money and
CHAPTER 5
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 175
Illustra ting a Change in Selling Plans 93
CHAPTER 14
• EYE on the UNEMPLOYED
A Live Test of the Natural Rate Hypothesis 359
REVIEW 13.1 355
CHAPTER REVIEW 54
CHAPTER 1
Cyclical Unemployment 164
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 151
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
The Law of Demand 85
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 57
REVIEW 4.2 95
REVIEW 3.3 70
The Supply of Money 279
The Standard of Living Among Countries 136
Labour Force Survey 152
The Reserve Bank's Policy Tools 271
6.2 Labour Market Trends and
CHAPTER REVIEW 18
Making an Economy Grow 222
Is Wind Power Free? 66
Expenditure 336
6 Jobs and Unemployment 151
and international economics) since 1970. She developed many of the ideas found
XVIII C ONTENTS
Unemployment Around the World 158
• EYE on the BENEFIT AND COST of
Inflation Cycles 306
Grow th of Labour Productivity 211
Markets 46
• EYE on the TRADEOFF
• EYE on the DREAMLINER
3.1 Production Possibilities 58
Your Labour Market Status and Activity 166
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
The Aggregate Demand Multiplier 300
The Demand for Money 277
Aggregate Demand Fluctuations 353
Real Flows and Money Flows 46
REVIEW 14.1 380
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 119
The Participation Rate 158
Your Increasing Oppo rtunity Cost 66
CHAPTERS
Benefit: Wha t You Gain 9
Economic Growth 201
Two Main Labour Market Indica tors 153
XVI C ONTENTS
CHAPTER SUMMARY 341
Markets 46
Goods and Services Omitted from GDP 137
• EYE on the NEWS
Unemployment? 361
CHAPTER REVIEW 172
REVIEW 10.4 284
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 229
Bank of Australia, the University of New South Wales, Bond University and the
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 57
CHAPTERS
• EYE on the PAST
Operation 273
• EYE on the NEWS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1
Grow th of the Supp ly of Labour 208
Cards? 261
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 57
• EYE on the AUSTRA LIAN ECONOMY
Toronto, and Western Ontario . Her research on international capital flows
Your Participation in the Loanab le Funds
Final Good? 126
Flows in the Loanable Funds Market 236
The Basic Idea of the Multiplier 330
and fun.
700 Years of Inflation and Defla tion 180
Goods and Services Omitted from GDP 137
Schools of Thoug ht and Cracks in Today's
Production Possibilities Frontier 58
The Multiplier Effect of an Open Market
Why Have Interest Rates Been So Low? 249
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• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
CHAPTER REVIEW 144
What in the Global Economy? 40
Toronto, and Western Ontario . Her research on international capital flows
• EYE on the NEWS
What, How and For Whom? 3
Macroeconomic Equilibrium 302
Can the Pursui t of Self-Interest Be in the Social
Nominal Wage Rate and Real Wage Rate 190
CHAPTER SUMMARY 53
What We Produce 33
Sources of Bias in the CPI 182
REVIEW 13.2 362
• EYE on the NEWS
Using the Real GDP Numbers 131
CONTENTS XIX
Economic Growth 201
Why Have Interest Rates Been So Low? 249
6.1 Labour Market Indicators 152
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
most exciting new university of the 1960s, and at the age of 30 became one of the
CHAPTER REVIEW 172
Choices Respond to Incentives 11
7.2 The CPI and Other Price Level Measures 182
growing body of students.
1 3.3 Influencing Inflation and
Circular Flows in the Australian Economy 121
The Expenditure Mul tiplier in Reverse Gear 338
CHAPTER 13
Sticky Price 109
are dedicated to the challenge of explaining economics ever more clearly to a
REVIEW 14.1 380
work that discredited the use of wage and price controls to tame inflation.
Demand 328
CHAPTER REVIEW 54
• EYE on th e GLOBAL ECONOMY
Glossary G-1
REVIEW 8.3 224
"Natural" Unemployment 164
Changing the Interest Rate 280
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4 .2 Supply 90
Expenditure 336
Changes in How We Prod uce in the Informatio n
Changes in Demand and Supply 244
youngest full professors. His many visiting positions include spells at the Reserve
Say's Law and Keynes' Principle of Effective
REVIEW 13.3 368
A Choice Is a Tradeoff 8
Alterna tive Measures of the Price Level and Inflatio n
The Outlook for the Australian Economy in 2015 310
How Does the Reserve Bank Create Money and
Economics as Social Science 12
Inflation 257
8 Economic Growth 201
XVIII C ONTENTS
CHAPTER REVIEW 54
Pred icting Price Changes : Three Questio ns 97
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Hit? 192
For Whom in the Global Economy? 42
The Slope of a Relationship 27
The Austra lian and Global Economies in Your Life 45
REVIEW 4.1 89
REVIEW 13.1 355
The Consumptio n Function 318
Demand and Supply: The Price of Iron Ore 11 0
Nominal GDP and Real GDP 189
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
9.3 Government in Loanable Funds Market 246
REVIEW 13.2 362
XII I
1 3.3 Influencing Inflation and
Real GDP and Nominal GDP 130
13.1 The Short-Run Phillips Curve 350
The Australian and Global
Making an Economy Grow 222
The CPI Market Basket 176
Changes in Aggregate Demand 298
7.2 The CPI and Other Price Level Measures 182
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 83
Can We Have Low Inflation and Low
Two Main Labour Market Indica tors 153
Expan ding Prod uction Possibilities 69
Employment 163
Unemployment 363
Economy? 136
The Australian Labour Marke t in 2015 168
Food Prod uction Possibilities and Oppor tunity Cost 76
Getting Started 1
Measur ing the Effect of the Minimum Wage 107
5.1 GDP, Income and Expenditure 120
Economics as Social Science 12
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Broader Measures of Unemp loyment 154
7 .1 The Consumer Price Index 176
Cyclical Unemployment 164
CHAPTER 5
4 .1 Demand 85
Effects of Changes in Demand 98
Some Finance Defini tions 230
REVIEW 11.1 295
Demand 289
Final Good? 126
Price Ceiling or Price Cap 107
M ichae/ Parkin is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics
Say's Law and Keynes' Principle of Effective
The Austra lian and Global Economies in Your Life 45
CHAPTER SUMMARY 171
16 International Trade Policy 433
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 119
United States 191
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 83
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Inflation 257
Effects of Changes in Supply 100
10.3 Regulating the Quantity of Money 270
Did You Make the Right Decision? 15
of Monetan; Economics. His research in macroeconomics, monetary economics and
Scarcity 2
The Long-Run Phillips Curve 356
Robin has been teaching introductory economics (alongside macroeconomics
REVIEW 11.1 295
Expenditure 324
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Employment 163
Changes in Demand 87
Expenditure 336
Demand and Supply: The Price of Iron Ore 11 0
Jobs and Unemployment 151
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 151
international economics has resulted in more than 160 publications in journals
Competitive Markets 84
8.1 The Basics of Economic Growth 202
3.3 Economic Growth 68
Level 277
Market 248
GDP Defined 120
CHAPTER REVIEW 198
Achieving Gains from Trade 74
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
REVIEW 9.2 245
A Choice Is a Tradeoff 8
CHAPTER 11
REVIEW 3.1 63
The Aggregate Demand Multiplier 300
14.1 The Commonwealth Budget 374
Your Comparative Ad van tage 74
University of Edinburgh, Bond University, and at the Universities of Manitoba,
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
How in the Global Economy? 42
Can We Have Low Inflation and Low
Value Production in the Prices of Adjacen t Years 147
• EYE on the PAST
The Opportunity Cost of a Mobile Phone 64
The People 39
international economics has resulted in more than 160 publications in journals
Preconditions for Prod uctivity Growth 216
PART2
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Parkin/Macroeconomics 1e
Western Ontario.
Dollars and Cen ts a t Differen t Dates 188
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 83
Markets 46
A Government Budget Surp lus 246
The Expenditure Mul tiplier in Reverse Gear 338
Calcu lating Grow th Rates 202
CHAPTER REVIEW 114
Looking for Mul tipliers 333
Demand Sched ule and Deman d Curve 85
REVIEW 11.3 312
Reading the CPI Numbers 176
• EYE on the PAST
The Australian Labour Marke t in 2015 168
Calculating the CPI 178
Multiplier? 334
PART2
Changing the Interest Rate 280
Demand 328
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
The Reserve Bank of Australia 266
Changes in Demand and Supply 244
No One Knows How to Make a Pencil 71
The Functions of Money 258
Economy? 136
and Maggie
Changes in the Demand for Money 278
Aggregate Demand Basics 296
• EYE on the AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
MONITORING THE MACROECONOMY
Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking. He became most visible to the public with his
The Magnitu de of the Bias 183
APPENDIX REVIEW 30
GDP 133
7 .1 The Consumer Price Index 176
CHAPTER SUMMARY 341
• EYE on the UNEMPLOYED
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
Supply Sched ule and Supply Curve 90
Deflatio n and the Great Depress ion 308
The Demand for Money 277
CHAPTER REVIEW 198
The People 39
• EYE on the ENVIRONMENT
• EYE on CREATING MONEY
appears in the International Economic Review and the Economic Record.
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9.2 The Loanable Funds Market 236
PART2
12 Aggregate Expenditure Multiplier 31 7
13.1 The Short-Run Phillips Curve 350
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 373
How You Influe nce and Are Influenced by Economic
Income 119
• EYE on the PAST
The People 39
• EYE on th e PRICE of COFFEE
• EYE on the PAST
Price Ceiling or Price Cap 107
CHAPTER4
7.2 The CPI and Other Price Level Measures 182
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 31
from which she graduated in 1970. She has held faculty appointments at the
has served on the editorial boards of the American Economic Review and the Journal
Changing the Interest Rate 280
What Do We Prod uce? 32
Economies 31
REVIEW 13.3 368
Relationships Among More Than Two
• EYE on BOX OFFICE HITS
• EYE on the GLOBAL ECONOMY
6.3 Unemployment and Full
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Sources of Bias in the CPI 182
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
Business-Cycle Turni ng Points 334
The Demand for Money 277
CHAPTER4
Your Participation in the Loanab le Funds
A Choice Is a Tradeoff 8
with a B.A. He learned the subject on the job at the University of Essex, England's
Cheques, Cred it Cards, Debit Cards and Smart
Music, theatre, opera, art and walking on the beach provide their relaxation
The CPI and the Cost of
growing body of students.
REVIEW 3.1 63
Structural Unemp loyment 163
7.2 The CPI and Other Price Level Measures 182
Increasing Opportunity Costs Are Everyw here 66
REVIEW 3.2 67
• EYE on the PAST
Food Prod uction Possibilities and Oppor tunity Cost 76
CHAPTER SUMMARY 225
Western Ontario.
The Consumptio n Function 318
CHAPTER REVIEW 144
REVIEW 10.2 269
Nominal Interest Rate and Real Interest Rate 192
IX
Budget Balance and Debt 376
Markets 46
13.1 The Short-Run Phillips Curve 350
Say's Law and Keynes' Principle of Effective
Say's Law and Keynes' Principle of Effective
The CPI and the Cost of
Dollars and Cen ts a t Differen t Dates 188
Unemployment and Real GDP 165
GDP 133
Making an Economy Grow 222
• EYE on BOX OFFICE HITS
3 The Economic Problem 57
The Functions of Money 258
1 3.3 Influencing Inflation and
Unemployment? 361
Inflation 257
• EYE on the BENEFIT AND COST of
UNDERSTANDING THE MACROECONOMY
The Business Cycle 305
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
3.2 Opportunity Cost 64
• EYE on th e AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY
• EYE on the BUSINESS CYCLE
movement towards greater independence of central banks around the world
Who Makes the Dreamline r? 41
Investment 229
Your Labour Market Status and Activity 166
Aggregate Supp ly Basics 290
1 3.3 Influencing Inflation and
• EYE on th e NEWS
CHAPTER SUMMARY 341
XII I
REVIEW 3.1 63
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 31
Why Did the Price of Coffee Fall? 101
The "Invention" of Banking 267
UNDERSTANDING THE MACROECONOMY
7.2 The CPI and Other Price Level Measures 182
Changes in Aggregate Demand 298
CHAPTER REVIEW 226
• EYE on YOUR LIFE
1 3.2 Short-Run and Long-Run Phillips Curves 356
How Long Does It Take to Find a Job? 164
• EYE on the NEWS
The Natural Rate Hypot hesis 358
and international economics) since 1970. She developed many of the ideas found
Economic Growth and Inflation Trends 304
The Short-Run Tradeoff in Your Life 365
Using the Real GDP Numbers 131
Interes t Rates and Asset Prices 234
1.1 Definition and Questions 2
Hong Kong's Rapid Economic Growth 70
The Economies 39
XIV C ONTEN TS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 289
Increasing Opportunity Costs Are Everyw here 66
Equilibrium Expenditure 326
Changes in Demand 87
Copyright e Pearson Australia (a division ol Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2011>-9781486019632-
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Demand and Supply: The Price of Iron Ore 11 0
Hong Kong's Rapid Economic Growth 70
CHAPTER REVIEW 144
LEARNING OBJECTIVES 151
Budget Balance and Debt 376
IX
The Nominal Interest Rate 279
1.2 The Economic Way of Thinking 8
Money, the Price Level and