Evaluate the UK’s economic performance in recent decades from both an historical and international perspective.

The UK has one of the largest and most globalised economies in the world. The UK was also the very first country to industrialise and historically for many decades was the leader of the global economy, however with the rises of China, United States, Germany and many others the UK has much less of a dominant role. Within recent decades the UK economy has faced many serious challenges, including three recessions in the early 80’s, early 90’s and late 00’s. Up until the onset of the recent financial crisis, output growth in the UK exceeded that in many other European countries. The UK’s economic performance remains one of the highest in Europe and it is still one of the most globalized countries in the world. Using 1980 as a base, in recent decades the economic output per head of population in Britain has risen giving significantly higher standards of living however the UK economy has been scarred by recession.
The 80’s period saw great social, economic, and general change. Wealth and production progressively migrated to more newly industrialising economies. The early 1980s marked a severe global economic recession that affected much of the developed world. In the UK, the 1980s was a period of economic volatility. At the start of 1980, the biggest problem facing the UK was cost push inflation. In the late 1970s, UK inflation reached over 20%. This was caused by rising oil prices and wage push inflation. Unemployment shot up to 3 million and high unemployment persisted throughout the 1980s. After recovering from the 1981 recession, the UK experienced a long period of economic expansion. Towards the end of the 1980s, the growth rate reached record post-war levels.
The 1990s began with a severe recession, leading to higher unemployment and a massive slow