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Political and Economic Planning

British think tank formed in 1931

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ7210250 ↗
Source-derived summary

Political and Economic Planning (PEP) was a British policy think tank, formed in 1931 in response to Max Nicholson's article A National Plan for Britain published in February of that year in Gerald Barry's magazine The Week-End Review.

History

The original members included Nicholson and Barry, the zoologist Julian Huxley, the agronomist Leonard Elmhirst, the financier Basil Phillott Blackett, the civil servants Dennis Routh and Sir Henry Bunbury, the research chemist Michael Zvegintzov, and Israel Sieff, a director of Marks & Spencer. Sieff was chairman in the 1930s, followed by Elmhirst in 1939 and by Nicholson in 1953. It was a non-governmental planning organisation financed by corporations.

This prolific organisation was influential in the formation of the National Health Service, World War II and post-war planning, and the development of the African colonies. After the war it shared the offices of The Nature Conservancy in Belgrave Square, London, producing reports such as Opportunities in Industry (1957) and Advisory Committees in British Government (1960)

In 1978 PEP merged with the Centre for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP), and became the Policy Studies Institute (PSI).

Chairmen

1931—1939: Israel Sieff

1939—1953: Leonard Elmhirst

1953—1978: Max Nicholson

See also

Planisme

References

External links

Catalogue of the PEP papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Political and Economic Planning” is british think tank formed in 1931. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Political, Economic and Planning, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1931, 1939, 1953, 1957—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Political, Economic and Planning is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british think tank formed in 1931” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7210250. VIAF identifies the subject as 122964080. The Library of Congress control number is n79037237. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1931, 1939, 1953 and 1957.

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This entry incorporates text from “Political and Economic Planning” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.