Economic policy and employment policy: the model of the fifties and the sixties

Abstract

During two decades the industrialized countries, namely those of Western Europe, have registered an economic evolution without any precedent: high rhythms of product growth, accompanied by low rates of unemployment and inflation and absence of troubles at the level of external equilibrium. In this article the author wants to establish the conditions and factors that made possible such an evolution and characterize the essence of the economic policy prevailing in the fifties and sixties and the main instruments used. To conclude it, one analyses the conception of employment policy in force then, its relations with the economic policy, and the policy measures more frequently in practice. After a short introduction, the article is developed in three chapters: a) conditions and factors of development; b) the economic policy; c) the employment policy. By explaining the functioning conditions of the model of the fifties and sixties, the author does not ignore the existence of troubles in the «success» factors of this model. Nevertheless, he realizes that such oscilations were of cyclic nature usually, of short duration and reduced effect, specially concerning the rhythm of the product and the evolution of prices. But the germ of instability was beginning to be launched in the weak side of the «Sultan's Triangle»: growth/inflation/external equilibrium. A weakness that begins to be mature from 1965 on and explodes in open crisis of oil. In the already historical McCracken report it is stated: «the economic expansion that followed the second world war is far from having been a passing phenomenon». The author of this article asks: «Is it like this?».