Activity

Budget balancing, if achieved by spending cuts rather than tax increases, and even more so if accompanied by tax cuts, comes at the expense of discretionary as distinguished from mandatory spending. As public budgets approach a balance, a growing share of government expenditure goes to cover compar…

By 1971 there were clear signs that the – in hindsight, idyllic – world of post-war Fordism was coming to an end. As workers began to rebel, demanding an increasing share of profits after two decades of uninterrupted growth and full employment, customers were also becoming more difficult. Throughou…

In subsequent years governments all over the Western world faced the question of how to make trade unions moderate their members’ wage demands without having to rescind the Keynesian promise of full employment. In countries where the institutional structure of the collective-bargaining system was n…