ABSTRACT
From the point of view of orthodox political economy the period of the Golden Age (‘trente glorieuses’) is paradoxical, since it was characterised by a combination of strong growth in commodity production together with high levels of taxation and public spending. In France during this period the rate of long-term growth of gross domestic product (GDP) more than doubled its mean value of the previous hundred years. The level of public spending associated with GDP also more than doubled (from a maximum of 15 per cent before the First World War to more than 40 per cent in the 1960s and 1970s). Active public finance is thus not necessarily an obstacle to strong economic growth.
