ABSTRACT

MACROECONOMIC PERFORMANCE The quarter of a century between the liberalization of the economy in 1948-9 and the oil crisis at the end of 1973 was a unique period of fast and stable economic growth. The economy expanded at an (unprecedented) average rate of almost 5 percent per year, and only in 1958 did there occur a minor contraction of GDP. Unemployment fell to less than 2 percent of the labour force. During the 1960s the economy was almost constantly in a state of ‘overemployment’, with demand for labour in excess of supply. However, in comparison with the rest of Western Europe the growth rate of GDP was not exceptionally high, and the relatively rapid increase in population kept the growth of per capita GDP around the average (Van Ark and De Jong 1996).