ABSTRACT
Table 18.1 shows that, beginning some time in 1974, the industrial countries experienced a sharp falling off in economic activity. In all countries this manifested itself in a dramatic decline in their rate of growth of real GNP. In most countries, too, this was also reflected, with something of a lag, in an increase in their unemployment rates, which reached levels unprecedented since the war. Those countries that did not experience a big increase in unemployment during 1974/75 (in Table 18.1—Japan and Italy) were principally those with legal or institutional constraints on the dismissal of workers.
