ABSTRACT
Regional policies have a longer history in Britain than that of national planning for economic growth, whereas in France both started soon after the Second World War. In contrast to France and Britain, West Germany is a federal State, and according to the Basic Law responsibility for regional policy rests primarily with the Länder. In Britain, the legislation as far back as the 1930s had been based on aid to special areas, which were in fact quite large regions. The Distribution of Industry Act of 1945 extended these regions, and its aim was to secure in each of them a well-balanced and diversified industrial structure, in order to prevent unemployment. The policy pursued under the Act of 1945 had been to bring industry only to substantial regions of high unemployment whose problems could be treated as those of building a diversified regional industrial structure. France has probably gone the furthest in the direction of a longer-term policy for all regions.
