ABSTRACT
Until nearly its last quarter, the twentieth century has been characterised by an almost universal and uninterrupted trend of increasing government involvement in economic processes. From even before the turn of the century, in fact, this policy trend has entailed growing indirect intervention through an expansion and elaboration of the regulatory scope of government—supplemented, perhaps even overshadowed from the great depression onwards, by an active role for public authority in macro-economic management. Alongside these developments, at least three other general trends have also operated to enhance the size and importance of the public sector.
