ABSTRACT
Economists of the OECD have pointed to wage-push inflation as a major factor in the rise in prices, and governments have attempted to cope with this by fiscal and monetary policies, and by appeals to, or negotiations with, the trade unions. The OECD Report for 1971 said that ‘the preconditions for effective income policies do not exist in France at present’. The problem was still how to control the wage-price spiral. The government hoped to do this by negotiating new types of wage contracts linking wage increases to the cost of living or ‘the real growth of GDP’ (gross domestic product). The Germans used traditional fiscal and monetary methods to damp down inflationary pressures, but made no moves in the direction of an incomes policy, though this was suggested by the OECD in the form of ‘concerted action’. For the greater part of the post-war period the Italian government has avoided any formal incomes policy.
