Economic History Seminar

Du 23/05/2018 de 12:30 à 14:00

Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

SICSIC Michaël ()

L’apogée Pompidou: large firms and vocational training

The general and broad view about the Trente Glorieuses hides quite different periods between 1946 and 1973. Up to the mid sixties the very quick growth in France was then seen as a catch up relative to its own trend before the thirties. Then the continuation along the same path came as a surprise. This paper is about this period from around 1965 to 1973. This short period (50 years ago) was new and different from the reconstruction because it was the beginning of a long process of reduction in work time, of reduction in wages inequality, while there was a renewed increase in industrial labor force. It was a time of concentration of large private firms with strong internal training within those firms, in a particularly favorable macro environment for France. The first section describes the impressive relative success of the French economy. The second section addresses the macro environment, with focuses on public finances more than on the 1969 devaluation, and the third section recall the evolving view of the best analysts from the mid sixties to the eighties about French growth. The fourth section deals with the concentration of firms which is not interpreted as the result of a dirigiste industrial policy but as private firms consolidating, helped by a legislative change in 1965 favorable to mergers and acquisitions. The fifth section attempts to shed some light on vocational continuing training.

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