Calendrier du 23 mai 2018
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.