The Spanish socialists in power: Thirteen years of economic policy

This article analyses the economic policy in Spain during the governments of the Spanish Socialist Party, the PSOE (1982-96). It considers the different areas of economic policy such as monetary, exchange-rate, and industrial policy, with special emphasis on labour policy and welfare state issues. Taking into account the difficult economic situation in 1982, there were some important advances in social policy and progressive taxation during the 1980s. However, the main economic objective of the 1982 electoral programme, to reduce unemployment, failed: when the PSOE came to power, the unemployment rate was 16 per cent, and when it left government the rate was over 22 per cent. Moreover, in the opinion of the authors, the most negative element was the push to change the labour market, promoting the casualization of labour relations, eroding the trade unions and strengthening the power of employers.