Can the Good Performance of the 1960s Be Repeated in the 1980s?

Abstract

To the question of this discussion, Can the U.S. economy in the eighties, if it hurries, equal the good economic performance of the 1960s, our answer is: Probably yes, if . .. The reasons for this prognosis are outlined herein. Performance in the sixties was not in all major respects good. On the other hand, the expansion from 1961 through 1969 was in its entirety a prosperity without parallel in our history.1 From 1959 to 1969 the upward price drift was quite moderate-for example, 2.32 percent a year for the CPI. Total civilian employment rose 2.24 percent, and hours of all persons in the nonfarm business sector 2.27 percent, from 1962 to 1969. Research and development outlays in ratio to GNP were historically high.2 The decrease in the unemployment rate and the improvement in material welfare are gains that can only hint at numerous additional achievements unrecountable here. We confidently project the sixties as a model whose broad contours the U.S. would do well to emulate in the remaining years of the eighties. A selective look at the sixties, from the cyclical recovery year 1962 to the end, viewed from the demand side, is shown in Table 1. Two expenditure streams, of approximately equal size (other than transfers), stand