Introduction

Once officials have agreed upon the economic policy – that is to say, when they have agreed upon the operating goals to pursue during the chosen period, the orientation for each instrument to achieve these goals, and the specific measures to be taken – all that is then left for them is to implement the measures. If I make reference to operating goals, it is because the final and intermediate goals should generally be fairly stable from one period to another. It suffices to simply reiterate them in the elaboration of economic policy. It is essentially in the selection of operating goals and the determination of changes to bring to the instruments that the action of economic policy is found from day to day. I will, in this chapter, examine the means that the officials in charge of economic policy have to implement the chosen measures.

The Legal and Regulatory Framework as a Means of Implementing Economic Policy

When it concerns the means of implementing economic policy, one might at first think of financial resources. Most often, we hear officials saying that they would have accomplished more if they had more financial resources. This may be true, except that the resources at their disposal for the implementation of economic policy are mainly from taxes on the income and/or wealth produced by the economy.