1. This is not the place to discuss the idea of structural unemployment or its measurement. What was politically important in Denmark was the interpretation of the 1987 wage increases. In reality, these wage increases are probably explained more by political than by economic factors as 1987 was an election year where the government had made generous promises to public employees (Ibsen 1992; Andersen 1993, 295–99). Ironically, Danish exports fared extremely bad in 1985–86, prior to the wage increase, but extremely well after the wage increase in 1987 (which to a large extent derived from a wage-compensated lowering of working hours).
2. The other guiding idea was that income transfers were uncontrollable (reflecting the dramatic increase in transfers from 1982 to 1993); also this idea was rather misleading as it neglected the political determinants of increasing transfers (Andersen 1997a). - The first path-breaking analysis was presented by the Economic Council (1988) which was supported by the government’s White Book in 1989 (Government 1989). It was officially endorsed by the trade unions in the report from a corporative Commission on Labour Market Structural Problems (1992) which failed to establish agreement on recommendations but agreed on problem definitions; and it was confirmed by the Social Commission (1993) and the Welfare Commission (1995).