This book examines the failure of the Socialist government that held tenure in Spain from 1982 until 1996 to combat unemployment. Sebastián Royo builds on interviews with policymakers, business and union leaders, and scholars to support a new hypothesis: that the institutional dependence of the main labor union (UGT) on the Spanish Socialist Party led the Socialist government to default repeatedly on promises made to the union. This book's main theoretical contribution is to highlight an institutional factor that has not been considered in the examination of the effect of political institutions on economies, namely, the autonomy or lack thereof of labor unions from governing parties.
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