The author, drawing on his experience as a Chief Economic Adviser (Deputy Secretary) in the U.K. Government (1973-76) and occasional adviser in the 1980s, denies that his previous economic analyses of advice-giving support the thesis that government economic advisers become the slaves of...

Wagner's "law of increasing state activity" has recently been subjected to intensive use of recondite econometric testing procedures. An examination of the relevant articles reveals ignorance both of Wagner's definition of "state activity" and of his insistence that he was not engaged in...