Since wage stickiness generates unemployment or intersectoral labour transfer in excess of that associated with a flexible-wage adjustment process, it is frequently argued that declining industries should be subsidised to some extent to replicate the behaviour of undistorted economies. We discuss three arguments against this "traditional" viewpoint, and find that each applies in the cases of Irish Steel and Team Aer Lingus. Intervention, we find, far from alleviating the competitiveness problems that these sectors face, actually worsens them.A hard copy is available in UCD Library at GEN 330.08 IR/UN
