Second, as noted, we might ask to what extent governments involve themselves in production decisions. Since the early 1980s, in countries such as the UK and New Zealand, concerted attempts have been made to reduce the influence of government over economic activity, through the privatization of state-owned firms, for example. Elsewhere, experience has been divided: in the United States, to take the most obvious case, the economic impact of government has always been comparatively limited, and there is consequently a greater role for the private sector in the allocation of resources. By contrast, in the Scandinavian countries the role of the state in the economy is traditionally more pervasive. As we shall see, the balance between what the business sector does in an economy and what the state does is one of the key issues in economics.