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Fiscal Policy and the Job Guarantee
William Mitchell, Warren Mosler, . (2001). Australian Journal of Labour Economics.Abstract
Most OECD economies have suffered from persistently high unemployment since the mid-1970s as a result of demand deficiencies promoted by inappropriate fiscal and monetary policy. Governments have failed to understand the opportunities that they have as the issuer of the currency. In this paper, a framework for analysing these opportunities is presented. We compare two buffer-stock means of stabilising the price level: (a) the NAIRU approach, which uses a buffer stock of unemployed; and (b) the Job Guarantee, which is an open ended, fixed wage buffer stock of employed workers. The government offers a fixed wage to anyone willing and able to work, and allows market forces to determine the total quantity of government spending. This option is available to the government as the monopoly issuer of fiat currency.
http://www.collectedworksofwarrenmosler.com/research-reports/PDF_Fisca...
Australia Inflation Macroeconomics -
Life-Sustaining, Life-Enhancing Employment
Mathew Forstater. (2001). Center for Full Employment and Price Stability.Abstract
In The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, Keynes begins with the warning that although the basic ideas he will put forward are simple, because they are a radical departure from the orthodoxy of neoclassical economics, they will not be easy to accept. “The difficulty lies,” he writes in the “Preface” to The General Theory, “not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds” (1936, p. viii). Those aspects of the neoclassical theory on which Keynes’s critique focused were its neglect of aggregate analysis and inability to comprehend the operative role of monetary variables; its adherence to Say’s Law and thus its analysis of the savings-investment relationship; and its abstraction from the role of the uncertainty of investor expectations. When these problems are considered the free market is transformed from a harmonious self-adjusting full-employment equilibrium system into an under-employment (and therefore socially undesirable) demand-constrained system, latent with crisis and instability.
https://edi.bard.edu/research/notes/cfeps-wp-15-life-sustaining-life-e...
Macroeconomics -
The Malawi Social Action Fund and community development
Paul Kishindo. (2001). Community Development Journal.Abstract
In 1996, with credit from the International Development Agency, the concessionary lending arm of the World Bank, the Malawi government established the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) to assist the empowerment of local communities. The Fund is part of the government’s poverty alleviation programme which is designed to promote employment creation and provide social and economic infrastructure. It is argued here that whilst this provides a useful experience in project management to local community members, there is a concern that ‘undeserving’ communities will be omitted.
https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/36.4.303
Africa Development -
Community Project Funding in Malawi under the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) Demand-Driven Approach: Potential for Perpetuating Imbalances in Development
Paul Kishindo. (2000). Journal of Social Development in Africa.Abstract
This paper gives an overview of the kind of community development projects that the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) has supported since its inception in July 1996. The MASAF has tended to subscribe to a demand-driven approach in its evaluation of projects, thereby introducing an element of competition in commu nity development. This has led to imbalances in socio-economic infrastructure, between those districts whose communities have been unable to initiate their own projects, and those where there is more sophisticated “development-conscious” leadership. Ways in which more equitable and effective grassroots development can be implemented are presented in this paper, where the author believes that non governmental development agencies in particular, have a positive role to play.
https://doi.org/10.4314/jsda.v15i1.23850
Africa Implementation -
Is an Employer-of-Last-Resort Policy Sustainable? A review article
Tony Aspromourgos. (2000). Review of Political Economy.Abstract
A radical proposal to address decisively the problem of mass involuntary unemployment, by way of a government committing itself to stand ready as ’employer of last resort’, has recently been put forward by L. Randall Wray and others. To the question of how such large-scale policies would be financed, there has been a suggestion that issuing outside money would suffice. This review employs some simple modelling to show the limits to ‘printing money’ as a means of financing such an employment policy. The review also critically scrutinizes the claim that the policy can simultaneously act as an antiinflationary device, as well as some other aspects of the proposals.
https://doi.org/10.1080/095382500406477
Inflation Macroeconomics Modeling Quantitative -
The Full Employment Approach to Reducing Black Poverty and Unemployment in the United States
Mathew Forstater. (2000). Center for Full Employment and Price Stability.Abstract
The racially coded terminology of the behavioralist paradigm centering on the notion of the (Black) “underclass” has achieved hegemony in the last two decades of the twentieth century, constituting the ultimate failure of the United States to face up to the challenge posed by W. E. B. Du Bois (1903) one hundred years ago. As John Hope Franklin (1994) recently observed, since by no measure could America be said to have effectively addressed the problem, it remains the problem of the twenty- first century. Residential segregation has been documented to constitute what Massey and Denton (1993) have dubbed “American Apartheid”; Kozol (1991) has described with equal accuracy the “savage inequalities” of educational opportunities; racial discrimination persists in housing and credit markets (Dymski); the Black unemployment rate remains stuck at twice that of whites; African Americans are crowded into the low-wage, no or little benefits, no or little job security sectors (Boston, 1988; Darity and Myers, 1998); Black men, especially young black men, are crowded in the prison system; welfare roles are reduced without accounting for all those who leave; lack of adequate, affordable day care remains a problem. Drugs, homicide, violence, family disruption and dislocation pervade the neighborhoods where Black children grow up. Income inequality is severe, but an even more desperate picture emerges from Oliver and Shapiro’s recent (1997) documentation of wealth inequality by race. The so-called Clinton expansion has left some behind, indeed, including a segment of the population described by Darity, et al. (1994) as the “unwanted” and termed by the behavioralist paradigm the black “underclass”—inner city blacks detached from the labor force and the world of legal work, with little training and poor education, living in neighborhoods rife with crime, drugs, and violence.
https://edi.bard.edu/research/notes/cfeps-wp-7-the-full-employment-app...
North America Racial Justice -
The Taxes-Drive-Money and Employer of Last Resort Approach to Government Policy
George Anthony Kadmos, Phillip Anthony O'Hara. (2000). Journal of economic and social policy.Abstract
This paper critically examines and seeks to stimulate debate on a new approach to government policy, which postulates that taxes drive the money supply and that the state should act as employer of last resort to ensure full employment. Taxes are said to drive the money supply and hence government spending derives from money; budget deficits are, therefore, generally needed to propel private investment and profitability. Since deficits should be the norm, this enables the state to finance a system of employing all who are willing to work at a basic-level-wage in the public sector doing social jobs. The findings of this study are that taxes do or should indeed drive money, but that money is better spent on public investment projects and skills associated with the leading sectors of the economy, rather than simply on consumption goods. Therefore, the employer of last resort policy, which is based largely on consumption spending, may be problematical. Hence, either a new approach to employment is needed or the last resort approach needs to expand its concerns to public investment and skills especially in the knowledge, infrastructure, information, social and communications areas.
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=1b2125f...
Macroeconomics -
Public employment and economic flexibility: The job opportunity approach to full employment
Mathew Forstater. (1999). The Levy Economics Institute.Abstract
Central banks, national governments, and international organizations have resisted policies that would promote full employment because high employment and high capacity utilization are associated with structural rigidities that result in sluggish growth, inflationary pressures, and other undesirable consequences. What has been almost entirely overlooked is the way in which public sector activity can enhance flexibility with regard to labor, capital goods, natural resources and environmental protection, methods of production, and location of economic activity. The job opportunity approach makes strategic use of public sector activity to create truly full employment, thereby reducing the social and economic costs of unemployment, and to promote projects designed to be consistent with broad macroeconomic goals and social values.
https://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/public-employment-and-econo...
Macroeconomics -
Public Service Employment-Assured Jobs Program: Further Considerations
L. Randall Wray. (1999). Journal of Economic Issues.Abstract
The Conservative belief that there is some law of nature which prevents men from being employed, that it is “rash” to employ men, and that it is financially ‘sound’ to maintain a tenth of the population in idleness for an indefinite period, is crazily improbable-the sort of thing which no man could believe who had not had his head fiddled with nonsense for years and years…. Our main task, therefore, will be to confirm the reader’s instinct that what seems sensible is sensible, and what seems nonsense is nonsense. We shall try to show him that the conclusion, that if new forms of employment are offered more men mill be employed, is as obvious as it sounds and contains no hidden snags; that to set unemployed men to work on useful tasks does what it appears to do, namely, increases the national wealth, and that the notion, that we shall, for intricate reasons, ruin ourselves financially if we use this means to increase our well-being, is what it looks like-a bogy. -John Maynard Keynes 1972, 90-92
https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1999.11506181
Macroeconomics -
Flexible Full Employment: Structural Implications of Discretionary Public Sector Employment
Mathew Forstater. (1998). Journal of Economic Issues.Abstract
Full employment is often associated with structural rigidities. An economy running at full employment and high levels of capacity utilization will have difficulty adjusting to structural changes such as capitaland labor-displacing technical innovations, changes in supply of labor or natural resources, and changes in the composition of final demand [see, e.g., Lowe 1976; Pasinetti 1981, 1993]. Such rigidity is rooted in the structural and technological features of modern capitalist economies. Modem economies are interindustry systems with complex sectoral interdependencies described in input-output analyses. Capital goods are highly specific and in no way necessarily shiftable between different lines of production. Means of production are neither highly divisible nor substitutable. Economic processes take place in historical time; there are no instantaneous adjustments. There is a significant amount of uncertainty regarding the future, and the past is unchangeable. There are time lags, distortions, bottlenecks, and rigidities that reflect the physical and technical nature of the system. While standard neoclassical models exhibit flexibility because of unrealistic assumptions, such as perfectly mobile, divisible, substitutable, and homogeneous factors of production, perfectly flexible prices, and perfect information, the primary “real-life” features endowing capitalist systems with flexibility are unemployment and excess capacity. Excess capacity permits firms to respond relatively quickly to unexpected increases in demand. But this ability to respond requires not only reserve capacity in terms of plant and equipment, it also requires the ability to hire additional workers or to add hours of work. A “reserve army of labor,” including the
https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1998.11506064
Macroeconomics -
A Price Well Worth Paying? The Benefits of a Full-Employment Strategy
Kitson, M., J. Michie, and H. Sutherland. (1997). Michie and Smith (eds.) Employment and Economic Performance: Jobs, Inflation and Growth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Abstract
This book provides an up-to-date and well-informed overview of the debate on employment. The contributors ask: is full employment possible? Would it lead to inflation, excess of trade union power, and balance of payment deficits? Is full employment affordable? They face up to these questions and consider what would be involved in a move to much lower levels of unemployment. This is a worthwhile and original contribution to current policy debate.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/employment-and-economic-perfor...
Macroeconomics -
Full Employment and Price Stability
Warren Mosler. (1997). Journal of Post Keynesian Economics.Abstract
There is no available abstract at this time.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01603477.1997.11490146
Inflation Macroeconomics -
Government as Employer of Last Resort: Full Employment Without Inflation
L. Randall Wray. (1997). Social Science Research Network.Abstract
Since, WWII, it has been the stated policy of the U.S. government to simultaneously pursue high employment and stable prices. Paradoxically, neither accepted economic theory nor practical experience appears to indicate that high or full employment is even possible with stable prices. In this paper, we argue that stable prices and truly full employment are indeed possible. In fact, the Humphrey-Hawkins Act sets the goalpost too low; we argue that the government can guarantee a zero unemployment rate, defined as all who are ready, willing, and able to work at the going wage will be able to find a job–only those unwilling (or unable) to work at the going wage would be left without work (which are not normally counted as unemployed). The government does this by acting as the employer of last resort, offering to hire all who show up to work at a fixed wage. In doing so, the government ensures that all who are ready, willing, able to work at that wage will be provided a job. At the same time, by setting this wage, the government will provide a price anchor that will impart price stability to the system, that is, we will show that a true full employment policy is not, in itself, “inflationary” and indeed could reduce inflationary pressures under some conditions. Further, the full employment policy would help to reduce economic fluctuations (the “business cycle”) through a powerful built-in automatic stabilizer feature.
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.74942
Inflation Macroeconomics -
Job Assurance—The Job Guarantee Revisited
Wendell Gordon. (1997). Journal of Economic Issues.Abstract
(1997). Job Assurance—The Job Guarantee Revisited. Journal of Economic Issues: Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 826-834.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1997.11505968
Macroeconomics -
Selective Use of Discretionary Public Employment and Economic Flexibility
Mathew Forstater. (1997). Social Science Research Network.Abstract
Full employment is normally associated with structuralrigidities that may result in production bottlenecks and inflationary pressures. Flexibility or elasticity of the production system istherefore a desirable feature of an economic system. Many standardmodels, however, exhibit flexibility because of the use of unacceptablyunrealistic assumptions. While unemployment and excess capacity areimportant real- life factors that endow economic systems with flexibility, the flexibility gained in this manner comes at a high social and economiccost. This paper explores these issues and proposes the selective use ofdiscretionary public employment as a means of promoting higher levels ofemployment–and even full employment–without creating structuralrigidities, resulting in negative enivronmental consequences, or causing undesirable geographic dislocation of workers.
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.95968
Macroeconomics -
Special Issue on: The Challenge of Full Employment in the Global Economy Editorial Introduction
Helen Lachs Ginsburg, June Zaccone, Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, Sheila D. Collins, Sumner M. Rosen. (1997). Economic & Industrial Democracy.Abstract
Low unemployment and commitment to full employment were widespread after the Second World War. Today, there is mass unemployment and weak commitment to-full employment, which is still necessary and attainable. This article discusses divergent concepts of full employment, its history and the impact of the global economy. We dispel the notion that Europe’s high unemployment is due to labor market rigidity, that the US model is a good alternative and that technology has made work obsolete. Unemployment, both morally unacceptable and economically irrational, weakens welfare states. The global economy makes attaining full employment more difficult but not impossible. Political and economic strategies, needed at both national and international levels, are suggested, along with possible actions by intellectuals.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831x97181001
Macroeconomics -
The Path to full Employment
William Mitchell, Martin Watts. (1997). Australian Economic Review.Abstract
Persistent unemployment arises because free market ideology has overridden collective responsibilities. To restore full employment the government must provide permanent employment for all the unemployed in environmentally sustainable and useful jobs.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.304043
Australia Macroeconomics -
Employment as a Human Right
Philip Harvey. (1993). Sociology and the Public Agenda.Abstract
There are few economic problems that cause as much suffering as unemployment. It has been linked to increased suicide rates, criminal activity, morbidity, mortality, mental illness, and to a variety of negative social psychological effects (Platt 1984; Taggart 1981; Stern 1983; Brenner 1973, 1977; Kelvin and Jarrett 1985). More generally, because it is a primary cause of poverty (Sawhill 1988), it is implicated in the full range of social problems that flow from material want and economic marginalization.
https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483325484.n18
Human Rights Macroeconomics -
Changing Concepts of Full Employment: Divergent Concepts, Divergent Goals
Helen Ginsburg. (1991). International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy.Abstract
In recent decades, substantial unemployment once again became commonplace enough in most Western industrial nations to erase the optimism that pervaded the early post‐World War II era. That optimism was fueled by a belief that capitalism had solved the problem of unemployment. Full employment was believed to be a permanent feature of Western economies, just as in the 1930s, mass unemployment was often considered a permanent feature of capitalist economies.
https://doi.org/10.1108/eb013124
Macroeconomics -
Full Employment and Public Policy: The United States and Sweden
Michael Podgursky, Helen Ginsburg. (1984). Industrial and Labor Relations Review.Abstract
Plant shutdowns, rising imports, the rapid diffusion of new microelectronic technologies, and structural changes in the economy have rekindled concern with the problem of structural unemployment and labor market policy in the United States. The President’s Council of Economic Advisers, for example, states in the Economic Report of the President (1983) that “even after full recovery … a serious tructural unemployment problem will remain unless measures are taken to improve the functioning of labor markets.” This same concern underlies the newJob Training Partnership Act, which in addition to redirecting federal human resource policy toward training also broadens its mission to include not only disadvantaged workers, but also mainstream workers dislocated by economic change. Against this background of rising concern and new policy directions, a critical examination of the more comprehensive manpower policy practiced in most other mature industrial nations could be very useful. Professor Ginsburg, dismayed at the high and rising level of unemployment in the United States and the failure to make a de facto or de jure commitment to full employment, has chosen to contrast U.S. policy with the active labor market policy in Sweden, a country that has remained firmly committed to full employment, inspite of rising unemployment in all industrial nations. Consider the recent unemployment record: from 1970 to 1979, average unemployment rates, comparably defined, were 6.1 percent in the United States and 2.1 percent in Sweden. The rates in 1982 were 9.7 percent in the United States and 3.1 percent in Sweden. The foundation for Swedish labor market policy lies in agreements reached among the Social Democratic government, unions, and employers in the early 1950s. Trade union support for an active labor market policy was motivated by the belief that traditional macroeconomic policy had failed to maintain full employment without sustaining unacceptably high rates of inflation, and by the consequent tendency of the government to intervene directly in the collective bargaining process. The labor movement thus viewed an active labor market policy as a means of reconciling full employment and free collective bargaining. Although the principal architects of an active labor market policy were economists at the blue-collar union confederation (LO), every stage of its expansion was preceded by discussion, compromise, and eventually, agreement between the “social partners” in the labor market: unions and management. Policy is administered by the National Labor Market Board (AMS), whose governing board is made up of union and employer representatives at both the national and local level. This governing board plays an active role in policy formulation, and new policy initiatives are undertaken only with unanimous board support. The underpinning of every policy, then, is a prior commitment of the major labor market parties to cooperate fully in its implementation. This is an important institutional difference between the United States and Sweden and must be kept in mind when examining any Swedish policy. Having given the reader the necessary background, Ginsburg then takes us through the myriad programs that constitute contemporary Swedish labor market policy. Space permits me to mention only a few. Best known is the extensive labor market training system, operated largely through the many AMS training centers, which absorbs in any given month from one to 2 percent of the labor force and provides training in a broad range of trades. An extensive public relief work system run in coordination with municipal governments absorbs a roughly equivalent share of the labor force. At the center of the system is a computerized national employment service, with which employers are obliged by law to list all job vacancies and report all impending large-scale redundancies. Providing a broad range of services including job-search and relocation benefits, it is utilized by 85 percent of jobseekers and plays a major role in the labor market. Wage subsidies are administered to firms and workers adjusting to structural economic change and are also used in conjunction with an aggressive regional development policy. The author also examines programs targeted to special groups in the labor market: women, youth, immigrants, older workers, and the disabled. All of this adds up to a very comprehensive and expensive set of programs, annually absorbing some 3 percent of the Swedish GNP. Sage Publications, Inc.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2523744
Europe North America -
Lessons from a Job Guarantee. The Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects
Judith M. Gueron. (1984). Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.Abstract
The Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects (YIEPP) was the nation’s largest demonstration to test the feasibility and effectiveness of a new approach to solving the employment problems of disadvantaged youths. Youth Entitlement was not “business as usual” for programs operating under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), but a bold $240 million experiment in which 76,000 youths were employed in a research study to determine whether this new idea would correct what seemed an irreversible deterioration in the employment position of poor youths.
As described in the report, Youth Entitlement tested three major innovations. The test was a major challenge to the CETA prime sponsors charged with operating the program since it combined an early attempt to link schooling and work with the country’s first effort to deliver on a job guarantee, which also involved private sector cooperation.
Youth Entitlement was one of the four major programs initiated under the 1977 Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act (YEDPA). YEDPA had mixed goals: to learn about the long-term effectiveness of different approaches to reduce youths’ high unemployment rates and low labor force participation and to provide jobs directly in an immediate attack on the problem. It was the most research-oriented, the most experimental, and the most targeted of the four YEDPA efforts.
https://www.mdrc.org/publication/lessons-job-guarantee
Implementation North America Quantitative Urban Youth -
Impacts from the Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects: Participation, Work, and Schooling Over the Full Program Period
George Farkas, E W Stromsdorfer, G Trask, R Jerrett. (1982). US Department of Labor.Abstract
The YIEPP was targeted to youths aged 16-19 from low-income or welfare households who had not yet graduated from high school. The program’s primary feature was an offer of a guaranteed Federal minimum wage job parttime during the school year and fulltime during the summer, on the condition that participants remain in or return to school or pursue a General Equivalency Diploma. The evaluation research design made use of matched comparison sites, and it focused on program eligibles as well as participants. Questionnaires administered to the sample focused on schooling, work, and related experience. YIEPP’s success in attracting black youths to the program suggests that the current low employment rates for black youths may result from discrimination in the marketplace. Results also show that youth are willing to continue their education and even return to school if they can have income from a job. YIEPP both reduced the drop-out rate of younger teens already enrolled in school and increased the number returning to either regular high school or a program to earn the General Equivalency Diploma. The appendixes contain supplementary impact tables, regression models for basic program impacts, and tests of sample attrition bias. Tabular data are provided.
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/impacts-youth-ince...
Implementation North America Quantitative Urban Youth -
Is There a Human Right to Employment?
James W. Nickel. (1978). Philosophical Forum.Abstract
Les personnes ont-elles un droit au travail tel qu’il devrait etre reflete dans une legislation garantissant un emploi a tout demandeur?.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327655500_Is_There_a_Human_Ri...
Human Rights Macroeconomics -
The Role of Employment Policy
Hyman P. Minsky. (1965). The Levy Economics Institute.Abstract
“The Role of Employment Policy”, pp. 175-200. Reprinted from Margaret S. Gordon, Ed. Poverty In America. Proceedings of a national conference held at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, Feb. 26-28, 1965. Published for the Institute of Industrial Relations, Univ. of California, Berkeley. San Francisco, CA: Chandler Publishing Company, 1965.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1271&conte...
Macroeconomics -
Political Aspects of Full Employment
Michael Kalecki. (1943). Political Quarterly.Abstract
In should be first stated that, although most economists are now agreed that full employment may be achieved by government spending, this was by no means the case even in the recent past. Among the opposers of this doctrine there were (and still are) prominent so-called ‘economic experts’ closely connected with banking and industry. This suggests that there is a political background in the opposition to the full employment doctrine, even though the arguments advanced are economic. That is not to say that people who advance them do not believe in their economics, poor though this is. But obstinate ignorance is usually a manifestation of underlying political motives.
https://delong.typepad.com/kalecki43.pdf
Inflation Macroeconomics -
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
Joseph A. Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes. (1936). Journal of the American Statistical Association.Abstract
Part I. Introduction: 1. The general theory 2. The postulates of the classical economics 3. The principle of effective demand Part II. Definitions and Ideas: 4. The choice of units 5. Expectation as determining output and employment 6. The definition of income, saving and investment 7. The meaning of saving and investment further considered Part III. The Propensity to Consume: 8. The propensity to consume – i. The objective factors 9. The propensity to consume – ii. The subjective factors 10. The marginal propensity to consume and the multiplier Part IV. The Inducement to Invest: 11. The marginal efficiency of capital 12. The state of long-term expectation 13. The general theory of the rate of interest 14. The classical theory of the rate of interest 15. The psychological and business incentives to liquidity 16. Sundry observations on the nature of capital 17. The essential properties of interest and money 18. The general theory of employment re-stated Part V. Money-wages and Prices: 19. Changes in money-wages 20. The employment function 21. The theory of prices Part VI. Short Notes Suggested by the General Theory: 22. Notes on the trade cycle 23. Notes on mercantilism, the usury laws, stamped money and theories of under-consumption 24. Concluding notes on the social philosophy towards which the general theory might lead.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2278703
Inflation Macroeconomics