Full Employment

The economic performance of many countries has deteriorated significantly during the last decade. The 1990s witnessed a global recession, the Mexican currency crisis and later, the Asian and Russian crises. The objective of full employment and price stability appears to be an illusory goal for many of the economies of the emerging global market system. This book offers new policy prescriptions from the post Keynesian perspective to achieve full employment without inflation. Paul Davidson and Jan Kregel - both world renowned economists - have selected papers that rigorously examine real world issues including: ª the challenge of attaining external balance with internal growth and employment ª speculation and volatile financial markets in the quest to achieve full employment without inflation ª the role of money in combating unemployment ª the role of institutions in stabilizing economies ª the advantages and disadvantages of the Euro and its implications in the world economy ª Keynes's plan to reform the international payments system in the post war era The book will be welcomed by economists, especially those interested in international economics, by politicians, policymakers and by all those concerned with global employment and inflation issues.

Understanding Modern Money exposes flaws in the foundations of mainstream macroeconomics and suggests a better way to formulate policy that will benefit everyone living in capitalistic societies.

With the end of the post-war boom in the early 1970s, the world economy has experienced large scale unemployment. From an assumption that the unemployment problem had been solved, and that full employment could be maintained through demand management techniques, we now live in an entirely different world. Any suggestion of a return to full employment is met with questions of whether such a thing is possible, whether it would not lead to inflation or to excessive trade union power, or in the case of individual economies to unsustainable balance of payment deficits. The contributors to this volume ask whether full employment policies would be affordable. Would they lead to yawning fiscal deficits which would in the end require a U-turn in policy with unemployment reappearing? This well-informed and original contribution to current policy debate faces up to these questions and considers what would be involved in a move to much lower levels of unemployment.

Growth and unemployment occupy the center stage in economic policy debate. This book represents a major new contribution to the analysis of these issues and to the development of policy, bringing together economists from Britain, the USA, and Japan. The book is divided into four main sections: Demand, Capacity and Employment; Industrial Problems and Policies; International Lessons and Policy; and Directions for Policy.