Political Economy Research Group PhD lecture series: unemployment

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Time: 10.00am - 11.45am
Venue: Room 0114, Main Building, Penrhyn Road campus, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE
Price: free
Speaker(s): Professor Engelbert Stockhammer, Kingston University

This lecture is part of the PhD lecture series co-organised by the University of Greenwich and Kingston University.

The first part of the lecture discusses the role of the labour markets and unemployment in macroeconomics. In Walrasian/neoclassical economics full employment is ensured by Walrasian market clearing and an anchor for economic activity. In Keynesian economics employment follows economic activity determined by effective demand. Today the NAIRU framework has supplanted the traditional Walrasian labour market as the mainstream macroeconomic model of unemployment. The NAIRU model exhibits involuntary unemployment and incorporates (and domesticates) some arguments that Keynesians have made for a long time. A generalised NAIRU model will be used to illustrate differences and similarities between Monetarist, New Keynesian, Post Keynesian and Marxist accounts of unemployment and economic activity.

The second part of the lecture deals with the empirical research on the determinants of unemployment. Following the OECD (1994) Jobs Study the mainstream view regards inflexible labour market institutions as the main causes for unemployment. The OECD (2006) reassessment modifies the analysis (but hardly the policy conclusions). Several studies have in the meantime questioned the explanatory power of labour market institutions and Keynesians have highlighted changes in capital accumulation and monetary policy as determinants of unemployment.

Core readings

• Keynes, John, 1936. Changes in money wages. Chap. 19 of Keynes, John (1936) General Theory of employment, interest and money
• Nickell, Stephen, 1998. Unemployment: Questions and Some Answers. Economic Journal 108: 802-816 OECD, 2006.
• Boosting jobs and incomes. Policy lessons from reassessing the OECD Jobs Strategy. Paris: OECD
• Stockhammer, Engelbert, 2008. Is the NAIRU a Monetarist, New Keynesian, Post Keynesian or Marxist theory? Metroeconomica 59(4), 479-510.
• Stockhammer, E (2011). Wage norms, capital accumulation and unemployment. A Post Keynesian view. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 27, 2: 295-311
• Stockhammer, E, Klär, E, 2011. Capital accumulation and unemployment in the medium run Cambridge Journal of Economics 35(2): 437-457

All welcome.

For further information about this event:

Contact: Rafael Wildauer
Email: R.Wildauer@kingston.ac.uk