This paper explores the economic case for international labour standards. Granting workers rights of free association and collective bargaining confers both static and dynamic economic efficiencies. Static efficiencies refer to one-time gains from improvements in economic practice. Dynamic...

The conventional wisdom is that high European unemployment is the result of job markets that are rigid and inflexible. This paper presents new empirical evidence that challenges this received wisdom. A major contribution of the paper is that it fully accounts for both micro- and macroeconomic...

The 1970s witnessed a backlash against inflation. However, Japan's prolonged stagnation and the global economy's recent flirtation with deflation have revived the case for low inflation. Low inflation acts as grease in labor markets, helping the process of adjustment and lowering equilibrium...

George Soros' views on financial markets are complex and at odds with most of the economics profession, marking him as an intellectual iconoclast. This paper explores Soros' thinking about financial markets, with special emphasis on his views regarding the shortcomings of the current...

This paper uses the AS/AD framework to illustrate competing approaches to (i) the dynamics of short run price-output adjustment, and (ii) the employment effects of nominal wage reductions. Nominal wages affect equilibrium outcomes if AD is subject to Pigou or Fisher debt effects. The Kaleckian...

This paper presents an alternative macroeconomic framework for understanding labor markets and unemployment. The approach breaks with the standard model which maintains that unemployment is the result of high and rigid wages, and instead focuses on the structural characteristics of labor...

This paper presents a theoretical model of consumption behavior that synthesizes the seminal contributions of Keynes (1936), Friedman (1956) and Duesenberry (1948). The model is labeled a “relative permanent income” theory of consumption. The key feature is that the share of permanent income...

Much has been written about union wage bargaining. Much less has been written about union density, which has been viewed as simply the employment outcome under the wage bargain. This paper presents a new dynamic model of union density that exhibits multiple equilibria and path-dependency. The...

This paper examines the implications of a currency union for monetary policy. The formation of a currency union worsens the inflation-unemployment tradeoff, so that leaving the inflation target unchanged at its pre-currency union level generates increased unemployment. Geographically based...

This paper explores long wave theory, including Kondratieff's theory of cycles in production and relative prices; Kuznets's theory of cycles arising from infrastructure investments; Schumpeter's theory of cycles due to waves of technological innovation; Goodwin's theory of cyclical growth based...