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Vicious and Virtuous Circles - The Political Economy of Unemployment in Interwar UK and USA

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Author Info
Matthews, Kent
Minford, Patrick
Naraidoo, Ruthira

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Abstract

This paper develops a political economy model of multiple unemployment equilibria to provide a theory of an endogenous natural rate of unemployment. This model is applied to the UK and the US interwar period which is remembered as the decade of mass unemployment. The theory here sees the natural rate and the associated path of unemployment as a reaction to shocks (mainly demand in nature) and the institutional structure of the economy. The channel through which these two forces feed on each other is a political economy process whereby voters with limited information on the natural rate react to shocks by demanding more or less social protection. The reduced form results obtained confirm a pattern of unemployment behaviour in which unemployment moves between high and low equilibria in response to shocks.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 6839.

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Date of creation: May 2008
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6839

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Related research
Keywords: "vicious" and "virtuous" circles; bootstrapping; Equilibrium unemployment; forecasting; Political economy;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution
E27 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Forecasting and Simulation
P16 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - Political Economy of Capitalism

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