IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/intecp/978-1-349-11576-1_2.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Testing Keynesian Unemployment Theory against Structuralist Theory: Global Evidence of the Past Two Decades

In: Issues in Contemporary Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Edmund S. Phelps

    (Columbia University)

Abstract

The theory of unemployment accorded the status of orthodoxy in Western macroeconomics — the theory expounded in the textbooks — is, in a word, Keynesian. It derives from (among others) Keynes, Hicks, Tobin, Patinkin, the ‘natural rate’, and either a ‘new microeconomics’ apparatus without rational expectations or a New Keynesian apparatus compatible with rational expectations in order to generate inappropriate responses or inertia in nominal wages or prices. Some would allow hysteresis making the natural rate of unemployment ‘path-dependent’. The monetarists use the same theory, though with different emphases, and in a sense the New Classical theory is a special (and more fully elaborated) case of it. So entrenched has it become in conventional economic thinking that people who know no economics at all have learned, like Samuelson’s parrot, to say ‘weaker demand’ or ‘supply shock’ with every slump no matter how prolonged it is or how obscure its source or sources.

Suggested Citation

  • Edmund S. Phelps, 1991. "Testing Keynesian Unemployment Theory against Structuralist Theory: Global Evidence of the Past Two Decades," International Economic Association Series, in: Marc Nerlove (ed.), Issues in Contemporary Economics, chapter 2, pages 21-41, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:intecp:978-1-349-11576-1_2
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-11576-1_2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:intecp:978-1-349-11576-1_2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.