IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lev/levppb/ppb_36.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Dangerous Metaphor: The Fiction of the Labor Market, Unemployment, Inflation, and the Job Structure

Author

Listed:
  • James K. Galbraith

Abstract

The concept of a labor market, responding to familiar underpinnings of supply and demand, completely colors thought on the relationship between employment, wages, and inflation, according to James K. Galbraith. However, he asserts, wages are determined not by such market forces, but by what he calls the job structure--a complex set of status and pay relationships involving individual qualifications, job characteristics, and industry patterns. What is the meaning of the job structure for policy? Notions of natural rates of unemployment and inflationary barriers to full employment fade away. Supply-side measures can no longer been seen as adequate to deal with problems of unemployment and inequality. Questions of distribution of income and adjustment of the wage structure are returned to the political context. The active pursuit of full employment is returned to the list of respectable, and essential, policy goals.

Suggested Citation

  • James K. Galbraith, "undated". "Dangerous Metaphor: The Fiction of the Labor Market, Unemployment, Inflation, and the Job Structure," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_36, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:levppb:ppb_36
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/ppb36.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gordon, David M, 1988. "The Un-natural Rate of Unemployment: An Econometric Critique of the NAIRU Hypothesis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 117-123, May.
    2. Charles Adams & David T. Coe, 1990. "A Systems Approach to Estimating the Natural Rate of Unemployment and Potential Output for the United States," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 37(2), pages 232-293, June.
    3. Chinhui Juhn & Kevin M. Murphy & Robert H. Topel, 1991. "Why Has the Natural Rate of Unemployment Increased over Time?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 22(2), pages 75-142.
    4. Juhn, Chinhui & Murphy, Kevin M & Pierce, Brooks, 1993. "Wage Inequality and the Rise in Returns to Skill," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 410-442, June.
    5. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald & Peter Sanfey, 1996. "Wages, Profits, and Rent-Sharing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 227-251.
    6. Rod Cross, 2000. "Hysteresis and Emu," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 367-379, November.
    7. Robert Z. Lawrence & Matthew J. Slaughter, 1993. "International Trade and American Wages in the 1980s: Giant Sucking Sound or Small Hiccup?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(2 Microec), pages 161-226.
    8. Stephen V. O. Clarke, 1989. "Balancing Acts: Technology, Finance, and the American Future By James K. Galbraith," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 61-64, July.
    9. Robert E. Hall, 1970. "Why Is the Unemployment Rate So High at Full Employment?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 1(3), pages 369-410.
    10. George A. Akerlof & William R. Dickens & George L. Perry, 1996. "The Macroeconomics of Low Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 1-76.
    11. Bound, John & Johnson, George, 1992. "Changes in the Structure of Wages in the 1980's: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 371-392, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. L. Randall Wray & Marc-André Pigeon, 2000. "Can a Rising Tide Raise All Boats? Evidence from the Clinton-Era Expansion," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 811-845, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James K. Galbraith, 1998. "Unemployment, Inflation, and the Job Structure," Macroeconomics 9810003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. James K. Galbraith, 1997. "Time to Ditch the NAIRU," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 93-108, Winter.
    3. James K. Galbraith, 1996. "Unemployment, Inflation and the Job Structure," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_154, Levy Economics Institute.
    4. Monte, Ferdinando, 2011. "Skill bias, trade, and wage dispersion," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 202-218, March.
    5. Peng, Shin-Kun & Thisse, Jacques-Francois & Wang, Ping, 2006. "Economic integration and agglomeration in a middle product economy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 1-25, November.
    6. Turrini, Alessandro, 1998. "Endogenous education policy and increasing income inequality between skilled and unskilled workers," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 303-326, May.
    7. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 7-72, March.
    8. Hesham ABDEL-RAHMAN, 2010. "Trade, Urban Systems, and Labor Markets," Regional and Urban Modeling 284100000, EcoMod.
    9. Rosario Crinò, 2009. "Offshoring, Multinationals And Labour Market: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 197-249, April.
    10. Anna Sabadash, 2013. "ICT-induced Technological Progress and Employment: A Literature Review," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2013-07, Joint Research Centre.
    11. Dumont, Michel, 2004. "The Impact of International Trade with Newly Industrialised Countries on the Wages and Employment of Low-Skilled and High-Skilled Workers in the European Union," Thesis Commons bmxag, Center for Open Science.
    12. Anna Sabadash, 2013. "ICT-induced Technological Progress and Employment: a Happy Marriage or a Dangerous Liaison? A Literature Review," JRC Research Reports JRC76143, Joint Research Centre.
    13. Lawrence F. Katz, 1994. "Active labor market policies to expand employment and opportunity," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Jan, pages 239-322.
    14. Fatih Guvenen & Burhanettin Kuruscu, 2010. "A Quantitative Analysis of the Evolution of the US Wage Distribution, 1970–2000," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 227-276, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Tschopp, Jeanne, 2015. "The Wage Response to Shocks: The Role of Inter-Occupational Labour Adjustment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 28-37.
    16. James Spletzer & Elizabeth Weber Handwerker, 2015. "The Role of Establishments and the Concentration of Occupations in Wage Inequality," Working Papers id:7427, eSocialSciences.
    17. Sakurai, Kojiro, 2001. "Biased Technological Change and Japanese Manufacturing Employment," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 298-322, September.
    18. Sabine Engelmann, 2014. "International trade, technological change and wage inequality in the UK economy," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 223-246, May.
    19. Karnit Flug & Zvi Hercowitz, 2000. "Equipment Investment and the Relative Demand for Skilled Labor: International Evidence," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 3(3), pages 461-485, July.
    20. Michel Lubrano & Abdoul Aziz Junior Ndoye, 2014. "Bayesian Unconditional Quantile Regression: An Analysis of Recent Expansions in Wage Structure and Earnings Inequality in the US 1992–2009," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(2), pages 129-153, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:lev:levppb:ppb_36. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Elizabeth Dunn (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.levyinstitute.org .

    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.