The Theory of Unemployment Reconsidered [antikvár]

When we study the impact of macroeconomic policy on unemploy^ient, as we must now do throughout the world, our main conceptual framework is the well-known Keynesian theory. After more than two decades during which the formai model derived from the General Theory re-mained substantially unchanged, a number of research workers have recently undertaken a reconsideration that, bearing on the basic foundations, should now lead us to a better understanding of the unemployment phenomenon itself. Contributing to the famous series of the Yrjö Jahnsson lectures, I shall try here to present my own views on where we now stand in this undertaking. I should like to convey my strong belief that the reconsideration is a major step in the develópment of our science. Indeed it tends to have the characteristics of great theoretical achievements: clear foundations, consistency with many observed facts, unification of theories which previously appeared as fundamentally distinct. To speak of the unemployment theory is, of course, an 'abus de langage', since we shall be concerned here only with the massive 'involuntary unemployment' Jthat at times