Jon Shields - Böcker

This volume and its companion "Conquering Unemployment: The Case for Economic Growth" examine major aspects of the Employment Institute's published output in its first three years of operation. The Institute is a research organization founded to promote study and debate on the problems of unemployment and to encourage research into the best methods of reducing unemployment figures without setting in motion an inflationary upsurge. The book contains a series of essays covering both macroeconomic and microeconomic solutions to explain why alternative prescriptions to monetarism could have avoided the massive surge of unemployment in the 1980s. Contributors suggest possible structural reforms which would permit the economy to be expanded further without rekindling inflation and allow a lower level of unemployment to be sustained. Two innovations are explored in the field of wage-setting: profit-sharing between employees and share-holders, and the use of either tax incentives to employers or agreements with unions to restrain wage increases. The book takes a fresh look at regional policy and evaluates the case for concentrating financial aid on small firms.A new approach to reabsorbing the million long-term unemployed back into the labour market is outlined and costed.

A companion text to "Making the Economy Work", this book covers major aspects of the Employment Institute's published output in its first three years. Based on pamphlets produced by the Institute, it explains why alternative action to "monetarism" could have avoided the rise in unemployment in the early 1980s. It states that if implemented now, these policies could ensure that recent reductions in unemployment would be hastened and sustained. The policies recommended cover both macroeconomic and microeconomic solutions. The contributions in this book concentrate on the macroeconomic side whilst those in "Making the Economy Work" focus on microeconomic or structural issues. The present volume asks whether the government should increase its own expenditure levels or reduce tax rates in order to stimulate economic activity. The contriubutors discuss how the government should set interest rates and what its attitude should be to the level of the exchange rate. They also attempt to show what went wrong with "good housekeeping" and "tight money" approaches of the first Thatcher administration.The aim throughout is to tackle complex economic issues in as readable and non-technical a manner as possible.