IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ctl/louvir/2003016.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Lucas on Involuntary Unemployment

Author

Listed:
  • Michel, De Vroey

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES))

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine critically Lucas’ arguments against Keynes’s General Theory and in particular against Keynes’s concept of involuntary unemployment. It comprises two main parts. In the first, I question Lucas’s claim that Keynes betrayed the equilibrium discipline by freeing himself from the postulates of optimising behaviour and market clearing. In the second, I discuss Lucas’ three arguments against the involuntary unemployment concept - first, that there is no rationale for drawing a distinction between two sorts of unemployment, second that every economic outcome features voluntarity and involuntarity jointly and, third, that alternatives to unemployment are always present.

Suggested Citation

  • Michel, De Vroey, 2002. "Lucas on Involuntary Unemployment," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2003016, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvir:2003016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2003-16.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michel De Vroey, 1999. "From Labor Rationing to (Involuntary) Unemployment: A Conceptual Elucidation," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 315-330, Summer.
    2. Michel De Vroey, 1997. "Involuntary unemployment: the missing piece in Keynes's General Theory," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 258-283.
    3. De Vroey, Michel, 2002. "Equilibrium and Disequilibrium in Walrasian and Neo-Walrasian Economics," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(4), pages 405-426, December.
    4. Michel De Vroey, 2000. "Marshall on equilibrium and time: a reconstruction," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 245-269.
    5. Michel De Vroey, 2001. "Friedman and Lucas on the Phillips Curve: From a Disequilibrium to an Equilibrium Approach," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 127-148, Spring.
    6. Brian Snowdon & Howard R. Vane, 1999. "Conversations with Leading Economists," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1607.
    7. Shapiro, Carl & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1984. "Equilibrium Unemployment as a Worker Discipline Device," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 433-444, June.
    8. Donald A. Walker (ed.), 2000. "Equilibrium," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 1585.
    9. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1996. "Nobel Lecture: Monetary Neutrality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 661-682, August.
    10. Michel De Vroey, 1998. "Is the tatonnement hypothesis a good caricature of market forces?," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 201-221.
    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. John S.L. McCombie & Ioana Negru, 2014. "On economic paradigms, rhetoric and the micro-foundations of macroeconomics," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 11(1), pages 53-66, April.
    2. Alex Gymnopoulos & Thanos Poulakis & Haris Poulakis & Nikolaos Chatzarakis, 2021. "Investigating the Greek Unemployment from a Classical Perspective," Bulletin of Political Economy, Bulletin of Political Economy, vol. 15(1), pages 69-91, June.
    3. Michel De Vroey, 2007. "Did The Market‐Clearing Postulate Pre‐Exist New Classical Economics? The Case Of Marshallian Theory," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 75(3), pages 328-348, June.

    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. Michel De Vroey, 2004. "The History of Macroeconomics Viewed against the Background of the Marshall-Walras Divide," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 36(5), pages 57-91, Supplemen.
    2. Juli Radev, 2011. "Static and dynamic market disequilibrium," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 2, pages 36-63.
    3. Olivier Blanchard, 2000. "What Do We Know about Macroeconomics that Fisher and Wicksell Did Not?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1375-1409.
    4. Michel De Vroey, 1997. "Le concept de chômage involontaire : de Keynes aux nouveaux keynésiens," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 48(6), pages 1381-1408.
    5. Brian Snowdon & Howard R. Vane, 1999. "The New Political Macroeconomics: An Interview with Alberto Alesina," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 43(1), pages 19-34, March.
    6. Michel De Vroey, 2006. "The temporary equilibrium method: Hicks against Hicks," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 259-278.
    7. Michel De Vroey, 2001. "L'histoire des théories économiques sous le prisme de l'hétérodoxie. Une analyse critique de l'Histoire de la pensée économique de Ghislain Deleplace," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 38(1), pages 115-133.
    8. Michel De Vroey, 2007. "Did The Market‐Clearing Postulate Pre‐Exist New Classical Economics? The Case Of Marshallian Theory," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 75(3), pages 328-348, June.
    9. Michel, DE VROEY, 2004. "On the Right Side for the Wrong Reason : Friedman on the Marshall-Walras divide," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2004015, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    10. Danilo Freitas Ramalho Da Silva, 2014. "Lucas’S Early Research In The 1960’S," Anais do XLI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 41st Brazilian Economics Meeting] 009, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    11. Lloyd Ulman, 1992. "Why Should Human Resource Managers Pay High Wages?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 177-212, June.
    12. Blanco, M. & Dalton, P.S. & Vargas, J.F., 2013. "Does the Unemployement Benefit Institution Affect the Productivity of Workers? Evidence from a Field Experiment," Other publications TiSEM ba37e033-06ab-4fc3-b56e-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew Oswald, 1995. "International Wage Curves," NBER Chapters, in: Differences and Changes in Wage Structures, pages 145-174, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Milo Bianchi, 2012. "Financial Development, Entrepreneurship, and Job Satisfaction," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 273-286, February.
    15. Kee, Hiau Looi & Hoon, Hian Teck, 2005. "Trade, capital accumulation and structural unemployment: an empirical study of the Singapore economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 125-152, June.
    16. Adam Elbourne & Debby Lanser & Bert Smid & Martin Vromans, 2008. "Macroeconomic resilience in a DSGE model," CPB Discussion Paper 96.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    17. Rabensteiner, Thomas & Guschanski, Alexander, 2022. "Autonomy and wage divergence: evidence from European survey data," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 37925, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    18. Sonja Daltung & Vittoria Cerasi, 2006. "Financial structure, managerial compensation and monitoring," FMG Discussion Papers dp576, Financial Markets Group.
    19. Michalis Nikiforos, 2013. "Uncertainty and Contradiction: An Essay on the Business Cycle," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_770, Levy Economics Institute.
    20. Ose, Solveig Osborg, 2005. "Working conditions, compensation and absenteeism," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 161-188, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Keynes; Lucas; Involuntary Unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical

    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:ctl:louvir:2003016. 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: Virginie LEBLANC (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iruclbe.html .

    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.