IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/new/wpaper/2009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political Aspects of ‘Buffer Stock’ Employment: A Reconsideration

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Kriesler

    (School of Economics, University of New South Wales)

  • Joseph Halevi

    (International University College of Turin)

  • Mark Setterfield

    (Department of Economics, New School for Social Research)

Abstract

Advocates of Job Guarantee (JG) or Employer of Last Resort (ELR) schemes have suggested that if the state provides ‘buffer stock’ employment to workers displaced from private employment, then full employment can be maintained over the course of the business cycle. Kalecki was sceptical about the prospects for maintaining full employment in capitalist economies, without fundamental institutional change that would alleviate certain political constraints on the maintenance of full employment. We argue that in and of themselves, JG/ELR schemes do not create the fundamental institutional change required to address Kalecki’s concerns and so ensure that full employment becomes achievable as a permanent state.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Kriesler & Joseph Halevi & Mark Setterfield, 2020. "Political Aspects of ‘Buffer Stock’ Employment: A Reconsideration," Working Papers 2009, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:new:wpaper:2009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.economicpolicyresearch.org/econ/2020/NSSR_WP_092020.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2020
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Juniper & Timothy P. Sharpe & Martin J. Watts, 2014. "Modern monetary theory: contributions and critics," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 281-307, December.
    2. William F. Mitchell, 1998. "The Buffer Stock Employment Model and the NAIRU: The Path to Full Employment," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 547-555, June.
    3. Andreas Knabe & Steffen Ratzel, 2011. "Quantifying the psychological costs of unemployment: the role of permanent income," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(21), pages 2751-2763.
    4. Halevi, J. & Kriesler, P., 1999. "On the Limitations of Fiscal Policy: a Radical Kalechian View," Papers 99/14, New South Wales - School of Economics.
    5. Michal Kalecki, 1971. "Class Struggle And The Distribution Of National Income," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 1-9, February.
    6. Heinz D. Kurz & Neri Salvadori (ed.), 1998. "The Elgar Companion to Classical Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 851.
    7. Marc Lavoie, 2013. "The Monetary and Fiscal Nexus of Neo-Chartalism: A Friendly Critique," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(1), pages 1-32.
    8. Enrico Sergio Levrero, 2019. "On the Criticisms of and Obstacles to the Employer of Last Resort Policy Proposal," International Journal of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 41-59, January.
    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. Guglielmo Forges Davanzati, 2020. "The Italian Economic Decline and the Proposal of the State as Innovator of First Resort," Working Papers 0049, ASTRIL - Associazione Studi e Ricerche Interdisciplinari sul Lavoro.

    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. Summa, Ricardo de Figueiredo, 2022. "Alternative uses of functional finance: Lerner, MMT and the Sraffiansh," IPE Working Papers 175/2021, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    2. Giuliano Toshiro Yajima, 2021. "The Employer of Last Resort Scheme and the Energy Transition: A Stock-Flow Consistent Analysis," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_995, Levy Economics Institute.
    3. Olk, Christopher & Schneider, Colleen & Hickel, Jason, 2023. "How to pay for saving the world: Modern Monetary Theory for a degrowth transition," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    4. Landwehr, Jannik J., 2020. "The case for a job guarantee policy in Germany: A political-economic analysis of the potential benefits and obstacles," IPE Working Papers 150/2020, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    5. Martin Watts & Timothy Sharpe & James Juniper, 2014. "Reformation or exodus: Assessing the future of the Euro," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 25(3), pages 465-483, September.
    6. Olk, Christopher & Schneider, Colleen & Hickel, Jason, 2023. "How to pay for saving the world: Modern Monetary Theory for a degrowth transition," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120343, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Jessica Birkholz & Jarina Kühn, 2021. "Entrepreneurship Perception during the first COVID-19 Shock: Mental Representations of Entrepreneurship and Preferences of Business Models during the Pandemic," Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation 2105, University of Bremen, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics.
    8. Thi Truong An Hoang & Andreas Knabe, 2021. "Time Use, Unemployment, and Well-Being: An Empirical Analysis Using British Time-Use Data," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(6), pages 2525-2548, August.
    9. Ulrich van Suntum, "undated". "The Purchasing Power Argument – Could Rising Wages Foster Employment?," Working Papers 200126, Institute of Spatial and Housing Economics, Munster Universitary.
    10. Helliwell, John & Huang, Haifang, 2011. "New measures of the costs of unemployment: Evidence from the subjective well-being of 2.3 million Americans," Working Papers 2011-3, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    11. William F. Mitchell, 2020. "Debt and Deficits—A Modern Monetary Theory Perspective," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 53(4), pages 566-576, December.
    12. Phil Armstrong, 2020. "Can Heterodox Economics Make a Difference?," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 19964.
    13. Daniel Haim, 2021. "What Jobs Should a Public Job Guarantee Provide?: Lessons from Hyman P. Minsky," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_981, Levy Economics Institute.
    14. Mathew Forstater, "undated". "Public Employment and Economic Flexibility: The Job Opportunity Approach to Full Employment," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_50, Levy Economics Institute.
    15. Giovanni Scarano, 2013. "Capital accumulation and technical conditions along sustainable growth paths," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0182, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    16. Jérôme Lallement & Amanar Akhabbar, 2011. "Appliquer la théorie économique de l'équilibre général : de Walras à Leontief," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00609684, HAL.
    17. Marc-Andre Pigeon & L. Randall Wray, "undated". "Down and Out in the United States, An Inside Look at the Out of the Labor Force Population," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_54, Levy Economics Institute.
    18. John F. Helliwell & Haifang Huang, 2014. "New Measures Of The Costs Of Unemployment: Evidence From The Subjective Well-Being Of 3.3 Million Americans," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(4), pages 1485-1502, October.
    19. Brenck, Clara & Carvalho, Laura, 2020. "The equalizing spiral in early 21st century Brazil: a Kaleckian model with sectoral heterogeneity," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 298-310.
    20. John Henry, 2007. "“Bad” Decisions, Poverty, and Economic Theory: The Individualist and Social Perspectives in Light of “The American Myth”," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 17-27, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Employer of last resort; job guarantee; buffer stock employment; political aspects of full employment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:new:wpaper:2009. 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: Mark Setterfield (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/denewus.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.