Employment theory in the History of Economic thought: an overview

Antonella Stirati

No 148, Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' from Department of Economics - University Roma Tre

Abstract: The theory of employment is clearly a central question in economic thought. Economists of all traditions and schools have always admitted short run fluctuations in aggregate employment levels associated with the business cycle and explained them with a variety of factors. Yet the central question is, of course, fluctuations around which long run level of employment? Focussing mainly on long run aspects of employment theory, this paper aims at providing an overview of different theoretical approaches that have been prominent in various phases in the history of economics up to the present. It necessarily summarizes and, hence, simplifies approaches and debates, but may be useful in suggesting that textbook accounts of past authors (including Keynes) and approaches may be wrong, or at least very controversial. It may thus stimulate a renewed interest in past authors and suggest the possibility of a different angle in reading past and present controversies.

Keywords: Employment theory; History of Economics, Say’s law; schools of thought in macroeconomics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B00 E00 E24 J01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-pke
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dipeco.uniroma3.it/public/WP%20148%20Stirati%202012.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0148

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' from Department of Economics - University Roma Tre Via Silvio d'Amico 77, - 00145 Rome Italy. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Telephone for information ().