Lucas on involuntary unemployment

Michel De Vroey

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2004, vol. 28, issue 3, 397-411

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 part of the paper, the author questions Lucas's claim that Keynes betrayed the equilibrium discipline by freeing himself from the postulates of optimising behaviour and market clearing. In the second part, Lucas' three arguments against the involuntary unemployment concept are discussed--first, that there is no rationale for drawing a distinction between two sorts of unemployment; second, that every economic outcome features the voluntary and the involuntary jointly; and third, that alternatives to unemployment are always present. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/beh010 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Lucas on Involuntary Unemployment (2002)
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:oup:cambje:v:28:y:2004:i:3:p:397-411

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().