My Account Wish List
Advanced Search
Print - Close Window
www.greenwood.com/catalog/C5360.aspx
All Greenwood Products
Reducing Unemployment A Case for Government Deregulation
(Click to Enlarge)
Garry K. Ottosen, Douglas N. Thompson
Book Code: C5360
ISBN: 0-275-95360-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-95360-7
184 pages, figures, tables
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 1/30/1996
List Price: $106.95 (UK Sterling Price: £59.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • Persuasively and clearly written, the book presents an excellent explanation of the conventional view of the relationship between inflation and unemployment. The authors carefully examine each part of the theory surrounding the natural rate of unemployment, asserting that the problem of an increasing NAIRU can be solved if we look at the root causes of the increase. The reader will come away with a more complete understanding of the relationship between inflation and unemployment and the place of the NAIRU in that relationship.
    —
    Choice
  • For those looking for a well written survey of the extensive literature on this topic, this book is a good place to start.
    —Political Science Quarterly
Description: Unemployment costs the United States at least $400 billion per year in lost output. This number does not begin to add up the total costs of unemployment that include many serious social problems like increased divorce and crime rates. If unemployment costs so much, why don't we simply pump up demand and push the unemployment rate down? The answer lies in the relationship between inflation and unemployment: we simply cannot push unemployment below the rate that is compatable with stable inflation. Must we, then, just live with unemployment? No. But to understand how we can reduce unemployment, we must understand the nonaccelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU). What determines the level of the NAIRU? Has that level increased? Can we reduce the current NAIRU? These are important questions addressed in Reducing Unemployment.

Ottosen and Thompson argue that the NAIRU has increased significantly over the past 30 years. Many blame structural unemployment for that increase. Others have argued that increases in social welfare programs and payments are to blame. But hardly anyone has examined the effects of increasing government regulations on the NAIRU. Reducing Unemployment remedies this oversight, and also looks at the effects of unionization and productivity on the NAIRU. The authors conclude that the United States does not have to tolerate a high unemployment rate, for the NAIRU can be reduced through appropriate government deregulation.
Table of Contents:
  • The Costs of Unemployment
  • The NAIRU
  • A Faulty Diagnosis of Unemployment
  • Business Costs, Government Regulations, and the NAIRU
  • Unemployment Insurance, Social Welfare, and the NAIRU
  • The Union Wage Premium and the NAIRU
  • Union Productivity Effects, Labor Law, and the NAIRU
  • Productivity and the NAIRU
  • Summary
  • Bibliography
  • Index
LC Card Number: 95-30555
LCC Class: HD5724
Dewey Class: 331
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1999-2008 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881, (203) 226-3571