The paper presents a simple theoretical account of how an increase in government purchases may reduce total employment. It is shown that in a 'neoklassikal' model - in which utility maximising consumption choices are combined with a fixed-coefficient technology - an increase in government...

The paper uses a Solow-Ramsey growth model to evaluate the effectiveness of growth as a remedy for unemployment in the face of a wage minimum. Plausible calibration of the model suggests that the elimination of 5 percent unemployment by the process of capital accumulation may take about twenty...

Pre-depression Australia maintained a protectionist regime directed at expanding the economy and accommodating immigration. The 1929 Brigden Report recognised that industrial protection would benefit workers and that it might also foster expansion. Although Brigden's wage thesis mirrors the...

Max Corden recalls his emigration from Nazi Germany, and arrival in Melbourne on the day before Australia Day in 1939. He describes his ambivalence towards undergraduate economics, and the fortuitous events that led him to pursue a PhD at the London School of Economics. He explains the...