Central banks, national governments, and international organizations have resisted policies that would promote full employment because high employment and high capacity utilization are associated with structural rigidities that result in sluggish growth, inflationary pressures, and other...

William Vickrey's single-minded commitment to full employment is evident in a series of papers written in the last years of his life. In these works Vickrey formulated an assets-based approach to macroeconomic analysis that has definite implications for budgetary and employment policy. For...