This paper argues that John Maynard Keynes had a targeted (as contrasted with aggregate) demand approach to full employment. Modern policies, which aim to close the demand gap, are inconsistent with the Keynesian approach on both theoretical and methodological grounds. Aggregate demand tends to...

The monetarist counterrevolution and the stagflation period of the 1970s were among the theoretical and practical developments that led to the rejection of fiscal policy as a useful tool for macroeconomic stabilization and full employment determination. Recent mainstream contributions, however,...

Since 1997, a number of researchers (many of whom are now associated with the University of Missouri-Kansas City) have been advocating a job creation program that has been variously called the employer of last resort (ELR), job guarantee, public service employment, or buffer stock employment...

Proponents of income and job guarantee schemes agree that public policy should provide some form of universal guarantees to all citizens. It is the nature of these guarantees that represents the sharp division in policy recommendations. Income guarantee supporters champion the provision of an...

This paper describes what has been called the "employer of last resort" (ELR) proposal as a policy to achieve true full employment without inflation. We answer three main concerns about the program: 1) How can the government afford to hire all those who might want to work? 2) Won't full...

For many years Argentina was the poster child of IMF austerity and market liberalization policies, until it experienced an economic meltdown in the winter of 2001-2002. To deal with the looming crisis and skyrocketing unemployment and poverty rates, the Argentinean government implemented a...

Collecting Nobel Laureate William S. Vickrey's articles on macroeconomic theory and policy written towards the end of his career, this volume demonstrates his enduring commitment to full employment and price stability, and his rejection of conventional macroeconomic theorizing. William Vickrey...

The article evaluates the fiscal policy initiatives during the Great Recession in the United States. It argues that, although the nonconventional fiscal policies targeted to the financial sector dwarfed conventional countercyclical stabilization efforts directed to the real sector, the...

This paper augments the basic Post-Keynesian markup model to examine the effects of different fiscal policies on prices and income distribution. This is an approach à la Hyman P. Minsky, who argued that in the modern era, government is both “a blessing and a curse,” since it stabilizes...

The literature on public employment policies such as the job guarantee (JG) and the employer of last resort (ELR) often emphasizes their macroeconomic stabilization effects. But carefully designed and implemented policies like these can also have profound social transformative effects. In...