During the transition to capitalism, postcommunist countries have experienced unprecedented mortality crises, although there has been considerable variation within — and between — countries and regions. Much of this variation remains unexplained, although alcohol and psychological stress...

This paper examines certain structural macroeconomic relations in the neoliberal global economy. The current global economy rests upon three unsustainable trends: the debt-driven U.S. consumption expansion; China’s excessive investment expansion; and the large and rising U.S. current account...

Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand continue to perform unsatisfactorily today, ten years after 1997 Asian Crisis. As of 2007, these crisis-affected economies have not fully recouped their losses from the lost opportunities from the Crisis. Unless economic performances return to past...

This paper explores the impact of “threat effects” of foreign direct investment on labor markets in the United States. In this context, the term “threat effect” refers to the use by employers of the implicit or explicit threat that they will move all or part of their production to a...

Developing economies worldwide have experienced rapid informal sector expansion in response to formal sector unemployment. However, the macroeconomic eects of formal-informal sector dualism have been widely overlooked. This paper develops a two-sector, structuralist, macroeconomic model to...

This paper examines the role of social conflict in explaining macroeconomic phenomena and, especially, the effectiveness of aggregate demand policies as a means of raising real output. The social conflict approach to macroeconomic phenomena is compared with a Keynesian view along with Ball,...

Unemployment in the European Union has risen from a modest 2% in 1970 to 8.3% in 2002, a level not seen since the Great Depression. In this draft introduction for his new book, The Rise of European Unemployment: A Keynesian Approach, economist Engelbert Stockhammer argues that changes in the...

In the last two decades, there has been a global sea change in the theory and practice of central banking. The currently dominant “best practice” approach to central banking consists of the following: (1) central bank independence (2) a focus on inflation fighting (including adopting formal...