Professors Vedder and Gallaway provide a comprehensive examination of unemployment in the last century of American economic history, using a persuasive mix of Austrian theory (on money and business cycle), empirical methods, and narrative history. They show that government can produce all the unemployment it desires by intervening in the ability of the market to adjust wage rates according to prevailing economic conditions.
Amassing a huge amount of data, and examining the full range of existing literature and research, the authors target Keynesian fiscal demand-management and show that such policies as minimum wages, labor controls, unemployment compensation, and welfare have played significant roles in generating joblessness. They further show that the policies of both President Hoover and President Roosevelt prolonged and exacerbated unemployment during the Great Depression.
Lowell E. Gallaway (1930-2019) was Distinguished Professor of Economics and Faculty Associate in the Contemporary History Institute at Ohio University.
Our analysis shows that Mises’s critique of “confiscatory interventionism” is the appropriate paradigm for interpreting events in the American economy during the last third of the twentieth century.
It appears that the obvious intent of the recent paper by Professor Barnett and Professor Block (2006), “Gallaway and Vedder on Stabilization Policy,” is to reveal to the Austrian community
It is suggested in Daniel Kuehn’s article in this issue (2011) that MacKenzie (2010) is wrong about Hoover’s effectiveness in pushing a high wage policy that caused high unemployment.
Dr. Vedder is the Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University and the Founding Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington, D.C.
Bob Murphy and Richard Vedder discusses Vedder's new book, Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America.
Margo concludes what Austrian economists have surmised all along, namely that the rise in real wages during this period very closely approximated the rise in worker productivity.
It appears that the obvious intent of the recent paper by Professor Barnett and Professor Block (2006), “Gallaway and Vedder on Stabilization Policy,” is to reveal to the Austrian community
