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.
No content found
Lowell E. Gallaway (1930-2019) was Distinguished Professor of Economics and Faculty Associate in the Contemporary History Institute at Ohio University.
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.
The conventional wisdom proposition suggested by Galbraith that there is endemic instability in a market-based economy that can be remedied only by government policy interventions is inappropriate.
