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David K.H. Begg, Gianluigi Vernasca-Economics-McGraw Hill Higher Education (2011)

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23.3 Explaining changes in unemployment<br />

this spare capacity and increase output and employment. Wage adjustment could logically accomplish the<br />

same outcome, but may take several years to do so. The more sluggish are market forces, the more it makes<br />

sense for policy to intervene. Most forms of monetary policy have the consequence that interest rates will<br />

adjust to such a situation and help offset the original demand shock. The automatic fiscal stabilizers also<br />

act in this direction.<br />

In marked contrast, when the economy is already in long-run equilibrium, further demand expansion is<br />

pointless. Even though unemployment is not zero, there is no spare capacity. At points E or G in Figure<br />

23.4, all remaining unemployment is voluntary.<br />

It is true that, beginning from G, shifting labour demand up from LD' to LD achieves a small reduction in<br />

equilibrium unemployment. The distance BF is smaller than GH because the AJ and LP schedules are not<br />

parallel to one another. However the main effect of raising demand is to bid up wages, not to increase<br />

output or employment.<br />

Hence, when the economy begins with only voluntary unemployment, reductions in unemployment and<br />

increases in output are mainly accomplished not by demand policies but by supply-side policies. These<br />

policies either shift the supply schedules AJ and LF or they reduce distortions that prevented the economy<br />

getting to points like E or G.<br />

The next section presents some evidence on the relative magnitude of unemployment responses to demand<br />

and supply, and then analyses these supply-side policies in more detail.<br />

Explaining changes in unemployment<br />

Empirical research aims to decompose causes of unemployment into those that changed equilibrium and<br />

those that caused demand-deficient unemployment. Figure 23.5 compares the actual unemployment rate<br />

-+- Actual<br />

- Equilibium<br />

°' 00 (") 0 ,....._<br />

LO '° ,....._ 00 00<br />

I I I I I<br />

'° 0 °' ""'"<br />

LO '° '° ,....._ 00<br />

°' °' °' °' °'<br />

0 LO<br />

°' °'<br />

I<br />

I<br />

00<br />

00 °'<br />

°' °'<br />

°'<br />

°'<br />

I<br />

'°<br />

°'<br />

°'<br />

,....._<br />

0<br />

I<br />

0<br />

0<br />

0<br />

N<br />

°'<br />

0<br />

I<br />

00<br />

0<br />

0<br />

N<br />

Figure 23.S<br />

UK unemployment, 1956-2009 {0/o annual average)<br />

Sources: Layard, R., Nickell, S. and Jackman, R. (1991) Unemployment, Oxford University Press; Nickell, S. (1996) Inflation<br />

and the UK Labour Market, in T. Jenkinson (ed.), Readings in Macroeconomics, Oxford University Press; authors' estimates.<br />

535

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