HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY

Peter Rodenburg

doi:10.3280/SPE2016-002001

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DOI data

10.3280/SPE2016-002001

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Journal Data

Full Title

HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY
Publisher

FrancoAngeli
ISSN

2240-9971 (Printed Journal)

2280-188X (Online Journal)

Journal Issue Data

Journal Issue Number

2
Journal Issue Designation

2
Journal Issue Date

2016

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Full Title

How Full is Full Employment?How Tools and Not Theory Explained Full Employment
By (author)
First Page

5
Last Page

25
Language of text

English
Publication Date

2016
Copyright

2016 FrancoAngeli srl

Introduction or preface

The post-war debate on full employment policy was blurred and unclear since the concept of full employment itself was theoretically unclear and un-operational. Unable to theoretically determine the unemployment level of full employment, economists tried to find more empirically based ways to determine the level of full employment. This paper argues that economists turned the UV curve (or Beveridge curve) and Phillips curve into practical, empirical tools of investigation and measurement for full employment. In this role economists could establish quantitative facts of unemployment that were not derivable from theory alone and so fulfilled the role of a measuring instrument in economics. Consequently, they not only enhanced theory but gave specific, quantitative and empirically based interpretations of full employment that economic theory couldn't deliver. This paper shows how the UV and Phillips curves became tools for disentangling complex and theoretically underdetermined phenomena and measurement devices for the performance of the labour market.

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Peter Rodenburg

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