Showing papers by "Robert M. Solow published in 1992"

Wage bargaining and employment

Abstract: One of the perennial problems of business cyde theory has been the search for a convincing empirical description and theoretical explanation of the behaviour of wage rates during fluctuations in output and employment. Even the empirical question is hardly settled, although the most recent careful study (Geary and Kennan) confirms the prevailing view that real-wage movements are more or less independent of the business cycle. There are really two subquestions here. The first presumes that nominal wage stickiness is the main route by which nominal disturbances have real macroeconomic effects, and asks why nominal wages should be sticky. The second focuses on real wages, and asks why fluctuations in the demand for labour should so often lead to large changes in employment and small, unsystematic, changes in the real wage.

Policies for economic growth

Abstract: The ‘old’ growth theory of the 1950s led to certain conclusions about the sorts of economic policies that would promote economic growth, and also about their limitations. The ‘new’ growth theory of the 1980s makes much stronger assumptions and leads to correspondingly stronger conclusions about the scope of growth-promoting policy. This article argues that: (1) empirical work so far has neither confirmed nor denied the strong assumptions underlying the new theory; (2) the theory is worth pursuing because of its intrinsic interest and the possibilities it opens up; (3) whatever the final verdict on the new theory, both theory and evidence support the belief that significant long-run gains, even if not permanent changes in the growth rate, can be achieved by increased investment in the broadest sense, including human capital, technological knowledge, and industrial plant and equipment.

The Labor Market as a Social Institution

Abstract: satisfaction: the complexity, breadth and depth in conjunction with the unexplicated. I relish the gaps and the loose ends. They create the necessary climate for inspiration; they allow us to utilise what he has to say; they facilitate development. On Cohen's own admission, 'the most significant contributions to social theory always leave as many unsettled issues as those which they explicitly confront' (IC ?. 287). Closed-off arguments like closed systems are invariably dead. For life to exist and for creativity to flourish there . . . . . . . neec to oe varlatlon, Inconslstencles anc gaps, in other words there has to be room for improvement. There is no doubt that Giddens's work deserves attention but we have to take great care that we don't reneer It Inanlmate In t le process. Barbara Adsm