Conquering Unemployment

A companion text to "Making the Economy Work", this book covers major aspects of the Employment Institute's published output in its first three years. Based on pamphlets produced by the Institute, it explains why alternative action to "monetarism" could have avoided the rise in unemployment in the early 1980s. It states that if implemented now, these policies could ensure that recent reductions in unemployment would be hastened and sustained. The policies recommended cover both macroeconomic and microeconomic solutions. The contributions in this book concentrate on the macroeconomic side whilst those in "Making the Economy Work" focus on microeconomic or structural issues. The present volume asks whether the government should increase its own expenditure levels or reduce tax rates in order to stimulate economic activity. The contriubutors discuss how the government should set interest rates and what its attitude should be to the level of the exchange rate. They also attempt to show what went wrong with "good housekeeping" and "tight money" approaches of the first Thatcher administration. The aim throughout is to tackle complex economic issues in as readable and non-technical a manner as possible.