3.12.2012 The Return of Full Employment Policy
Date: December 3, 2012
Venue: Paasitorni, Sirkussali, Helsinki
It is often argued that the era of full employment and Keynesian economic policy is over. Most orthodox economists claim that, in the long run, real full employment cannot be achieved with demand management policies. Active demand management is, thus, deemed to be too costly and inflationary.
Top Post-Keynesian economists James K. Galbraith and L. Randall Wray, however, argue that achieving full employment through demand management is still perfectly possible. They suggest that, in order to achieve full employment and carry out democratic economic policies, governments have to break out from the pressures of the private bond markets.
Program
14.00–14.15 Opening
Ernst Stetter, Secretary General, FEPS
Mikko Majander, Director, Kalevi Sorsa Foundation
14.15–15.00 A Question of Institutions: Why In Spite of Reactionary Economic Ideas the US Still Survived the Great Financial Crisis, and Europe Did Not
James K. Galbraith, Professor, University of Austin Texas
15.00–15.45 Wray: Money, the State, and Employment as Anti-Poverty Policy: A Minskian Approach (ppt)
L. Randall Wray, Professor, University of Missouri – Kansas City
15.45–16.15 Break
16.15–18.00 Comments and Panel Discussion
Comments will be delivered by Olli Koski (Chief Economist, SAK), Jukka Pekkarinen (General Director, Economics Department at the Ministry of Finance) and Lena Sommestad (Professor of Economic History, MP in Sweden). They will join professors Galbraith and Wray in a panel discussion, which will be moderated by Dr. Ville-Pekka Sorsa (University of Helsinki).
The event was organised by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies with the support of the Kalevi Sorsa Foundation and the Finnish Confederation on Trade Unions (SAK).