The Political Economy of UnemploymentThis comprehensive and instructive study examines the relative success or failure of government policies in preventing and alleviating unemployment. Choosing two contrasting cases—West Germany and the United States—Thomas Janoski probes the causes and consequences of two very different orientations toward labor market policy. In West Germany, labor, employers, and government cooperate in the running of a powerful and effective employment service. In the United States, by contrast, one finds little state involvement, organizational confusion, a long history of poor funding, and legislative resistance to intervention in the labor market. In the author's mind, these inadequate policies have had deleterious consequences for the American labor force. Whereas a skilled and flexible labor force exists in West Germany, Americans are poorly trained and barely assisted in finding jobs and training. To remedy this situation Janoski puts forth bold and useful policy recommendations, including the creation of a new organization to operate in national labor markets, the development of technical training programs in high schools, and the creation of a youth service to prevent teenage crime. The Political Economy of Unemployment offers a trenchant examination of how modern industrialized nations deal with the vicissitudes of the economy and how they might develop and implement more effective labor market policies. Meticulously researched, it is an important contribution that policymakers and social scientists will find provocative and useful. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1990. |
Contents
Job Creation and Systematic Comparison | 63 |
Job Placement and the Employment Service | 81 |
Education and Job Training | 109 |
Job Creation Programs | 139 |
The Passage of ALMP Legislation | 165 |
in the United States | 191 |
The Determinants of ALMP Expenditures | 225 |
Promises Possibilities and Proposals | 257 |
Sources | 289 |
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Common terms and phrases
Active Labor Market administration AFL-CIO agencies ALMP expenditures American apprenticeship Berufschule bill budget Bundesanstalt Bundestag bureaucracy CETA citizenship rights coalition Committee councils countercyclical countries Democratic party Department of Labor economic effects employers employment service funds grams high school ideology immigrants increased Industrial institutions interest groups Job Corps job creation policies job creation programs job placement job training job-training programs labor exchanges labor force labor market policy labor market pressure left party power legislation Manpower MDTA ment OECD offices oil shock organizations participation rights percent ployment political President prime sponsors public service employment retraining self-administration Senate service sector skills social demands social policy social rights strong structural substitution effects tion trade unions unem unemployed United University Press variables veterans vocational education wages War on Poverty Weimar welfare West Germany workers World War II