Labour Market Adjustment: Microeconomic Foundations of Short-run Neoclassical and Keynesian Dynamics

The main purpose of this book is to develop a general theoretical framework within which it is possible to analyse the interaction of markets in disequilibrium. It considers optimal firm and household behaviour in a dynamic sequence of the labour and commodity markets when there is imperfect information about wage offers and the supply price of labour. The study is mainly theoretical but several empirical phenomena are shown to have an important interpretation within the framework of the model. Models of individual behaviour dealt with in the book increase our understanding of the working of an economic system out of equilibrium by providing the foundation for such dynamic processes as the Keynesian multiplier and the Phillips curve. The analysis points to a short-run dynamic process which exhibits Keynesian features when involuntary unemployment coexists with frictional unemployment and Neoclassical features when involuntary unemployment falls to a very low level.