The Causes of Unemployment in Interwar Australia.

This paper examines the factors contributing to unemployment in Australia during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Previous writers have emphasised the role of demand-side variables but it has also been argued that excessive real wages caused unemployment. The Layard-Nickell model, developed origin...

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Main Authors: Dimsdale, N, Horsewood, N
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2002
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author Dimsdale, N
Horsewood, N
author_facet Dimsdale, N
Horsewood, N
author_sort Dimsdale, N
collection OXFORD
description This paper examines the factors contributing to unemployment in Australia during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Previous writers have emphasised the role of demand-side variables but it has also been argued that excessive real wages caused unemployment. The Layard-Nickell model, developed originally for the postwar British economy, is applied to Australian data. The empirical results confirm that demand shocks in the form of changes in government spending and in the terms of trade were important in both downturn and recovery. Wage indexation resulted in some rigidity of real wages but this was not a major cause of unemployment.
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spelling oxford-uuid:504fc2cc-36fd-454f-84b6-77360678a6342022-03-26T16:12:45ZThe Causes of Unemployment in Interwar Australia.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:504fc2cc-36fd-454f-84b6-77360678a634EnglishOxford University Research Archive - Valet2002Dimsdale, NHorsewood, NThis paper examines the factors contributing to unemployment in Australia during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Previous writers have emphasised the role of demand-side variables but it has also been argued that excessive real wages caused unemployment. The Layard-Nickell model, developed originally for the postwar British economy, is applied to Australian data. The empirical results confirm that demand shocks in the form of changes in government spending and in the terms of trade were important in both downturn and recovery. Wage indexation resulted in some rigidity of real wages but this was not a major cause of unemployment.
spellingShingle Dimsdale, N
Horsewood, N
The Causes of Unemployment in Interwar Australia.
title The Causes of Unemployment in Interwar Australia.
title_full The Causes of Unemployment in Interwar Australia.
title_fullStr The Causes of Unemployment in Interwar Australia.
title_full_unstemmed The Causes of Unemployment in Interwar Australia.
title_short The Causes of Unemployment in Interwar Australia.
title_sort causes of unemployment in interwar australia
work_keys_str_mv AT dimsdalen thecausesofunemploymentininterwaraustralia
AT horsewoodn thecausesofunemploymentininterwaraustralia
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