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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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2012

Unemployment

Selected Works

Political Economy

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Class Content Of Preferences Towards Anti-Inflation And Anti Unemployment Policies, Arjun Jayadev Apr 2012

The Class Content Of Preferences Towards Anti-Inflation And Anti Unemployment Policies, Arjun Jayadev

Arjun Jayadev

This paper assesses class based preferences towards anti-inflationary and anti-unemployment policy. Using a consistent cross-country social survey, I find that the working class broadly defined, and those with lower occupational skill and status are more likely to prioritize combating unemployment rather than inflation. The result is robust to the inclusion of several plausible controls. The idea that the working class is less ‘relatively inflation averse’ is consistent with earlier predictions coming from large body of political economy research in the 1970s. The finding that inflation and unemployment aversion have a distinct class character has implications for current debates on the …


Poor Relief, Informal Assistance, And Short Time During The Lancashire Cotton Famine, George R. Boyer Feb 2012

Poor Relief, Informal Assistance, And Short Time During The Lancashire Cotton Famine, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] This paper presents new evidence concerning the importance of poor relief as a source of income assistance for unemployed operatives during the Lancashire cotton famine. My comparison of weekly data on the number of relief recipients in 23 distressed poor law unions with estimates of weekly cotton consumption for the period November 1861 to December 1862 suggests that the average length of time between becoming unemployed and receiving poor relief was less than 2 months. This result is shown to be consistent with available evidence on working class saving. Given the meager amount of informal assistance available to them, …


The Economic Role Of The English Poor Law, 1780-1834, George R. Boyer Jan 2012

The Economic Role Of The English Poor Law, 1780-1834, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] Over the 85-year period from 1748/50 to 1832/34, real per capita expenditures on poor relief increased at an average rate of approximately 1 percent per year. There were also important changes in the administration of relief with respect to able-bodied laborers during the period. Policies providing relief outside of workhouses to unemployed and under-employed able-bodied laborers became widespread during the 1770s and 1780s in the grain-producing South and East of England. The so-called Speenhamland system of outdoor relief flourished until 1834, when it was abolished by the Poor Law Amendment Act. The aim of the thesis is to provide …