A new paper to assess Job Guarantee proposals in a SFC framework

Giuliano Toshiro Yajima’s paper “Beyond Job Guarantee: The Employer of Last Resort Program as a Tool to Promote the Energy Transition” has been published in the Review of Political Economy

Author:
Giuliano Toshiro Yajima, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Abstract
We argue that a careful design of a program of direct employment and public provision by the state can have permanent effects and promote the structural and environmental transformation of the economy. Starting from this point, we develop a multisectoral stock-flow consistent model to study the long-run effects of the implementation of a job guarantee program, both in the original formulation of Minsky and in its recent version put forward as part of the ‘Green New Deal’ (GND) policy package. We also assess the impact of both ‘green’ and ‘brown’ standard fiscal expenditures, as well as a policy mix including industrial, environmental and employment measures. Results from our simulations point out that, in order to pursue the twin targets of full employment and environmental sustainability, the government should invest in gross fixed capital formation while both reducing energy consumption and acting as an employer of last resort in order to absorb the workforce expelled from the energy sector.

The Employer of Last Resort Scheme and the Energy Transition: A Stock-Flow Consistent Analysis

Giuliano Toshiro Yajima has just published a new Levy Institute working paper: “The Employer of Last Resort Scheme and the Energy Transition: A Stock-Flow Consistent Analysis”

Abstract
The health and economic crises of 2020–21 have revived the debate on fiscal policy as a major tool for stabilization and meeting long-term goals. The massive surge in unemployment, due to the economic disruption of the lockdown measures, has increased the interest in policies that target employment directly instead of trying to achieve it via a general “demand push.” One of the proposals currently under debate is the job guarantee. Under such a policy the government would act as an “employer of last resort” by offering a job to everyone that is able and wants to work but cannot find a job in the private sector. This paper argues that a carefully designed scheme of direct employment and public provision by the state—addressing both the low- and high-skill workforce—can have permanent effects and promote the economy’s structural transformation, in particular by fostering energy transition and a lower carbon footprint. Starting from this point, a stock-flow consistent model is developed to study the long-run effect of the job guarantee’s implementation, inspired by the work of Godin (2013) and Sawyer and Passarella (2021).