Thursday 709
Mostly summarized from Gregory Mankiw’s Principles of Economics, 5th Ed. PART 9 The Real Economy in the Long Run Chapter 28 of 36 Unemployment Section 8 of 21 ... Why do economies experience unemployment? In most markets prices adjust to bring quantity supplied and quantity demanded into balance, so there is no surplus nor shortage of supply. In the labor market the surplus of supply is unemployed people. In an ideal labor market, wages would adjust to balance the quantity of labor supplied and the quantity of labor demanded. This wage adjustment would ensure all workers are always employed. Even when the overall economy is strong there are always some unemployed workers, the unemployment rate never drops to zero. Rather, it fluctuates around the natural rate of unemployment, per Figure 2a. ... We will discuss four explanations for long-run unemployment: -1- frictional unemployment -2- minimum wage laws -3 - unions and collective bargaining -4- efficiency wages Frictional unemplo...