Is an Employer-of-Last-Resort Policy Sustainable? A review article

A radical proposal to address decisively the problem of mass involuntary unemployment, by way of a government committing itself to stand ready as ‘employer of last resort’, has recently been put forward by L. Randall Wray and others. To the question of how such large-scale policies would be financed, there has been a suggestion that issuing outside money would suffice. This review employs some simple modelling to show the limits to ‘printing money’ as a means of financing such an employment policy. The review also critically scrutinizes the claim that the policy can simultaneously act as an antiinflationary device, as well as some other aspects of the proposals.