While most standard economic models of international trade assume full employment, Carl Davidson and Steven Matusz have argued over the past two decades that this reliance on full-employment modeling is misleading and ill-equipped to tackle many important trade-related questions. This book brings together the authors' pioneering work in creating models that more accurately reflect the real-world connections between international trade and labor markets. The material collected here presents the theoretical and empirical foundations of equilibrium unemployment modeling, which the authors and their collaborators developed to give researchers and policymakers a more realistic picture of how international trade affects labor markets, and of how transnational differences in labor markets affect international trade. They address the shortcomings of standard models, describe the empirics that underlie equilibrium unemployment models, and illustrate how these new models can yield vital insights into the relationship between international trade and employment. This volume also includes an indispensable general introduction as well as concise section introductions that put the authors' work in context and reveal the thinking behind their ideas. Economists are only now realizing just how important these ideas are, making this book essential reading for researchers and students.

Designing a good unemployment insurance scheme is a delicate matter. In a system with no or little insurance, households may be subject to a high income risk, whereas excessively generous unemployment insurance systems are known to lead to high unemployment rates and are costly both from a fiscal perspective and for society as a whole. Andreas Pollak investigates what an optimal unemployment insurance system would look like, i.e. a system that constitutes the best possible compromise between income security and incentives to work. Using theoretical economic models and complex numerical simulations, he studies the effects of benefit levels and payment durations on unemployment and welfare. As the models allow for considerable heterogeneity of households, including a history-dependent labor productivity, it is possible to analyze how certain policies affect individuals in a specific age, wealth or skill group. The most important aspect of an unemployment insurance system turns out to be the benefits paid to the long-term unemployed. If this parameter is chosen too high, a large number of households may get caught in a long spell of unemployment with little chance of finding work again. Based on the predictions in these models, the so-called "Hartz IV" labor market reform recently adopted in Germany should have highly favorable effects on the unemployment rates and welfare in the long run.

This book emphasizes that a trading equilibrium is general rather than partial, and is often best modeled using dual or envelope functions.

*Updated edition with a new foreword on the Trump administration's trade policy* The vast benefits promised by the supporters of globalization, and by their own government, have never materialized for many Americans. In Failure to Adjust Edward Alden provides a compelling history of the last four decades of US economic and trade policies that have left too many Americans unable to adapt to or compete in the current global marketplace. He tells the story of what went wrong and how to correct the course. Originally published on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, Alden’s book captured the zeitgeist that would propel Donald J. Trump to the presidency. In a new introduction to the paperback edition, Alden addresses the economic challenges now facing the Trump administration, and warns that economic disruption will continue to be among the most pressing issues facing the United States. If the failure to adjust continues, Alden predicts, the political disruptions of the future will be larger still.

This research review brings together the most influential theoretical and empirical contributions to the topic of trade and inequality from recent years. Segregating the subject into four key areas, it forms a comprehensive study of the subject, targeted at academic readers familiar with the main trade models and empirical methods used in economics. The first two parts cover empirical evidence on trade and inequality in developed and developing countries, while the third and fourth sections confront transition dynamics following trade liberalization and new theoretical contributions inspired by the previously-discussed empirical evidence, respectively. Presented with an extensive original introduction by the editor, Trade and Inequality will be an invaluable tool in the study of this field to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty alike.

First Published in 1968. A reprinting of the original collection of essays on unemployment, from 1933, which are addressed to students of economics. Concerning the areas of the form of the real demand function for labour in particular occupations, the monetary factor, with the aim of a direct discussion on the causation of unemployment and its fluctuations.