This 1991 book is a selection of Jacques Drèze's work over the last decade on the topics of lasting unemployment, stagflation and unused capacity. At the theoretical level, the author has contributed to the formulation and analysis of general equilibrium models which allow for price rigidities and excess supply and lend themselves to econometric implementation, thus represents an attempt to integrate micro- and macroeconomics, and to use theory for empirical and policy purposes.

This dissertation analyzes the possibility that high unemployment can be be self-reinforcing through its effects on the distribution of income and, consequently, aggregate demand. The major results of my work demonstrate that these forces can lead to multiple macroeconomic equilibria which are indexed by the level of unemployment. By characterizing low output and employment states as equilibrium outcomes, this thesis provides a coherent theoretical explanation for periods of persistently high unemployment. The key property throughout is non-homotheticity of consumers' preferences, whereby the market demand for goods changes as income distribution changes, even if the total income of all consumers remains fixed. This implies that, unlike in many macroeconomic models, demand cannot be generated from a representative agent and, crucially, that changes in employment along the extensive, as opposed to intensive, margin can have more severe general equilibrium consequences.

Equilibria protect against crisis. All disciplines of sciences have the objective to create equilibria. But economics are not successful in this point. Here a simple equilibrium model based on a wage-price-rule is demonstrated. Economics are able to create economic equilibria by using this rule. But in economic systems there are a lot of rules, especially in accounting, which make economic equilibria impossible. These rules must be changed. If it is possible to create economic equilibria, the side-effect is the realization of economic sustainability.

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.

Kalecki's opus has been acknowledged chiefly as a contribution to the theory of distribution and the business cycle. Little attention has been given to the theory of effective demand and to unemployment equilibrium, i.e. to the field traditionally covered by Keynesian economics. This book is an attempt to draw attention to the most innovative core of Kalecki's thought on capitalist economies, which is also strictly interrelated to the history of economic thought. Accordingly, it focuses on the relationships with other theoretical approaches, to methodology and the theory of effective demand and investment, to the theory of distribution and prices, and to the theory of money.

This work was written during my visits at CORE (Belgium), at the Faculty of Economics and Politics in Cambridge (England), and at the Department of Mathematics at the ETH in ZUrich. I wish to thank J.H. Dr~ze (CORE) for most help ful suggestions, and I am indebted to H. BUhlmann (ETH) for his advice and for encouragement. The comments by M. Granzio1, M. Janssen and by anonymous referees were very useful. However, I assume the responsibility for remaining errors. I am grateful to R. Boller, I. Lather and M. Urfer for their careful typing of the manuscript. Support by the SWiss National Science Foundation is acknowledged. An earlier version of this work was presented at the European Meeting of the Econometric Society 1981 in Amsterdam. In 1981 it was accepted as a "Habi1itations schrift" in Mathematical Economics by the Department of Mathematics at the ETH in ZUrich. CONTENTS Introduction 1 Part I: The General Model 8 1.1. Formulation of the General Model 8 1.1.1. General Properties 8 1.1.2. The Consumer 10 1.1.3. The Producer 14 1.1.4. The Public Sector 16 Equilibrium 1.2.