Financial control and the employer of last resort

Abstract

This paper examines the policy that has been suggested to resolve involuntary unemployment by having the government employ any persons who register as unemployed. This policy is compared to the full employment proposal of Michał Kalecki. Kalecki's proposals also contained a strategy for financing full employment. Like the Employer of Last Resort proposal, Kalecki's strategy allows employment policies to be examined from financial control, rather than the usual approaches of examining the impact of employment policy on labour productivity, or inflation, although both come into the analysis. The paper, therefore, outlines the proposal for an employer of last resort, and the proposed financing of that policy. A second part looks at Kalecki's proposals for full employment and its financing. A third part then considers the impact of the employer of last resort policy on financial stability.