Abstract
The following observations deal with the interconnections between the domestic and foreign economic aspects of employment policy. Thus it would be inappropriate to deal with foreign economic problems in isolation, therefore committing the same error as that made by economic policy recommendations which neglect the foreign linkages of domestic employment policy.
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See Elmar Altvater, ‘Der Kapitalismus im Aufschwung?’ Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, vol. 8, no. 2/82: Expansion, Stagnation und Demokratie. Festschrift für Theodor Präger und Philip Rieger (Vienna: Econ, 1982) pp. 195–223;
Elmar Altvater, Jürgen Hoffmann and Willi Semmler, Vom Wirtschaftswunder zur Wirtschaftskrise (Berlin: Argument-Verlag, 1979).
Ernest Mandel, Long Waves of Capitalist Development — The Marxist Interpretation, (Cambridge/Paris, 1980);
Gerhard Mensch, Das technologische Patt. Innovationen überwinden die Depression, (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977);
Eric J. Hobsbawm, ‘Die Krise des Kapitalismus in historischer Perspektive’, in Volker Fröbel, Jürgen Heinrichs and Otto Kreye (eds), Krisen in der kapitalistischen Weltokonomie (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1981) pp. 335–52;
Alfred Kleinknecht, Innovation Patterns in Crisis and Prosperity. Schumpeter’s Long Cycles Reconsidered (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987).
See Joseph Steindl, ‘Stagnation Theory and Stagnation Policy,’ Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 3, no. 1 (March 1979) pp. 1–14; also Maturity and Stagnation in American Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 1952, reprinted by Monthly Review Press, New York, 1976)
Of fundamental importance is John Maynard Keynes, ‘Some Economic Consequences of a Declining Population’ (1937) in The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, vol. 14, pp. 124ff.; also ‘The Long-Term Problem of Full Employment’, in Collected Writings, vol. 27, pp. 325ff.
See, inter alia, Olivier Blanchard, Rüdiger Dornbusch and Richard Layard (eds), Restoring Europe’s Prosperity. Macroeconomic Papers from the Centre for European Policy Studies (Cambridge, Mass./London: CUP, 1986); Efficiency, Stability, and Equity: A Strategy for the Evolution of the Economic System of the European Community (the Padoa-Schioppa Report) (Oxford University Press, 1987).
See Hans-Joachim Burchard, ‘Wirtschaftliche Auswirkungen eines veränderten Weltölmarktes’, List Forum, vol. 10, no. 5 (May 1980) pp. 299–309;
Wilfried Rohrich with K. G. Zinn, Politik und Ökonomie der Weltgesellschaft, 2nd edn (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1983).
See Ulrich Möller, ‘Die Gefährdung der Gatt-Ordnung’, Wirtschaftsdienst, vol. 62, no. 5 (May 1982) pp. 254–60; ‘Importhandel sieht dunkle Wolken aufziehen’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 3 June 1982.
The increase in import elasticity reflects the level of international linkages of an economy and can be considered to be a normal development to the extent that growing export shares of the GNP lead to corresponding increases in import levels. What results from this, however, is a reduced domestic multiplier effect on the demand-orientated employment policy. Years ago, the OECD calculated in a model that an autonomous spending increase in the USA and Japan would have much higher domestic expansion effects (multiplier: 2) compared to the Federal Republic (multiplier: 1.6). See Lee Samuelson, ‘Economics Forecasting: The International Dimension’, OECD Observer, no. 79 (January–February 1976), pp. 17–21.
See the stimulating essay by Wilhelm Hankel, ‘Shylock gesucht: Hochzinspolitik und internationale Kreditmärkte’, Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, vol. 27, no. 5 (May 1982) pp. 591–605. Hankel sees national interest rates — that is, those substantially influenced by the central banks — as puppet movements in which the strings are pulled by the institutions operating on the international financial markets. Along with the lack of currency control over these markets and the balance-of payments deficits caused by OPEC price setting, their interest in interest rates leads to an expansion of international credit chains. He argues that this results in a dangerous increase in international indebtedness and risks for further granting of credits. Growing credit crises allow for the rise in ‘risk premium’ interest which subsequently, Hankel concludes, has an effect of national interest rates on credits. The question poses itself, however, as to why a growing international credit supply contributes to an increase in interest rates and why certain countries exhibit considerably lower interest rates than others, if the international interest association is so closely linked, as Hankel and others have maintained.
See Bank for International Exchange, Annual Report No. 51 (Basle: BIE, 1981);
James Tobin, ‘The Wrong Mix for Recovery’, Challenge. Magazine of Economic Affairs, vol. 25, no. 2 (May/June 1982) pp. 21–7: ‘The monetary policy is the main barrier to sustained recovery, and the fiscal policy makes the prospect for sustained recovery better not worse’.
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© 1992 William D. Graf
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Zinn, KG. (1992). International Aspects of an Alternative Economic Policy. In: Graf, W.D. (eds) The Internationalization of the German Political Economy. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22227-8_11
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