Economic essays

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Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

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Title:: The static state and the technology of economic reform / Thomas Nixon Carver

Collection:: Economics Books

32 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK wages directly by such an artificial decree or rule brings such a number of evils in its train as to require greater and greater effort on the part of laborers and of governments for their elimination. These evils are very noticeable in those old countries that are relying upon such artificial measures as union rules and govern- ment decrees for raising wages. They are obscured in countries, such as the United States, where other and more constructive measures are taken first to change the equilibrium, and then to wait for economic forces to bring about higher wage levels semi- automatically. These constructive measures are of such perma- nent importance to the student of economics, and they are so difficult for the non-theoretical mind to understand, as to require some rather elaborate theoretical analysis and elucidation. If, instead of trying to raise wages directly and artificially, the equilibrium wage is frankly regarded as a result rather than a cause of the equilibrium of demand and supply, and attention is turned to the general causal factors in the equilibrium, a different policy will be dictated by the logic of the situation. If some of these factors can be changed so as to disturb the equilibrium in the right direction, then, without further effort, wages automatically rise, and such a rise in wages does not bring in its train such a list of evils as invariably follow from any attempt to raise wages directly. It is, however, possible that some of the difficulties which follow the attempt to raise wages directly may either cure themselves or set in motion new forces that will effect a cure. For example, if wages in a given occupation or group of occupations are forced appreciably above the equilibrium level, it will undoubtedly create unemployment. This unemployment, however, may cure itself in one of several ways. First, the surplus laborers may emigrate either voluntarily or involuntarily through deportation. If they emigrate in sufficient numbers, the new wage rate, which was at first definitely above the equilibrium level, will soon become the true equilibrium wage. That is, the thinning out of laborers through emigration or wholesale deportation may proceed until the new wage level is only sufficient to induce as many to offer themselves for hire as employers are willing to hire. It is impor- tant to note, however, that it is a real cure only on condition that the new wage level shall actually become an equilibrium level.

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