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Jobless : how policymakers should respond to involuntary unemployment
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Wilson, Peter Robert (2023) Jobless : how policymakers should respond to involuntary unemployment. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3973305
Abstract
Public discourse is filled with growing concern about impending increases in unemployment rates due to future pandemics, economic recessions, and automation. In this thesis, I explore how states and policymakers should respond to involuntary unemployment. My central arguments are (1) that the hypothetical insurance approach should be used to determine how states ought to respond to involuntary unemployment and (2) that current economically advanced states should pursue full employment in light of their members’ interests, preferences, and ambitions. Chapter 1 defines the key terms of the thesis and clarifies my theoretical foundations. Chapter 2 provides an original account of the value of employment and reflects on the disvalue of involuntary unemployment. I argue that employment promotes people’s wide-ranging ambitions, advances their objective interests, and has positive externalities. Chapter 3 defends the use of a novel variant of the hypothetical insurance approach to determine how much involuntary unemployment it is morally permissible for a state to have. I argue that several existing approaches – the right-to-employment view, pluralistic intuitionism, and “thick-veiled” hypothetical reasoning – are inadequate. Chapter 4 uses the hypothetical insurance approach to argue that contemporary highly economically developed states have a duty to pursue a full employment policy regime. Chapter 5 responds to three objections to my argument for full employment from the post-work and anti-work traditions. Chapter 6 consults the hypothetical insurance approach to spell out more specifically what the morally desirable full employment regime looks like. I specify how low an unemployment rate states should pursue given potential trade-offs with (1) stable inflation and (2) improving job quality. Additionally, I argue that the approach justifies targeting labour market policies at the long-term involuntarily unemployed, those living in higher unemployment rate regions, and young adults. Chapter 7 summarises my contributions and reflects on questions for further research.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor J Political Science > JC Political theory |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Unemployment -- Government policy, Unemployment -- Political aspects, Labor supply -- Research | ||||
Official Date: | April 2023 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of Politics and International Studies | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Parr, Tom ; Caney, Simon | ||||
Sponsors: | University of Warwick. Department of Politics and International Studies | ||||
Format of File: | |||||
Extent: | 267 pages : illustrations | ||||
Language: | eng |
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