On Job Guarantee Programs

Why is there actually unemployment? This question is once again increasingly being asked by academics who argue that states with sovereign fiscal policies might as well develop programmes that would provide all able and willing workers with jobs that provide a positive public impact. The calls for these job guarantee programmes are still largely inspired by Modern Monetary Theory. But they are fundamentally based on the works of John Maynard Keynes, Michal Kalecki and Hyman P. Minsky.

Pavlina Tcherneva, is one of the leading scientists when it comes to the development of job guarantee schemes. With her new book “The case for a Job Guarantee” she has not only impressed Martin Wolf of the Financial Times. Models based on this work had also found their way into the election manifestos of democratic politician Elizabeth Warren and her colleague Bernie Sanders.

Pavlina Tcherneva is Associate Professor of Economics at Bard College as well as a research fellow at the Levy Economics Institute. In a 15-minute keynote speech, she will present her newly published book and talk about the job guarantee against the background of the Corona crisis and the US elections. She will be commented by Dirk Ehnts, a renowned MMT and job guarantee expert, who will also shed light on the applicability of the job guarantee in Europe and Germany.