Macroeconomics and the Wage Bargain: A Modern Approach to Employment, Inflation, and the Exchange Rate

This intermediate level textbook concentrates on macroeconomic analysis and is one of the first to focus on imperfectly competitive labour and product markets. The authors present a `new Keynesian' treatment of macroeconomics. Its key characteristic is the use of wage bargaining and price-setting under imperfect competition, making product and labour market assumptions closer to the real world. These features are fully integrated in both closed and open economy analysis. The book provides access both to the important applied work on unemployment, inflation, and external balances, and to the journal literature on major questions of economic policy and performance, especially in Western Europe, available to undergraduates and non-specialists for the first time.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; Part I: Macroeconomics with Competitive Microfoundations: The classical model: market clearing and the quantity theory of money; Keynes' model; The neoclassical critique of Keynes and the Keynesian counterattack; The neoclassical revival: Friedman's model; The neoclassical revival: the new classical macroeconomics; Part II: The NAIRU Model: Macroeconomics under Imperfect Competition: The NAIRU model; Monetary growth rate rules and expectations hypotheses; Fiscal policy and the NAIRU model; Incomes policies and the NAIRU model; The NAIRU model and productivity growth; Part III: Macroeconomic Analysis in the Open Economy: Extending IS/LM to the open economy; Competitiveness and external balance; The NAIRU model in the open economy; Exchange rate policies: devaluation, import controls; Monetary, fiscal and incomes policies underfixed exchange rates; More realistic assumptions about pricing and competitiveness; The impact of a raw materials price shock; A contrasting model: the international monetarist model; Floating exchange rates with zero capital mobility; Floating exchange rates and perfect capital mobility: exchange rate expectations; Topics in open economy macroeconomics; Part IV: Microeconomic Foundations and the Problem of Hysteresis: Price setting in imperfectly competitive product markets; Wage setting in imperfectly competitive labour markets; The problem of hysteresis

Review :
`We ought to welcome this book. In The Netherlands it will be particularly suitable for doctoral students. After so many textbooks on this level assuming perfect competition, it is important to have this alternative. It presents a coherent view on macroeconomics, built on a clear-cut core.' De Economist `a very clear and well integrated presentation ... I warmly welcome the book and applaud the aims that it seeks to achieve. Overall, I think Carlin and Soskice have succeeded in those aims' British Journal of Industrial Relations `This is a very good text ... representative of the `new Keynesian' approach to macroeconomics ... to be welcomed.' Industrial Relations Journal `A most lucid and effective macroeconomic setting of modern theories of unemployment and inflation - excellent teaching material.' Dr P. Ryan, Cambridge University `good, clear sections with clear understandable explanations of theories, wth relevant applications' Ms L. Garley, Nene College