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IJE Advance Access originally published online on July 28, 2005
International Journal of Epidemiology 2005 34(6):1222-1225; doi:10.1093/ije/dyi142
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2005; all rights reserved.

Article

Commentary: Work, well-being, and a new calling for countercyclical policy

Ryan D Edwards

Postdoctoral Scholar, RAND Corporation, 1776 Main Street, PO Box 2138 Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138, USA. E-mail: redwards@rand.org

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The question of how human well-being is affected by business cycles is an age-old focus in economics. Starting with the dawn of the modern welfare state early in the 20th century, economists following in the tradition of John Maynard Keynes1 advocated activist countercyclical economic policies: increases in spending or decreases in taxes that are implemented during economic downturns in order to dampen business cycles. The stagflation of the 1970s and the Lucas critique2 marked the beginning of a sea change in thinking about countercyclical policy. Lucas showed why good-intentioned countercyclical policy might be rendered ineffective at best and inflationary at worst by forward-looking rational individuals who adapt to government policymaking.

As a result of this feasibility argument, activist countercyclical policy largely fell out of favour in the United States. New policies took neoclassical emphases on fostering price stability, improving incentives to work and save, and increasing the potential for long-run . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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