Employer of Last Resort as a new ‘New Deal’: A few thoughts on Turkey

Abstract

Modern Monetary Theory emerges as a plausible alternative to solve Turkey’s staggering unemployment problem. This proposed solution here is the introduction of job guarantee program, which produces a non-discretionary automatic stabilizer that fosters both price stability and full employment. As a monetary sovereign, Turkey has the capacity to use deficit spending to bring growth and provide full employment to the millions who are in involuntary unemployment. The goal here is to tame the business cycles without throwing millions into unemployment, which has social and economic ramifications. In the absence of job creation by the private sector, this can be achieved through the use of government, providing job guarantees and the state acting as an employer of last resort by creating public projects, which will be cyclically adjusted in order to achieve full employment.