The economists "Manifesto" unemployment in the EU seven years later: which suggestions still hold?

Abstract

I met Franco Modigliani in 1948. We had common interests in three fields of economic theory--Keynes and unemployment, the relations between monetary and real phenomena and market forms and price formation. We had in common also the love for empirical verification and, on another plane, civil commitment. Intellectually we met on the question of price formation and variations in oligopoly, which can be considered as the most common market form in modern economies. Modigliani embodied the formula expressing price formation and variations under oligopoly in two econometric model, the former worked out in the United States, the other in Italy. The paper discusses similarities and differences between our views on these matters. Recently Modigliani promoted a Manifesto on Unemployment in the European Union, written by six economists, including myself. In it an important role is plaid by the investment, function, conceived by Modigliani and by myself in different though complementary ways ad by the model of price variations, viewed from the point of view of inflation. JEL Codes: E24, E52, E62 Keywords: Interest, Monetary, Unemployment