Abstract

KLIMOVSKY, Edith Alicia. Involuntary unemployment and neoclassic synthesis: The Patinkin Theory. Inv. Econ [online]. 2002, vol.62, n.241, pp.17-34. ISSN 0185-1667.

The object of this article is to show the interest and limits of Patinkin's analysis of involuntary unemployment. Patinkin introduces the idea of "involuntarity" and the spill over effect, which radically renew the concepts of disequilibrium in general, and of involuntary unemployment in particular. Another great merit of this author is his acceptation of Keynes' challenge: to demonstrate the possibility of involuntary unemployment in an economy with flexible prices and wages. We show that the main limits of Patinkin's theory derive from his treatment of disequilibrium from the perspective of the Walrasian general equilibrium, in which the only possible equilibrium is necessarily that of full employment. In this context, Patinkin justifies the emergence as well as the persistence of revoluntary unemployment as a consequence of rigidities in the agents' behaviour, which imply the prolongation of the adjustment process. This explanation presents an unavoidable problem that cannot be resolved in the conceptual framework that he adopts since the Walrasian theory cannot say anything about the duration of the adjustment process.

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