A Simplified Model of the Causation of Technological Unemployment

The purpose of the present paper is to find the influence on employment of some of the outstanding "data" (extra-economic determining factor-). For this purpose, a simplified model has been constructed in which these data and the chief economic variables find their places. Since it is not intended to picture cyclic variations and causations, the model may be called a "long-run model." It excludes some of the most typical cyclical phenomena such as stock-exchange speculation and the existence of small lags of all kinds which are of importance to the explar~ationo f cyclcs but do not seen1 to be so for long-run developments. Since the investigators were interested chiefly in studying the consequences of technological development for employnlent and the consequences of some of the best-known devices to improve employment, spccial attention was given to the corresponding sections of economic life. Thc calculations have been made for the United States prewar structure (using figures for 1910) and for the postwar pre-Roosevelt structure (using averages for 1919-1932)