THE THEORY AND MEASUREMENT OF LABOUR HOARDING: A REPLY
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1979.tb00544.x |
| Date | 01 June 1979 |
| Published date | 01 June 1979 |
Scottish
Journal
of
Political Economy,
Vol.
26,
No.
1,
February 1979
THE THEORY
AND
MEASUREMENT
OF
LABOUR HOARDING: A REPLY
DEREK
LESLIE
University
of
Manchester
There can
be
no doubt that Taylor’s work on labour hoarding has been a
valuable and important contribution to macroeconomic studies of the
U.K.
labour market. His explanation of the procyclical nature of labour producti-
vity as the result of hoarded labour and his attempts to quantitate its magni-
tude is truly ingenious.
I
am genuinely full of admiration for Taylor’s dedica-
tion to his task and also Taylor addresses himself to issues which are
important and does not engage in meaningless intellectual cross-word
puzzles, which are of no interest to mankind whatsoever beyond the partici-
pants. Taylor’s work on labour hoarding has been positive and creative,
whereas, of course, Leslie and Laing’s critique of Taylor was destructive
and negative. Better to
be
a good playwright than
a
good critic! Let me
stress at the outset that
I
believe in labour hoarding and that one reason
why labour productivity varies cyclically is because of labour hoarding; it
is
on questions of detail and measurement that Taylor and myself part company.
Taylor’s comment clarifies many points and
I
hope these additional observa-
tions of mine will also prove he1pful.l
There is one important matter to be settled first, however. In his reply to
Leslie and Laing’s third criticism he states that, “their division of hoarding
into the two components of paid-for and unpaid-for hoarding is wrong”.
In footnote
(2)
Taylor says that Leslie and Laing define paid-for hoarding as
(nl
-
no)H*
(or equivalently as
(n,
-no)H, on Taylor’s Fig.
1)
and unpaid-for
hoarding
as
(H*
-
Ho)no (or (H,
-
Ho)no on Taylor’s Fig.
1).
Such
a
definition
is, as Taylor points out, incorrect but this is not, in fact, the definition given
in Leslie and Laing. Leslie and Laing
(p.
43
bottom) define unpaid-for
hoarded hours as H*
-
Hl
and paid-for hoarded hours as
HI
-
H,,
nor is
area
B
ever defined
as
paid-for hoarded labour or area
C
as
unpaid-for hoarded
labour. Thus although Figure
1
in Leslie and Laing differs in
a
very minor
way from Taylor
(1974,
p.
25),
there is nothing that
is
actually incorrect;
the division
of
labour hoarding into its two respective components is exactly
the same as Taylor’s.
In a sense the difference between Taylor and myself is one of semantics
on
the lines of “What you mean by labour hoarding is not what
I
mean by
labour hoarding-although we both call it the same thing.” Leslie and Laing
I
apologize
for
not being aware
of
Taylor
(1976) in
which
he
corrects
some
of
his
own
previous
errors.
Date
of
receipt
of
final manuscript:
11
December, 1978.
203
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