Cet-6-1.13-Exercise 02C) I want to suggest a third interpretation. Without ruling out a role for aggregate demand or for the regulatory environment, I wish to suggest that structural change is an important factor in the current rate of high unemployment. The economy is in a state of transition, in which the middle-class jobs that emerged after World War II have begun to decline. As Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee put it in a recent e-book Race Against the Machine: “The root of our problems is not that we’re in a great recession, or a great stagnation, but rather that we are in the early throes of a great restructuring.”

A. The author suggests that the recent high unemployment rate is mainly caused by a decrease of middle-class jobs.
B. One study shows that our neighbours’ actions are influential in changing our behaviour.