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IOANNIS A. KATSELIDIS

Sumner Slichter has been characterized as “perhaps the most influential industrial economist in America” during the first half of the 20th century. However, little attention has been paid to his works. This paper analyzes Slichter’s ideas regarding the effect of technological change on the labor market performance. Slichter, by emphasising on the role of technical change, contested the statement of Say’s law that full equilibrium would be ensured by the functioning of market forces and tried to explain the inability of the economic system to readjust and absorb the unemployed workers. Furthermore, another remarkable aspect of his investigations is his theoretical shift around 1930 which could be connected with the catastrophic consequences of the Great Depression.