Jawboning
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
During the mid- to late 1960s, the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration tried to deal with the mounting inflationary pressures by direct government influence. Wage-price guideposts were set up, and the power of the presidency was used to coerce big businesses and labor into going along with these guideposts. This general approach came to be known as "jawboning" (sometimes known as "moral suasion") — an unofficial but usually quite effective technique of arm-twisting to prevent labor and businesses from getting big wage or price increases.
The phrase also refers to Herbert Hoover's efforts to convince employers to keep wages high as prices fell during the Great Depression. While Hoover was successful in obtaining such agreements, they did little to alleviate mushrooming unemployment.
The term has been used more recently in other contexts. During the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election, George W. Bush criticized outgoing president Bill Clinton for not attempting to lower oil prices by "jawboning OPEC" to increase supply.
The Canadian-American economist J. K. Galbraith considers this word "entered the language" over the activities of the U.S. Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply, formed in April 1941 (Galbraith, J. K. (1976). Money: whence it came,where it went. Penguin: London, p. 252).
