Micha Kalecki An Intellectual Biography

This volume of intellectual biography takes the Polish economist Micha Kalecki (1899-1970) from the shattering of his prosperous childhood, in Tsarist Łódź in the 1905 Revolution, to Cambridge and the failure of his co-operative research with John Maynard Keynes's supporters in Cambridge.

This volume of intellectual biography takes the Polish economist Micha Kalecki (1899-1970) from the shattering of his prosperous childhood, in Tsarist Łódź in the 1905 Revolution, to Cambridge and the failure of his co-operative research with John Maynard Keynes's supporters in Cambridge.

This volume of intellectual biography takes the Polish economist Micha Kalecki (1899-1970) from the shattering of his prosperous childhood, in Tsarist Łódź in the 1905 Revolution, to Cambridge and the failure of his co-operative research with John Maynard Keynes's supporters in Cambridge.

This volume of intellectual biography records the work of Michał Kalecki’s maturity: his work on monetary economics and the theory of profits; his work on the problems of socialism and developing countries; and the extension of his theory of capitalism to define his work in relation to Keynes and previous political economic principles. Kalecki had, by 1939, laid out the essential elements of his theory of the business cycle in capitalism. This book begins at Oxford where, at the Institute of Statistics, he worked on the economic planning and financing of World War Two, as well as extending and detailing the particulars of his theory and examining the conditions for full employment in the post-War international monetary and financial system. Kalecki would then work for the United Nations on full employment, inflation, and developing countries. He departed from the United Nations in 1955, and returned to Poland to extend two new directions of his ideas – on the economics of developing countries and his theory of growth in the socialist economy, alongside further work on business cycles. This book is essential reading for all those who want to understand Kalecki’s lasting contribution to economic theory and policy.

Rosa Luxemburg, Oskar Lange and Michal Kalecki made important contributions to twentieth century political economy that guided the thinking of their student Tadeusz Kowalik. These contributions are re-examined by renowned economists, highlighting the common themes in their political economy and the neglected aspects of their work.

This book helps in pushing forward a Kaleckian research agenda that is even more urgent given the 2007-2009 financial crisis and the current post-COVID recovery. Michał Kalecki was a leading heterodox economist, whose influence in the field perhaps even surpasses that of Keynes. Kalecki’s insights are even more relevant today, and scholars are encouraged to apply his conclusions to ensure the sustainability of our economic systems. This edited volume, honouring the work of Michał Kalecki, includes chapters contributed by celebrated Kaleckian economists. In honour of the 50th anniversary of his demise, the Review of Political Economy (ROPE) and Edward Lipiński Foundation hosted a conference in September 2020 to celebrate his contribution to heterodox economics and his lasting legacy. These chapters, honouring the work of Michał Kalecki, span a panoply of topics and include a personal note from one of his former students and friend, and cover topics such as Kalecki’s relationship with the Cantabrigians, labour economics, fiscal policy, income distribution, gender, finance, debt, and democracy. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Review of Political Economy.

This book offers a fresh perspective on the early history of macroeconomics, by examining the macro-dynamic models developed from the late 1920s to the late 1940s, and their treatment of economic instability. It first explores the differences and similarities between the early mathematical business cycle models developed by Ragnar Frisch, Michal Kalecki, Jan Tinbergen and others, which were presented at meetings of the Econometric Society and discussed in private correspondence. By doing so, it demonstrates the diversity of models representing economic phenomena and especially economic crises and instability. Jan Tinbergen emerged as one of the most original and pivotal economists of this period, before becoming a leader of the macro-econometric movement, a role for which he is better known. His emphasis on economic policy was later mirrored in the United States in Paul Samuelson’s early work on business cycles analysis, which, drawing on Alvin Hansen, aimed at interpreting the 1937-1938 recession. The authors then show that the subsequent shift in Samuelson's approach, from the study of business cycle trajectories to the comparison of equilibrium points, provided a response to the econometricians' critique of early Keynesian models. In the early 1940s, Samuelson was able to link together the tools that had been developed by the econometricians and the economic content that was at the heart of the so-called Keynesian revolution. The problem then shifted from business cycle trajectories to the disequilibrium between economic aggregates, and the issues raised by the global stability of full employment equilibrium. This was addressed by Oskar Lange, who presented an analysis of market coordination failures, and Lawrence Klein, Samuelson's first PhD student, who pursued empirical work in this direction. The book highlights the various visions and approaches that were embedded in these macro-dynamic models, and that their originality is of interest to today's model builders as well as to students and anyone interested in how new economic ideas come to be developed.