What S Wrong With Keynesian Economic Theory

Possibly the strangest phenomenon in all of economics is the absence of a long tradition of criticism focused on Keynesian economic theory. Keynesian demand management has been at the centre of some of the worst economic outcomes in history, from the great stagflation of the 1970s to the lost decade and more in Japan following the expenditure program of the 1990s. And once again, following the Global Financial Crisis, it is incontrovertible that no stimulus program in any part of the world has been a success, each one having been abandoned as conditions deteriorated under the weight of public sector spending. This book brings together some of the most vocal critics of Keynesian economics. Each author attempts to explain what is wrong with Keynesian theory in ways that can be understood by those seeking guidance on where to turn for a more accurate explanation of the business cycle and on what to do when recessions occur.

How did economic ÒexpertsÓ worldwide fail to predict the financial crisis of 2007-2008? Eminent economist Paul Davidson discusses how mainstream economic theory may not be applicable to the world of experience. Post Keynesian theory is designed to be a

'All of us need help in understanding Keynes's brilliant, but often opaque, contributions to theory and policy. These essays provide a scholarly, balanced yet provocative assessment and critique.' Sir Alan Walters This book represents, for the first time a collection of classic appraisals of Keynesian economics' impact on economic theory and policy that will be of use to all students of macroeconomics and the history of economic thought. Don Patinkin's assesses Keynes early life and focuses attention on Keynes's contribution to monetary economics. Axel Leijonhufvud takes the view that the Keynesian revolution began and stayed on the wrong track. Leland Yeager refutes the idea that Keynesian economics was responsible for the general prosperity in the industrialised world immediately after the Second World War. Karl Brunner is critical of Keynes's reliance on fiscal rather than monetary policy. Terence Hutchison defends Keynes, both against his critics and against Keynesians! Patrick Minford traces the roots of neoclassical economics, back to The General Theory. Stephen Littlechild offers an alternative to Keynesian economics by focusing attention on the Austrian school.

Presents an overview of the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes and offers a critique of the Keynesian economic strategy of borrowing and spending which has been used by the current Obama administration to deal with the fiscal crisis of 2009.

Back to the future: a heterodox economist rewrites Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money to serve as the basis for a macroeconomics for the twenty-first century. John Maynard Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money was the most influential economic idea of the twentieth century. But, argues Stephen Marglin, its radical implications were obscured by Keynes's lack of the mathematical tools necessary to argue convincingly that the problem was the market itself, as distinct from myriad sources of friction around its margins. Marglin fills in the theoretical gaps, revealing the deeper meaning of the General Theory. Drawing on eight decades of discussion and debate since the General Theory was published, as well as on his own research, Marglin substantiates Keynes's intuition that there is no mechanism within a capitalist economy that ensures full employment. Even if deregulating the economy could make it more like the textbook ideal of perfect competition, this would not address the problem that Keynes identified: the potential inadequacy of aggregate demand. Ordinary citizens have paid a steep price for the distortion of Keynes's message. Fiscal policy has been relegated to emergencies like the Great Recession. Monetary policy has focused unduly on inflation. In both cases the underlying rationale is the false premise that in the long run at least the economy is self-regulating so that fiscal policy is unnecessary and inflation beyond a modest 2 percent serves no useful purpose. Fleshing out Keynes's intuition that the problem is not the warts on the body of capitalism but capitalism itself, Raising Keynes provides the foundation for a twenty-first-century macroeconomics that can both respond to crises and guide long-run policy.

This book was originally published by Macmillan in 1936. It was voted the top Academic Book that Shaped Modern Britain by Academic Book Week (UK) in 2017, and in 2011 was placed on Time Magazine's top 100 non-fiction books written in English since 1923. Reissued with a fresh Introduction by the Nobel-prize winner Paul Krugman and a new Afterword by Keynes’ biographer Robert Skidelsky, this important work is made available to a new generation. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money transformed economics and changed the face of modern macroeconomics. Keynes’ argument is based on the idea that the level of employment is not determined by the price of labour, but by the spending of money. It gave way to an entirely new approach where employment, inflation and the market economy are concerned. Highly provocative at its time of publication, this book and Keynes’ theories continue to remain the subject of much support and praise, criticism and debate. Economists at any stage in their career will enjoy revisiting this treatise and observing the relevance of Keynes’ work in today’s contemporary climate.

This chapter discusses various past and future aspects of the global economy. There has been a huge transformation of the global economy in the last several years. Articles on the future of energy in the global economy by Jeffrey Ball and on measuring inequality by Jonathan Ostry and Andrew Berg are also illustrated. Since the 2008 global crisis, global economists must change the way they look at the world.

One of the reasons which make the Keynesian controversy still so live, is the missing distinction between aspects concerning methodology and others pertaining to theory. Another cause of the ongoing debate is to be found in unsettled problems concerning methodology, in primis the concept the equilibrium. Nor could the situation have been different, given, on the one hand, Keynes's manifest disaffection with these matters (especially in The General Theory) and, on the other hand, their implications as regards Keynesian economic theory and policy. The aim of this volume ensues from this analysis; accordingly, a wide spectrum of questions of method are considered and different interpretations of Keynes's approach in this field are taken into consideration.