This book reconsiders Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money and establishes a new interpretation. In contrast to the existing models, this book finds that the stickiness in the nominal wage is not crucial for his theory. Moreover, the author has also succeeds in capturing the concept of liquidity in a rigorous mathematical model. In conjunction with the development of the concept of liquidity, the separation of the decision between savings and capital investment, which plays a key role in the principle of effective demand and denies Say’s law, is exactly and originally formulated. The theory thus developed is applicable to elucidating some serious political economic causes that entrap the long-stagnated Japanese economy. For example, an analytical explanation is provided about why disinflation/deflation incessantly progresses despite the exorbitant expansionary monetary policy (ijigen kin-yuu seisaku) by the Bank of Japan. This phenomenon is an unsolvable question from the quantity-theoretic approaches (e.g., monetarism and new Keynesianism) which, although they differ in assumptions concerning the length of adjustment periods, commonly assume that the price level sooner or later rises in proportion to the quantity of money. Owing much to Keynes, the author’s approach considers that the price level is mainly governed by its marginal prime cost which is equal to the nominal wage as a first approximation. As such, the drastically sagging wages during the past 10 years provoke serious disinflation/deflation. It should be noted that this discussion never depends on the quantity of money.
Speculative Bubbles and Monetary Policy works at the intersection of economic theory history. While the consistent and penetrating perspective of theory is necessary for interpreting economic history, existing macroeconomic theories are fragile an ineffective at narrating an economic history that covers a relatively long period. Such fragility comes from arbitrariness in deployed economic theory as well as structural changes within an economy. This book presents a Keynesian theory with a rigorous dynamic microeconomic foundation that entirely differs from new Keynesian theory and applies it to the Japanese economic history from the 1980s to 2010s. It considers two primary incidents in the country’s economic history: the bubble boom from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, and the country’s immersion in neoliberalism at the turn of the century.
John Maynard Keynes, then a rising young economist, participated in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as chief representative of the British Treasury and advisor to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. He resigned after desperately trying and failing to reduce the huge demands for reparations being made on Germany. The Economic Consequences of the Peace is Keynes' brilliant and prophetic analysis of the effects that the peace treaty would have both on Germany and, even more fatefully, the world.
This is the first book that systematically considers the academic achievements of Japanese institutionalist post-Keynesian economists in the postwar period and argues that we can learn much from their intellectual heritage. Those Japanese economists include the world-renowned figures, Shigeto Tsuru and Hirofumi Uzawa, whose inheritance came from Keynes, Marx, and institutionalism. In the era of globalization after the 1990s, economic inequality and social divide have intensified all over the world. In this situation, the academic achievements of those economists in postwar Japan should be reconsidered for the aim of establishing a new political economy. With this perspective, the book looks at what we can learn from Japanese institutionalist post-Keynesian economists In particular, the essence of research work that each of them developed is identified, focusing on the total image of the economy for contemporary capitalism. Those economists benefited from the diverse legacies of Keynes, Marx, Kalecki and institutionalist economists such as Veblen and Galbraith. When their research is examined systematically, Japanese institutionalist post-Keynesians are commonly characterized as those who developed their institutional analysis of contemporary capitalism with in-depth theoretical and empirical studies, with the aim of establishing their own political economy as the moral science of civil society. These important features provide us with insightful implications for institutional economics in the 21st century.
John Maynard Keynes is the great British economist of the twentieth century whose hugely influential work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and * is undoubtedly the century's most important book on economics--strongly influencing economic theory and practice, particularly with regard to the role of government in stimulating and regulating a nation's economic life. Keynes's work has undergone significant revaluation in recent years, and "Keynesian" views which have been widely defended for so long are now perceived as at odds with Keynes's own thinking. Recent scholarship and research has demonstrated considerable rivalry and controversy concerning the proper interpretation of Keynes's works, such that recourse to the original text is all the more important. Although considered by a few critics that the sentence structures of the book are quite incomprehensible and almost unbearable to read, the book is an essential reading for all those who desire a basic education in economics. The key to understanding Keynes is the notion that at particular times in the business cycle, an economy can become over-productive (or under-consumptive) and thus, a vicious spiral is begun that results in massive layoffs and cuts in production as businesses attempt to equilibrate aggregate supply and demand. Thus, full employment is only one of many or multiple macro equilibria. If an economy reaches an underemployment equilibrium, something is necessary to boost or stimulate demand to produce full employment. This something could be business investment but because of the logic and individualist nature of investment decisions, it is unlikely to rapidly restore full employment. Keynes logically seizes upon the public budget and government expenditures as the quickest way to restore full employment. Borrowing the * to finance the deficit from private households and businesses is a quick, direct way to restore full employment while at the same time, redirecting or siphoning
Written by a team of experts on the contemporary global capitalist political economy, this ground-breaking volume provides critical analyses of the causes and consequences of the Great Recession of 2008-2009. Through a careful examination of the origin, development and aftermath of the catastrophic economic crisis, editor Berch Berberoglu and his colleagues demonstrate that those most responsible for the economic collapse are the ones least affected by its devastating impact.
The simple message of Eatwell & Milgate's Fall and Rise of Keynesian Economics is that it was inevitable that Keynesian economics would rise again when circumstances conspired to make it apparent that conventional macroeconomic thinking had lost its way and was unable to explain satisfactorily the most outstanding feature of our actual experience: financial instabilty and its effect on real economic activity.
Economists from all heterodox traditions of political economy will benefit from reading this book both for its confirmation of many of the basic precepts of classical, Marxian and Harrodian economics and the challenges it poses for its trenchant Post-Keynesian/Kaleckian critics, for whom short-period analytics of effective demand can and should be extended to long-period analysis. While his critique of the principle of effective demand for the long run would leave many Post-Keynesians uncompromising, the strong Keynesian view held by the author on the necessity for public-sector capital budgeting, and a developmental state upon which ought to be grafted a long-term growth policy based on public investment would certainly find strong resonance in the context of the global economic crisis. Mario Seccareccia, University of Ottawa, Canada and Editor of the International Journal of Political Economy Jamee K. Moudud s book is in the best tradition of dynamic economics stemming from the work of Harrod and Kalecki. Moudud demonstrates a solid command of the intellectual history of his subject. His insightful critical survey of the growth literature focuses on an often neglected dimension of the topic, i.e. the question of how real-world firms make decisions about capacity utilization and capacity creation. This discussion grounds Moudud s subsequent theoretical analysis of the disequilibrium dynamics of cyclical growth. The book is that rarest of things both a useful teaching tool and an original contribution in its own right. Graduate students will find it a superb introduction to the analytical issues that are at the center of economists debates about growth, economic development and the business cycle. Growth theorists will find in it much to stimulate and challenge their thinking. Gary Mongiovi, St John s University, US and Co-Editor, Review of Political Economy The pillar upon which this magnificent must-read volume was erected is strategic competition, a theory that cogently authenticates the concentration and centralization of capital. This stands in stark contrast against the fanciful neoclassical perfect completion and its methodological double, imperfect competition. In Strategic Competition, Dynamics, and the Role of the State, Jamee Moudud has taken a novel approach to the study of macrodynamics. Here turbulence and crisis are deemed inseparable from the dynamics of capitalist economies and the last three decades of neoliberal policies are eloquently called into question. Moudud also provides a timely and effective critique of both new Keynesian and post-Keynesian approaches to macroeconomic theory and policy. Cyrus Bina, University of Minnesota (Morris Campus), US and an Editor of the Journal of Critical Studies on Business and Society The current economic crisis has thrown into disrepute the representative agent models at the forefront of the microfoundations agenda. Jamee Moudud takes a different approach, going back to first principles to re-establish the theory of the firm and the nature of market competition. The result is an important addition to two ongoing quests in macroeconomics: integrating the principle of effective demand into long run macrodynamics; and relating aggregate outcomes to firm behaviour and the functioning of markets. Mark Setterfield, Trinity College, US This is a very timely, refreshing and challenging book, an excellent contribution in the areas of competition and growth. It blends beautifully the microeconomic analysis of the Oxford Research Group, at the center of which is the idea of strategic competition; and an extension of Harrod s work on growth. The discussions of uncertainly and excess capacity, and the interpretation of Harrod s work are outstanding. This combination leads one to think about policy issues such as taxation or public investment in a novel way, as the implications differ not only from those that derive from neoclassical models, but also from Post-Keynesi
Keynes was an elitist and pro-capitalist economist, whom the left should embrace with caution. But his analysis provides a concreteness missing from Marx and engages with critical issues of the modern world that Marx could not have foreseen. This book argues that a critical Marxist engagement can simultaneously increase the power of Keynes’s insight and enrich Marxism. To understand Keynes, whose work is liberally invoked but seldom read, Dunn explores him in the context of the extraordinary times in which he lived, his philosophy, and his politics. By offering a detailed overview of Keynes’s critique of mainstream economics and General Theory, Dunn argues that Keynes provides an enduringly valuable critique of orthodoxy. The book develops a Marxist appropriation of Keynes’s insights, arguing that a Marxist analysis of unemployment, capital and the role of the state can be enriched through such a critical engagement. The point is to change the world, not just to understand it. Thus the book considers the prospects of returning to Keynes, critically reviewing the practices that have come to be known as ‘Keynesianism’ and the limits of the theoretical traditions that have made claim to his legacy.
