From: Robert.Vienneau@launchpad.unc.edu (Robert Vienneau)
Subject: Re: Inflation
Summary: Reading list on Keynes
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 00:17:32 GMT

david@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael Wright) writes:
> Robert.Vienneau@launchpad.unc.edu (Robert Vienneau) writes:
>|...Academic economists, for the most part, have been blind and deaf to the
>|GT. They created an equilibrium IS-LM model that ignores both the labor
>|market and prices.
>I think this is changing as we speak. Recent articles in the American
>Economic Review, the QJE, and Mankiw and Romer's new book
>"New-Keynesian Economics" have been reviving some of the more
>interesting ideas of the GT, and I think Diamond (1982) was one of the
>first to get multiple equilibriam driven by changes in expectations of
>future investment. (and consumption for that matter)...
>					All comments  are mine---(David Wright) 
>						david@cats.ucsc.edu.

Sorry, David, but from my limited knowledge about it, "New Keynesian
Economics" does not seem promising, judged from the standpoint of a
formalization of a historically accurate interpretation of the General
Theory. From what I understand, New Keynesians adopt rational
expectations assumptions with the change that not all markets need
clear. Instead "rationing" or some such assumption is introduced in some
markets. This is still a model of perfect "certainty," as defined by
Keynes.

Instead of clarifying what Keynes meant by uncertainty, I'll present a
reading list:

  A. Asimakopulos, "Keynes's General Theory and Accumulation," Cambridge
  University Press, 1991. (Paul Davidson says this is too Kaleckian to
  be totally accurate.)

  Victoria Chick, "Macroeconomics after Keynes: A Reconsideration of the
  General Theory," MIT Press, 1983. (Very good introductory text.)

  Hyman Minsky, "John Maynard Keynes," Columbia University Press, 1975.
  (Of the "good guys" here, I have absorbed this book least.)

  Alessandro Vercelli, "Methodological Foundations of Macroeconomics:
  Keynes & Lucas," Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Many positions have been adopted in the longstanding argument about what
Keynes "really meant." The position I'm adopting, less dogmatically than
I may sound, needs development and formalization. Here's some other
positions: 

  Alan Coddington, "Keynesian Economics: The Search for First
  Principles, Aleen and Unwin, 1983. (Interesting survey of some positions.
  I don't remember my final judgement on this book. I lean towards his
  "Keynesian fundamentalism," while striving to be less nihilistic.)

  Axel Leijonhufvud, "On Keynesian Economics and the Economics of
  Keynes," Oxford Univeristy Press, 1968. (Bad history, I claim.
  Interesting economics in its own right. Important in bringing
  arguments over Keynes to greater notorietory (sp?).)

  Murray Milgate, "Capital and Value"?, ???, 198?. (With emphasis on the
  long run, bad history. Of independent importance in the development of
  "Neoricardian Keynesianism.")

  David McCord Wright, "The Keynesian System," Fordham University Press,
  1962. (Old fashioned "bastard Keynesianism," I include this for your
  amusement, David.)
                                 Robert Vienneau

P.S. Any private mail to above address should include a return address
in the text. I do not read mail at that address very often, so patience
is also necessary.
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Once one of his followers told Keynes that it was hard to defend him
when he kept changing his position. His reply? "When I am shown I am
wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?"
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