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Keynesian economics
Keynesian economics
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Keynesian economics (/ˈknziən/ KAYN-zee-ən; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output and inflation.[1] In the Keynesian view, aggregate demand does not necessarily equal the productive capacity of the economy. It is influenced by a host of factors that sometimes behave erratically and impact production, employment, and inflation.[2]

Keynesian economists generally argue that aggregate demand is volatile and unstable and that, consequently, a market economy often experiences inefficient macroeconomic outcomes, including recessions when demand is too low and inflation when demand is too high. Further, they argue that these economic fluctuations can be mitigated by economic policy responses coordinated between a government and their central bank. In particular, fiscal policy actions taken by the government and monetary policy actions taken by the central bank, can help stabilize economic output, inflation, and unemployment over the business cycle.[3] Keynesian economists generally advocate a regulated market economy – predominantly private sector, but with an active role for government intervention during recessions and depressions.[4]

Keynesian economics developed during and after the Great Depression from the ideas presented by Keynes in his 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.[5] Keynes' approach was a stark contrast to the aggregate supply-focused classical economics that preceded his book. Interpreting Keynes's work is a contentious topic, and several schools of economic thought claim his legacy.

Keynesian economics has developed new directions to study wider social and institutional patterns during the past several decades. Post-Keynesian and New Keynesian economists have developed Keynesian thought by adding concepts about income distribution and labor market frictions and institutional reform. Alejandro Antonio advocates for “equality of place” instead of “equality of opportunity” by supporting structural economic changes and universal service access and worker protections. Greenwald and Stiglitz represent New Keynesian economists who show how contemporary market failures regarding credit rationing and wage rigidity can lead to unemployment persistence in modern economies. Scholars including K.H. Lee explain how uncertainty remains important according to Keynes because expectations and conventions together with psychological behaviour known as "animal spirits" affect investment and demand. Tregub's empirical research of French consumption patterns between 2001 and 2011 serves as contemporary evidence for demand-based economic interventions. The ongoing developments prove that Keynesian economics functions as a dynamic and lasting framework to handle economic crises and create inclusive economic policies.

Keynesian economics, as part of the neoclassical synthesis, served as the standard macroeconomic model in the developed nations during the later part of the Great Depression, World War II, and the post-war economic expansion (1945–1973). It was developed in part to attempt to explain the Great Depression and to help economists understand future crises. It lost some influence following the oil shock and resulting stagflation of the 1970s.[6] Keynesian economics was later redeveloped as New Keynesian economics, becoming part of the contemporary new neoclassical synthesis, that forms current-day mainstream macroeconomics.[7] The 2008 financial crisis sparked the 2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence by governments around the world.[8]

Historical context

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Pre-Keynesian macroeconomics

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Macroeconomics is the study of the factors applying to an economy as a whole. Important macroeconomic variables include the overall price level, the interest rate, the level of employment, and income (or equivalently output) measured in real terms.

The classical tradition of partial equilibrium theory had been to split the economy into separate markets, each of whose equilibrium conditions could be stated as a single equation determining a single variable. The theoretical apparatus of supply and demand curves developed by Fleeming Jenkin and Alfred Marshall provided a unified mathematical basis for this approach, which the Lausanne School generalized to general equilibrium theory.

For macroeconomics, relevant partial theories included the Quantity theory of money determining the price level and the classical theory of the interest rate. In regards to employment, the condition referred to by Keynes as the "first postulate of classical economics" stated that the wage is equal to the marginal product, which is a direct application of the marginalist principles developed during the nineteenth century (see The General Theory). Keynes sought to supplant all three aspects of the classical theory.

Precursors of Keynesianism

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Although Keynes's work was crystallized and given impetus by the advent of the Great Depression, it was part of a long-running debate within economics over the existence and nature of general gluts. A number of the policies Keynes advocated to address the Great Depression (notably government deficit spending at times of low private investment or consumption), and many of the theoretical ideas he proposed (effective demand, the multiplier, the paradox of thrift), had been advanced by authors in the 19th and early 20th centuries. (E.g. J. M. Robertson raised the paradox of thrift in 1892.[9][10]) Keynes's unique contribution was to provide a general theory of these, which proved acceptable to the economic establishment.

An intellectual precursor of Keynesian economics was underconsumption theories associated with John Law, Thomas Malthus, the Birmingham School of Thomas Attwood,[11] and the American economists William Trufant Foster and Waddill Catchings, who were influential in the 1920s and 1930s. Underconsumptionists were, like Keynes after them, concerned with failure of aggregate demand to attain potential output, calling this "underconsumption" (focusing on the demand side), rather than "overproduction" (which would focus on the supply side), and advocating economic interventionism. Keynes specifically discussed underconsumption (which he wrote "under-consumption") in the General Theory, in Chapter 22, Section IV and Chapter 23, Section VII.

Numerous concepts were developed earlier and independently of Keynes by the Stockholm school during the 1930s; these accomplishments were described in a 1937 article, published in response to the 1936 General Theory, sharing the Swedish discoveries.[12]

Keynes's early writings

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In 1923, Keynes published his first contribution to economic theory, A Tract on Monetary Reform, whose point of view is classical but incorporates ideas that later played a part in the General Theory. In particular, looking at the hyperinflation in European economies, he drew attention to the opportunity cost of holding money (identified with inflation rather than interest) and its influence on the velocity of circulation.[13]

In 1930, he published A Treatise on Money, intended as a broad treatment of its subject "which would confirm his stature as a serious academic scholar, rather than just as the author of stinging polemics",[14] and marks a large step in the direction of his later views. In it, he attributes unemployment to wage stickiness[15] and treats saving and investment as governed by independent decisions: the former varying positively with the interest rate,[16] the latter negatively.[17] The velocity of circulation is expressed as a function of the rate of interest.[18] He interpreted his treatment of liquidity as implying a purely monetary theory of interest.[19]

Keynes's younger colleagues of the Cambridge Circus and Ralph Hawtrey believed that his arguments implicitly assumed full employment, and this influenced the direction of his subsequent work.[20] During 1933, he wrote essays on various economic topics "all of which are cast in terms of movement of output as a whole".[21]

Development of The General Theory

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At the time that Keynes wrote the General Theory, it had been a tenet of mainstream economic thought that the economy would automatically revert to a state of general equilibrium: it had been assumed that, because the needs of consumers are always greater than the capacity of the producers to satisfy those needs, everything that is produced would eventually be consumed once the appropriate price was found for it. This perception is reflected in Say's law[22] and in the writing of David Ricardo,[23] which states that individuals produce so that they can either consume what they have manufactured or sell their output so that they can buy someone else's output. This argument rests upon the assumption that if a surplus of goods or services exists, they would naturally drop in price to the point where they would be consumed.

Given the backdrop of high and persistent unemployment during the Great Depression, Keynes argued that there was no guarantee that the goods that individuals produce would be met with adequate effective demand, and periods of high unemployment could be expected, especially when the economy was contracting in size. He saw the economy as unable to maintain itself at full employment automatically, and believed that it was necessary for the government to step in and put purchasing power into the hands of the working population through government spending. Thus, according to Keynesian theory, some individually rational microeconomic-level actions such as not investing savings in the goods and services produced by the economy, if taken collectively by a large proportion of individuals and firms, can lead to outcomes wherein the economy operates below its potential output and growth rate.

Prior to Keynes, a situation in which aggregate demand for goods and services did not meet supply was referred to by classical economists as a general glut, although there was disagreement among them as to whether a general glut was possible. Keynes argued that when a glut occurred, it was the over-reaction of producers and the laying off of workers that led to a fall in demand and perpetuated the problem. Keynesians therefore advocate an active stabilization policy to reduce the amplitude of the business cycle, which they rank among the most serious of economic problems. According to the theory, government spending can be used to increase aggregate demand, thus increasing economic activity, reducing unemployment and deflation.

Origins of the multiplier

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The Liberal Party fought the 1929 General Election on a promise to "reduce levels of unemployment to normal within one year by utilising the stagnant labour force in vast schemes of national development".[24] David Lloyd George launched his campaign in March with a policy document, We can cure unemployment, which tentatively claimed that, "Public works would lead to a second round of spending as the workers spent their wages."[25] Two months later Keynes, then nearing completion of his Treatise on money,[26] and Hubert Henderson collaborated on a political pamphlet seeking to "provide academically respectable economic arguments" for Lloyd George's policies.[27] It was titled Can Lloyd George do it? and endorsed the claim that "greater trade activity would make for greater trade activity ... with a cumulative effect".[28] This became the mechanism of the "ratio" published by Richard Kahn in his 1931 paper "The relation of home investment to unemployment",[29] described by Alvin Hansen as "one of the great landmarks of economic analysis".[30] The "ratio" was soon rechristened the "multiplier" at Keynes's suggestion.[31]

The multiplier of Kahn's paper is based on a respending mechanism familiar nowadays from textbooks. Samuelson puts it as follows:

Let's suppose that I hire unemployed resources to build a $1000 woodshed. My carpenters and lumber producers will get an extra $1000 of income... If they all have a marginal propensity to consume of 2/3, they will now spend $666.67 on new consumption goods. The producers of these goods will now have extra incomes... they in turn will spend $444.44 ... Thus an endless chain of secondary consumption respending is set in motion by my primary investment of $1000.[32]

Samuelson's treatment closely follows Joan Robinson's account of 1937[33] and is the main channel by which the multiplier has influenced Keynesian theory. It differs significantly from Kahn's paper and even more from Keynes's book.

The designation of the initial spending as "investment" and the employment-creating respending as "consumption" echoes Kahn faithfully, though he gives no reason why initial consumption or subsequent investment respending should not have exactly the same effects. Henry Hazlitt, who considered Keynes as much a culprit as Kahn and Samuelson, wrote that ...

... in connection with the multiplier (and indeed most of the time) what Keynes is referring to as "investment" really means any addition to spending for any purpose... The word "investment" is being used in a Pickwickian, or Keynesian, sense.[34]

Kahn envisaged money as being passed from hand to hand, creating employment at each step, until it came to rest in a cul-de-sac (Hansen's term was "leakage"); the only culs-de-sac he acknowledged were imports and hoarding, although he also said that a rise in prices might dilute the multiplier effect. Jens Warming recognised that personal saving had to be considered,[35] treating it as a "leakage" (p. 214) while recognising on p. 217 that it might in fact be invested.

The textbook multiplier gives the impression that making society richer is the easiest thing in the world: the government just needs to spend more. In Kahn's paper, it is harder. For him, the initial expenditure must not be a diversion of funds from other uses, but an increase in the total expenditure: something impossible – if understood in real terms – under the classical theory that the level of expenditure is limited by the economy's income/output. On page 174, Kahn rejects the claim that the effect of public works is at the expense of expenditure elsewhere, admitting that this might arise if the revenue is raised by taxation, but says that other available means have no such consequences. As an example, he suggests that the money may be raised by borrowing from banks, since ...

... it is always within the power of the banking system to advance to the Government the cost of the roads without in any way affecting the flow of investment along the normal channels.

This assumes that banks are free to create resources to answer any demand. But Kahn adds that ...

... no such hypothesis is really necessary. For it will be demonstrated later on that, pari passu with the building of roads, funds are released from various sources at precisely the rate that is required to pay the cost of the roads.

The demonstration relies on "Mr Meade's relation" (due to James Meade) asserting that the total amount of money that disappears into culs-de-sac is equal to the original outlay,[36] which in Kahn's words "should bring relief and consolation to those who are worried about the monetary sources" (p. 189).

A respending multiplier had been proposed earlier by Hawtrey in a 1928 Treasury memorandum ("with imports as the only leakage"), but the idea was discarded in his own subsequent writings.[37] Soon afterwards the Australian economist Lyndhurst Giblin published a multiplier analysis in a 1930 lecture (again with imports as the only leakage).[38] The idea itself was much older. Some Dutch mercantilists had believed in an infinite multiplier for military expenditure (assuming no import "leakage"), since ...

... a war could support itself for an unlimited period if only money remained in the country ... For if money itself is "consumed", this simply means that it passes into someone else's possession, and this process may continue indefinitely.[39]

Multiplier doctrines had subsequently been expressed in more theoretical terms by the Dane Julius Wulff (1896), the Australian Alfred de Lissa (late 1890s), the German/American Nicholas Johannsen (same period), and the Dane Fr. Johannsen (1925/1927).[40] Kahn himself said that the idea was given to him as a child by his father.[41]

Public policy debates

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As the 1929 election approached "Keynes was becoming a strong public advocate of capital development" as a public measure to alleviate unemployment.[42] Winston Churchill, the Conservative Chancellor, took the opposite view:

It is the orthodox Treasury dogma, steadfastly held ... [that] very little additional employment and no permanent additional employment can, in fact, be created by State borrowing and State expenditure.[43]

Keynes pounced on a flaw in the Treasury view. Cross-examining Sir Richard Hopkins, a Second Secretary in the Treasury, before the Macmillan Committee on Finance and Industry in 1930 he referred to the "first proposition" that "schemes of capital development are of no use for reducing unemployment" and asked whether "it would be a misunderstanding of the Treasury view to say that they hold to the first proposition". Hopkins responded that "The first proposition goes much too far. The first proposition would ascribe to us an absolute and rigid dogma, would it not?"[44]

Later the same year, speaking in a newly created Committee of Economists, Keynes tried to use Kahn's emerging multiplier theory to argue for public works, "but Pigou's and Henderson's objections ensured that there was no sign of this in the final product".[45] In 1933 he gave wider publicity to his support for Kahn's multiplier in a series of articles titled "The road to prosperity" in The Times newspaper.[46]

A. C. Pigou was at the time the sole economics professor at Cambridge. He had a continuing interest in the subject of unemployment, having expressed the view in his popular Unemployment (1913) that it was caused by "maladjustment between wage-rates and demand"[47] – a view Keynes may have shared prior to the years of the General Theory. Nor were his practical recommendations very different: "on many occasions in the thirties" Pigou "gave public support [...] to State action designed to stimulate employment".[48] Where the two men differed is in the link between theory and practice. Keynes was seeking to build theoretical foundations to support his recommendations for public works while Pigou showed no disposition to move away from classical doctrine. Referring to him and Dennis Robertson, Keynes asked rhetorically: "Why do they insist on maintaining theories from which their own practical conclusions cannot possibly follow?"[49]

The General Theory

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Keynes set forward the ideas that became the basis for Keynesian economics in his main work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). It was written during the Great Depression, when unemployment rose to 25% in the United States and as high as 33% in some countries. It is almost wholly theoretical, enlivened by occasional passages of satire and social commentary. The book had a profound impact on economic thought, and ever since it was published there has been debate over its meaning.

Keynes and classical economics

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Keynes begins the General Theory with a summary of the classical theory of employment, which he encapsulates in his formulation of Say's Law as the dictum "Supply creates its own demand". He also wrote that although his theory was explained in terms of an Anglo-Saxon laissez faire economy, his theory was also more general in the sense that it would be easier to adapt to "totalitarian states" than a free market policy would.[50]

Under the classical theory, the wage rate is determined by the marginal productivity of labour, and as many people are employed as are willing to work at that rate. Unemployment may arise through friction or may be "voluntary", in the sense that it arises from a refusal to accept employment owing to "legislation or social practices ... or mere human obstinacy", but "...the classical postulates do not admit of the possibility of the third category," which Keynes defines as involuntary unemployment.[51]

Keynes raises two objections to the classical theory's assumption that "wage bargains ... determine the real wage". The first lies in the fact that "labour stipulates (within limits) for a money-wage rather than a real wage". The second is that classical theory assumes that, "The real wages of labour depend on the wage bargains which labour makes with the entrepreneurs," whereas, "If money wages change, one would have expected the classical school to argue that prices would change in almost the same proportion, leaving the real wage and the level of unemployment practically the same as before."[52] Keynes considers his second objection the more fundamental, but most commentators concentrate on his first one: it has been argued that the quantity theory of money protects the classical school from the conclusion Keynes expected from it.[53]

Keynesian unemployment

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Saving and investment

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Saving is that part of income not devoted to consumption, and consumption is that part of expenditure not allocated to investment, i.e., to durable goods.[54] Hence saving encompasses hoarding (the accumulation of income as cash) and the purchase of durable goods. The existence of net hoarding, or of a demand to hoard, is not admitted by the simplified liquidity preference model of the General Theory.

Once he rejects the classical theory that unemployment is due to excessive wages, Keynes proposes an alternative based on the relationship between saving and investment. In his view, unemployment arises whenever entrepreneurs' incentive to invest fails to keep pace with society's propensity to save (propensity is one of Keynes's synonyms for "demand"). The levels of saving and investment are necessarily equal, and income is therefore held down to a level where the desire to save is no greater than the incentive to invest.

The incentive to invest arises from the interplay between the physical circumstances of production and psychological anticipations of future profitability; but once these things are given the incentive is independent of income and depends solely on the rate of interest r. Keynes designates its value as a function of r as the "schedule of the marginal efficiency of capital".[55]

The propensity to save behaves quite differently.[56] Saving is simply that part of income not devoted to consumption, and:

... the prevailing psychological law seems to be that when aggregate income increases, consumption expenditure will also increase but to a somewhat lesser extent.[57]

Keynes adds that "this psychological law was of the utmost importance in the development of my own thought".

Liquidity preference

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Determination of income according to the General Theory

Keynes viewed the money supply as one of the main determinants of the state of the real economy. The significance he attributed to it is one of the innovative features of his work, and was influential on the politically hostile monetarist school.

Money supply comes into play through the liquidity preference function, which is the demand function that corresponds to money supply. It specifies the amount of money people will seek to hold according to the state of the economy. In Keynes's first (and simplest) account – that of Chapter 13 – liquidity preference is determined solely by the interest rates r—which is seen as the earnings forgone by holding wealth in liquid form:[58] hence liquidity preference can be written L(r ) and in equilibrium must equal the externally fixed money supply .

Keynes's economic model

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Money supply, saving and investment combine to determine the level of income as illustrated in the diagram,[59] where the top graph shows money supply (on the vertical axis) against interest rate. determines the ruling interest rate through the liquidity preference function. The rate of interest determines the level of investment Î through the schedule of the marginal efficiency of capital, shown as a blue curve in the lower graph. The red curves in the same diagram show what the propensities to save are for different incomes Y ; and the income Ŷ corresponding to the equilibrium state of the economy must be the one for which the implied level of saving at the established interest rate is equal to Î.

In Keynes's more complicated liquidity preference theory (presented in Chapter 15) the demand for money depends on income as well as on the interest rate and the analysis becomes more complicated. Keynes never fully integrated his second liquidity preference doctrine with the rest of his theory, leaving that to John Hicks: see the IS-LM model below.

Wage rigidity

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Keynes rejects the classical explanation of unemployment based on wage rigidity, but it is not clear what effect the wage rate has on unemployment in his system. He treats wages of all workers as proportional to a single rate set by collective bargaining, and chooses his units so that this rate never appears separately in his discussion. It is present implicitly in those quantities he expresses in wage units, while being absent from those he expresses in money terms. It is therefore difficult to see whether, and in what way, his results differ for a different wage rate, nor is it clear what he thought about the matter.

Remedies for unemployment

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Monetary remedies

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An increase in the money supply, according to Keynes's theory, leads to a drop in the interest rate and an increase in the amount of investment that can be undertaken profitably, bringing with it an increase in total income.

Fiscal remedies

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Keynes' name is associated with fiscal, rather than monetary, measures but they receive only passing (and often satirical) reference in the General Theory. He mentions "increased public works" as an example of something that brings employment through the multiplier,[60] but this is before he develops the relevant theory, and he does not follow up when he gets to the theory.

Later in the same chapter he tells us that:

Ancient Egypt was doubly fortunate, and doubtless owed to this its fabled wealth, in that it possessed two activities, namely, pyramid-building as well as the search for the precious metals, the fruits of which, since they could not serve the needs of man by being consumed, did not stale with abundance. The Middle Ages built cathedrals and sang dirges. Two pyramids, two masses for the dead, are twice as good as one; but not so two railways from London to York.

But again, he does not get back to his implied recommendation to engage in public works, even if not fully justified from their direct benefits, when he constructs the theory. On the contrary he later advises us that ...

... our final task might be to select those variables which can be deliberately controlled or managed by central authority in the kind of system in which we actually live ...[61]

and this appears to look forward to a future publication rather than to a subsequent chapter of the General Theory.

Keynesian models and concepts

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Aggregate demand

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Keynes–Samuelson cross

Keynes' view of saving and investment was his most important departure from the classical outlook. It can be illustrated using the "Keynesian cross" devised by Paul Samuelson.[62] The horizontal axis denotes total income and the purple curve shows C (Y ), the propensity to consume, whose complement S (Y ) is the propensity to save: the sum of these two functions is equal to total income, which is shown by the broken line at 45°.

The horizontal blue line I (r ) is the schedule of the marginal efficiency of capital whose value is independent of Y. The schedule of the marginal efficiency of capital is dependent on the interest rate, specifically the interest rate cost of a new investment. If the interest rate charged by the financial sector to the productive sector is below the marginal efficiency of capital at that level of technology and capital intensity then investment is positive and grows the lower the interest rate is, given the diminishing return of capital. If the interest rate is above the marginal efficiency of capital then investment is equal to zero. Keynes interprets this as the demand for investment and denotes the sum of demands for consumption and investment as "aggregate demand", plotted as a separate curve. Aggregate demand must equal total income, so equilibrium income must be determined by the point where the aggregate demand curve crosses the 45° line.[63] This is the same horizontal position as the intersection of I (r ) with S (Y ).

The equation I (r ) = S (Y ) had been accepted by the classics, who had viewed it as the condition of equilibrium between supply and demand for investment funds and as determining the interest rate (see the classical theory of interest). But insofar as they had had a concept of aggregate demand, they had seen the demand for investment as being given by S (Y ), since for them saving was simply the indirect purchase of capital goods, with the result that aggregate demand was equal to total income as an identity rather than as an equilibrium condition. Keynes takes note of this view in Chapter 2, where he finds it present in the early writings of Alfred Marshall but adds that "the doctrine is never stated to-day in this crude form".

The equation I (r ) = S (Y ) is accepted by Keynes for some or all of the following reasons:

  • As a consequence of the principle of effective demand, which asserts that aggregate demand must equal total income (Chapter 3).
  • As a consequence of the identity of saving with investment (Chapter 6) together with the equilibrium assumption that these quantities are equal to their demands.
  • In agreement with the substance of the classical theory of the investment funds market, whose conclusion he considers the classics to have misinterpreted through circular reasoning (Chapter 14).

The Keynesian multiplier

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Keynes introduces his discussion of the multiplier in Chapter 10 with a reference to Kahn's earlier paper (see below). He designates Kahn's multiplier the "employment multiplier" in distinction to his own "investment multiplier" and says that the two are only "a little different".[64] Kahn's multiplier has consequently been understood by much of the Keynesian literature as playing a major role in Keynes's own theory, an interpretation encouraged by the difficulty of understanding Keynes's presentation. Kahn's multiplier gives the title ("The multiplier model") to the account of Keynesian theory in Samuelson's Economics and is almost as prominent in Alvin Hansen's Guide to Keynes and in Joan Robinson's Introduction to the Theory of Employment.

Keynes states that there is ...

... a confusion between the logical theory of the multiplier, which holds good continuously, without time-lag ... and the consequence of an expansion in the capital goods industries which take gradual effect, subject to a time-lag, and only after an interval ...[65]

and implies that he is adopting the former theory.[66] And when the multiplier eventually emerges as a component of Keynes's theory (in Chapter 18) it turns out to be simply a measure of the change of one variable in response to a change in another. The schedule of the marginal efficiency of capital is identified as one of the independent variables of the economic system:[67] "What [it] tells us, is ... the point to which the output of new investment will be pushed ..."[68] The multiplier then gives "the ratio ... between an increment of investment and the corresponding increment of aggregate income".[69]

G. L. S. Shackle regarded Keynes' move away from Kahn's multiplier as ...

... a retrograde step ... For when we look upon the Multiplier as an instantaneous functional relation ... we are merely using the word Multiplier to stand for an alternative way of looking at the marginal propensity to consume ...,[70]

which G. M. Ambrosi cites as an instance of "a Keynesian commentator who would have liked Keynes to have written something less 'retrograde'".[71]

The value Keynes assigns to his multiplier is the reciprocal of the marginal propensity to save: k  = 1 / S '(Y ). This is the same as the formula for Kahn's multiplier in a closed economy assuming that all saving (including the purchase of durable goods), and not just hoarding, constitutes leakage. Keynes gave his formula almost the status of a definition (it is put forward in advance of any explanation[72]). His multiplier is indeed the value of "the ratio ... between an increment of investment and the corresponding increment of aggregate income" as Keynes derived it from his Chapter 13 model of liquidity preference, which implies that income must bear the entire effect of a change in investment. But under his Chapter 15 model a change in the schedule of the marginal efficiency of capital has an effect shared between the interest rate and income in proportions depending on the partial derivatives of the liquidity preference function. Keynes did not investigate the question of whether his formula for multiplier needed revision.

The liquidity trap

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The liquidity trap

The liquidity trap is a phenomenon that may impede the effectiveness of monetary policies in reducing unemployment.

Economists generally think the rate of interest will not fall below a certain limit, often seen as zero or a slightly negative number. Keynes suggested that the limit might be appreciably greater than zero but did not attach much practical significance to it. The term "liquidity trap" was coined by Dennis Robertson in his comments on the General Theory,[73] but it was John Hicks in "Mr. Keynes and the Classics"[74] who recognised the significance of a slightly different concept.

If the economy is in a position such that the liquidity preference curve is almost vertical, as must happen as the lower limit on r is approached, then a change in the money supply makes almost no difference to the equilibrium rate of interest or, unless there is compensating steepness in the other curves, to the resulting income Ŷ. As Hicks put it, "Monetary means will not force down the rate of interest any further."

Paul Krugman has worked extensively on the liquidity trap, claiming that it was the problem confronting the Japanese economy around the turn of the millennium.[75] In his later words:

Short-term interest rates were close to zero, long-term rates were at historical lows, yet private investment spending remained insufficient to bring the economy out of deflation. In that environment, monetary policy was just as ineffective as Keynes described. Attempts by the Bank of Japan to increase the money supply simply added to already ample bank reserves and public holdings of cash...[76]

The IS–LM model

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IS–LM plot

Hicks showed how to analyse Keynes' system when liquidity preference is a function of income as well as of the rate of interest. Keynes's admission of income as an influence on the demand for money is a step back in the direction of classical theory, and Hicks takes a further step in the same direction by generalizing the propensity to save to take both Y and r as arguments. Less classically he extends this generalization to the schedule of the marginal efficiency of capital.

The IS-LM model uses two equations to express Keynes' model. The first, now written I (Y, r ) = S (Y,r ), expresses the principle of effective demand. We may construct a graph on (Y, r ) coordinates and draw a line connecting those points satisfying the equation: this is the IS curve. In the same way we can write the equation of equilibrium between liquidity preference and the money supply as L(Y ,r ) =  and draw a second curve – the LM curve – connecting points that satisfy it. The equilibrium values Ŷ of total income and of interest rate are then given by the point of intersection of the two curves.

If we follow Keynes's initial account under which liquidity preference depends only on the interest rate r, then the LM curve is horizontal.

Joan Robinson commented that:

... modern teaching has been confused by J. R. Hicks' attempt to reduce the General Theory to a version of static equilibrium with the formula IS–LM. Hicks has now repented and changed his name from J. R. to John, but it will take a long time for the effects of his teaching to wear off.

Hicks subsequently relapsed.[77][clarification needed]

Keynesian economic policies

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Active fiscal policy

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Typical intervention strategies under different conditions

Keynes argued that the solution to the Great Depression was to stimulate the country ("incentive to invest") through some combination of two approaches:

  1. A reduction in interest rates (monetary policy), and
  2. Government investment in infrastructure (fiscal policy).

If the interest rate at which businesses and consumers can borrow decreases, investments that were previously uneconomic become profitable, and large consumer sales normally financed through debt (such as houses, automobiles, and, historically, even appliances like refrigerators) become more affordable. A principal function of central banks in countries that have them is to influence this interest rate through a variety of mechanisms collectively called monetary policy. This is how monetary policy that reduces interest rates is thought to stimulate economic activity, i.e., "grow the economy"—and why it is called expansionary monetary policy.

Expansionary fiscal policy consists of increasing net public spending, which the government can effect by a) taxing less, b) spending more, or c) both. Investment and consumption by government raises demand for businesses' products and for employment, reversing the effects of the aforementioned imbalance. If desired spending exceeds revenue, the government finances the difference by borrowing from capital markets by issuing government bonds. This is called deficit spending. Two points are important to note at this point. First, deficits are not required for expansionary fiscal policy, and second, it is only change in net spending that can stimulate or depress the economy. For example, if a government ran a deficit of 10% both last year and this year, this would represent neutral fiscal policy. In fact, if it ran a deficit of 10% last year and 5% this year, this would actually be contractionary. On the other hand, if the government ran a surplus of 10% of GDP last year and 5% this year, that would be expansionary fiscal policy, despite never running a deficit at all.

Contrary to some critical characterizations of it, Keynesianism does not consist solely of deficit spending, since it recommends adjusting fiscal policies according to cyclical circumstances.[78] An example of a counter-cyclical policy is raising taxes to cool the economy and to prevent inflation when there is abundant demand-side growth, and engaging in deficit spending on labour-intensive infrastructure projects to stimulate employment and stabilize wages during economic downturns.

Keynes's ideas influenced US President Franklin D. Roosevelt's view that insufficient buying-power caused the Depression. During his presidency, Roosevelt adopted some aspects of Keynesian economics, especially after 1937, when, in the depths of the Depression, the United States suffered from recession yet again following fiscal contraction. But to many the true success of Keynesian policy can be seen at the onset of World War II, which provided a kick to the world economy, removed uncertainty, and forced the rebuilding of destroyed capital. Keynesian ideas became almost official in social-democratic Europe after the war and in the U.S. in the 1960s.

The Keynesian advocacy of deficit spending contrasted with the classical and neoclassical economic analysis of fiscal policy. They admitted that fiscal stimulus could actuate production. But, to these schools, there was no reason to believe that this stimulation would outrun the side-effects that "crowd out" private investment: first, it would increase the demand for labour and raise wages, hurting profitability; Second, a government deficit increases the stock of government bonds, reducing their market price and encouraging high interest rates, making it more expensive for business to finance fixed investment. Thus, efforts to stimulate the economy would be self-defeating.

The Keynesian response is that such fiscal policy is appropriate only when unemployment is persistently high, above the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU). In that case, crowding out is minimal. Further, private investment can be "crowded in": Fiscal stimulus raises the market for business output, raising cash flow and profitability, spurring business optimism. To Keynes, this accelerator effect meant that government and business could be complements rather than substitutes in this situation.

Second, as the stimulus occurs, gross domestic product rises—raising the amount of saving, helping to finance the increase in fixed investment. Finally, government outlays need not always be wasteful: government investment in public goods that is not provided by profit-seekers encourages the private sector's growth. That is, government spending on such things as basic research, public health, education, and infrastructure could help the long-term growth of potential output.

In Keynes's theory, there must be significant slack in the labour market before fiscal expansion is justified.

Keynesian economists believe that adding to profits and incomes during boom cycles through tax cuts, and removing income and profits from the economy through cuts in spending during downturns, tends to exacerbate the negative effects of the business cycle. This effect is especially pronounced when the government controls a large fraction of the economy, as increased tax revenue may aid investment in state enterprises in downturns, and decreased state revenue and investment harm those enterprises.

Views on trade imbalance

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In the last few years of his life, Keynes was much preoccupied with the question of balance in international trade. He was the leader of the British delegation to the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in 1944 that established the Bretton Woods system of international currency management. He was the principal author of a proposal – the so-called Keynes Plan – for an International Clearing Union. The two governing principles of the plan were that the problem of settling outstanding balances should be solved by 'creating' additional 'international money', and that debtor and creditor should be treated almost alike as disturbers of equilibrium. In the event, though, the plans were rejected, in part because "American opinion was naturally reluctant to accept the principle of equality of treatment so novel in debtor-creditor relationships".[79]

The new system is not founded on free trade (liberalization[80] of foreign trade[81]) but rather on regulating international trade to eliminate trade imbalances. Nations with a surplus would have a powerful incentive to get rid of it, which would automatically clear other nations' deficits.[82] Keynes proposed a global bank that would issue its own currency—the bancor—which was exchangeable with national currencies at fixed rates of exchange and would become the unit of account between nations, which means it would be used to measure a country's trade deficit or trade surplus. Every country would have an overdraft facility in its bancor account at the International Clearing Union. He pointed out that surpluses lead to weak global aggregate demand – countries running surpluses exert a "negative externality" on trading partners, and posed far more than those in deficit, a threat to global prosperity. Keynes thought that surplus countries should be taxed to avoid trade imbalances.[83] In "National Self-Sufficiency" The Yale Review, Vol. 22, no. 4 (June 1933),[84][85] he already highlighted the problems created by free trade.

His view, supported by many economists and commentators at the time, was that creditor nations may be just as responsible as debtor nations for disequilibrium in exchanges and that both should be under an obligation to bring trade back into a state of balance. Failure for them to do so could have serious consequences. In the words of Geoffrey Crowther, then editor of The Economist, "If the economic relationships between nations are not, by one means or another, brought fairly close to balance, then there is no set of financial arrangements that can rescue the world from the impoverishing results of chaos."[86]

These ideas were informed by events prior to the Great Depression when – in the opinion of Keynes and others – international lending, primarily by the U.S., exceeded the capacity of sound investment and so got diverted into non-productive and speculative uses, which in turn invited default and a sudden stop to the process of lending.[87]

Influenced by Keynes, economic texts in the immediate post-war period put a significant emphasis on balance in trade. For example, the second edition of the popular introductory textbook, An Outline of Money,[88] devoted the last three of its ten chapters to questions of foreign exchange management and in particular the 'problem of balance'. However, in more recent years, since the end of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, with the increasing influence of Monetarist schools of thought in the 1980s, and particularly in the face of large sustained trade imbalances, these concerns – and particularly concerns about the destabilizing effects of large trade surpluses – have largely disappeared from mainstream economics discourse[89] and Keynes' insights have slipped from view.[90] They received attention again during the 2008 financial crisis.[91]

Views on free trade and protectionism

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The turning point of the Great Depression

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At the beginning of his career, Keynes was an economist close to Alfred Marshall, deeply convinced of the benefits of free trade. From the crisis of 1929 onwards, noting the commitment of the British authorities to defend the gold parity of the pound sterling and the rigidity of nominal wages, he gradually adhered to protectionist measures.[92]

On 5 November 1929, when heard by the Macmillan Committee to bring the British economy out of the crisis, Keynes indicated that the introduction of tariffs on imports would help to rebalance the trade balance. The committee's report states in a section entitled "import control and export aid", that in an economy where there is not full employment, the introduction of tariffs can improve production and employment. Thus the reduction of the trade deficit favours the country's growth.[92]

In January 1930, in the Economic Advisory Council, Keynes proposed the introduction of a system of protection to reduce imports. In the autumn of 1930, he proposed a uniform tariff of 10% on all imports and subsidies of the same rate for all exports.[92] In the Treatise on Money, published in the autumn of 1930, he took up the idea of tariffs or other trade restrictions with the aim of reducing the volume of imports and rebalancing the balance of trade.[92]

On 7 March 1931, in the New Statesman and Nation, he wrote an article entitled Proposal for a Tariff Revenue. He pointed out that the reduction of wages led to a reduction in national demand which constrained markets. Instead, he proposes the idea of an expansionary policy combined with a tariff system to neutralize the effects on the balance of trade. The application of customs tariffs seemed to him "unavoidable, whoever the Chancellor of the Exchequer might be". Thus, for Keynes, an economic recovery policy is only fully effective if the trade deficit is eliminated. He proposed a 15% tax on manufactured and semi-manufactured goods and 5% on certain foodstuffs and raw materials, with others needed for exports exempted (wool, cotton).[92]

In 1932, in an article entitled The Pro- and Anti-Tariffs, published in The Listener, he envisaged the protection of farmers and certain sectors such as the automobile and iron and steel industries, considering them indispensable to Britain.[92]

The critique of the theory of comparative advantage

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In the post-crisis situation of 1929, Keynes judged the assumptions of the free trade model unrealistic. He criticized, for example, the neoclassical assumption of wage adjustment.[92][93]

As early as 1930, in a note to the Economic Advisory Council, he doubted the intensity of the gain from specialization in the case of manufactured goods. While participating in the MacMillan Committee, he admitted that he no longer "believed in a very high degree of national specialisation" and refused to "abandon any industry which is unable, for the moment, to survive". He also criticized the static dimension of the theory of comparative advantage, which, in his view, by fixing comparative advantages definitively, led in practice to a waste of national resources.[92][93]

In the Daily Mail of 13 March 1931, he called the assumption of perfect sectoral labour mobility "nonsense" since it states that a person made unemployed contributes to a reduction in the wage rate until he finds a job. But for Keynes, this change of job may involve costs (job search, training) and is not always possible. Generally speaking, for Keynes, the assumptions of full employment and automatic return to equilibrium discredit the theory of comparative advantage.[92][93]

In July 1933, he published an article in the New Statesman and Nation entitled National Self-Sufficiency, in which he criticized the argument of the specialization of economies, which is the basis of free trade. He thus proposed the search for a certain degree of self-sufficiency. Instead of the specialization of economies advocated by the Ricardian theory of comparative advantage, he prefers the maintenance of a diversity of activities for nations.[93] In it he refutes the principle of peacemaking trade. His vision of trade became that of a system where foreign capitalists compete for new markets. He defends the idea of producing on national soil when possible and reasonable and expresses sympathy for the advocates of protectionism.[94] He notes in National Self-Sufficiency:[94][92]

A considerable degree of international specialization is necessary in a rational world in all cases where it is dictated by wide differences of climate, natural resources, native aptitudes, level of culture and density of population. But over an increasingly wide range of industrial products, and perhaps of agricultural products also, I have become doubtful whether the economic loss of national self-sufficiency is great enough to outweigh the other advantages of gradually bringing the product and the consumer within the ambit of the same national, economic, and financial organization. Experience accumulates to prove that most modern processes of mass production can be performed in most countries and climates with almost equal efficiency.

He also writes in National Self-Sufficiency:[92]

I sympathize, therefore, with those who would minimize, rather than with those who would maximize, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel—these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national.

Later, Keynes had a written correspondence with James Meade centred on the issue of import restrictions. Keynes and Meade discussed the best choice between quota and tariff. In March 1944 Keynes began a discussion with Marcus Fleming after the latter had written an article entitled Quotas versus depreciation. On this occasion, we see that he has definitely taken a protectionist stance after the Great Depression. He considered that quotas could be more effective than currency depreciation in dealing with external imbalances. Thus, for Keynes, currency depreciation was no longer sufficient, and protectionist measures became necessary to avoid trade deficits. To avoid the return of crises due to a self-regulating economic system, it seemed essential to him to regulate trade and stop free trade (deregulation of foreign trade).[92]

He points out that countries that import more than they export weaken their economies. When the trade deficit increases, unemployment rises and GDP slows down. And surplus countries exert a "negative externality" on their trading partners. They get richer at the expense of others and destroy the output of their trading partners. John Maynard Keynes believed that the products of surplus countries should be taxed to avoid trade imbalances.[95] Thus he no longer believes in the theory of comparative advantage (on which free trade is based) which states that the trade deficit does not matter, since trade is mutually beneficial. This also explains his desire to replace the liberalization of international trade (Free Trade) with a regulatory system aimed at eliminating trade imbalances in his proposals for the Bretton Woods Agreement.[citation needed]

Postwar Keynesianism

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Keynes's ideas became widely accepted after World War II, and until the early 1970s, Keynesian economics provided the main inspiration for economic policy makers in Western industrialized countries.[6] Governments prepared high quality economic statistics on an ongoing basis and tried to base their policies on the Keynesian theory that had become the norm. In the early era of social liberalism and social democracy, most western capitalist countries enjoyed low, stable unemployment and modest inflation, an era called the Golden Age of Capitalism.

In terms of policy, the twin tools of post-war Keynesian economics were fiscal policy and monetary policy. While these are credited to Keynes, others, such as economic historian David Colander, argue that they are, rather, due to the interpretation of Keynes by Abba Lerner in his theory of functional finance, and should instead be called "Lernerian" rather than "Keynesian".[96]

Through the 1950s, moderate degrees of government demand leading industrial development, and use of fiscal and monetary counter-cyclical policies continued, and reached a peak in the "go go" 1960s, where it seemed to many Keynesians that prosperity was now permanent. In 1971, Republican US President Richard Nixon even proclaimed "I am now a Keynesian in economics."[97]

Beginning in the late 1960s, a new classical macroeconomics movement arose, critical of Keynesian assumptions (see sticky prices), and seemed, especially in the 1970s, to explain certain phenomena better. It was characterized by explicit and rigorous adherence to microfoundations, as well as use of increasingly sophisticated mathematical modelling.

With the oil shock of 1973, and the economic problems of the 1970s, Keynesian economics began to fall out of favour. During this time, many economies experienced high and rising unemployment, coupled with high and rising inflation, contradicting the Phillips curve's prediction. This stagflation meant that the simultaneous application of expansionary (anti-recession) and contractionary (anti-inflation) policies appeared necessary. This dilemma led to the end of the Keynesian near-consensus of the 1960s, and the rise throughout the 1970s of ideas based upon more classical analysis, including monetarism, supply-side economics,[97] and new classical economics.

However, by the late 1980s, certain failures of the new classical models, both theoretical (see Real business cycle theory) and empirical (see the "Volcker recession")[98] hastened the emergence of New Keynesian economics, a school that sought to unite the most realistic aspects of Keynesian and neo-classical assumptions and place them on more rigorous theoretical foundation than ever before.

One line of thinking, utilized also as a critique of the notably high unemployment and potentially disappointing GNP growth rates associated with the new classical models by the mid-1980s, was to emphasize low unemployment and maximal economic growth at the cost of somewhat higher inflation (its consequences kept in check by indexing and other methods, and its overall rate kept lower and steadier by such potential policies as Martin Weitzman's share economy).[99]

Schools

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Multiple schools of economic thought that trace their legacy to Keynes currently exist, the notable ones being neo-Keynesian economics, New Keynesian economics, post-Keynesian economics, and the new neoclassical synthesis. Keynes's biographer Robert Skidelsky writes that the post-Keynesian school has remained closest to the spirit of Keynes's work in following his monetary theory and rejecting the neutrality of money.[100][101] Today these ideas, regardless of provenance, are referred to in academia under the rubric of "Keynesian economics", due to Keynes's role in consolidating, elaborating, and popularizing them.

In the postwar era, Keynesian analysis was combined with neoclassical economics to produce what is generally termed the "neoclassical synthesis", yielding neo-Keynesian economics, which dominated mainstream macroeconomic thought. Though it was widely held that there was no strong automatic tendency to full employment, many believed that if government policy were used to ensure it, the economy would behave as neoclassical theory predicted. This post-war domination by neo-Keynesian economics was broken during the stagflation of the 1970s.[102] There was a lack of consensus among macroeconomists in the 1980s, and during this period New Keynesian economics was developed, ultimately becoming- along with new classical macroeconomics- a part of the current consensus, known as the new neoclassical synthesis.[7]

Post-Keynesian economists, on the other hand, reject the neoclassical synthesis and, in general, neoclassical economics applied to the macroeconomy. Post-Keynesian economics is a heterodox school that holds that both neo-Keynesian economics and New Keynesian economics are incorrect, and a misinterpretation of Keynes's ideas. The post-Keynesian school encompasses a variety of perspectives, but has been far less influential than the other more mainstream Keynesian schools.[103]

Interpretations of Keynes have emphasized his stress on the international coordination of Keynesian policies, the need for international economic institutions, and the ways in which economic forces could lead to war or could promote peace.[104]

Keynesianism and liberalism

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In a 2014 paper, economist Alan Blinder argues that, "for not very good reasons", public opinion in the United States has associated Keynesianism with liberalism, and he states that such is incorrect. For example, both Presidents Ronald Reagan (1981–89) and George W. Bush (2001–09) supported policies that were, in fact, Keynesian, even though both men were conservative leaders. And tax cuts can provide highly helpful fiscal stimulus during a recession, just as much as infrastructure spending can. Blinder concludes: "If you are not teaching your students that 'Keynesianism' is neither conservative nor liberal, you should be."[105]

Other schools of economic thought

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The Keynesian schools of economics are situated alongside a number of other schools that have the same perspectives on what the economic issues are, but differ on what causes them and how best to resolve them. Today, most of these schools of thought have been subsumed into modern macroeconomic theory.

Stockholm School

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The Stockholm school rose to prominence at about the same time that Keynes published his General Theory and shared a common concern in business cycles and unemployment. The second generation of Swedish economists also advocated government intervention through spending during economic downturns[106] although opinions are divided over whether they conceived the essence of Keynes's theory before he did.[107]

Monetarism

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There was debate between monetarists and Keynesians in the 1960s over the role of government in stabilizing the economy. Both monetarists and Keynesians agree that issues such as business cycles, unemployment, and deflation are caused by inadequate demand. However, they had fundamentally different perspectives on the capacity of the economy to find its own equilibrium, and the degree of government intervention that would be appropriate. Keynesians emphasized the use of discretionary fiscal policy and monetary policy, while monetarists argued the primacy of monetary policy, and that it should be rules-based.[108]

The debate was largely resolved in the 1980s. Since then, economists have largely agreed that central banks should bear the primary responsibility for stabilizing the economy, and that monetary policy should largely follow the Taylor rule – which many economists credit with the Great Moderation.[109][110] The 2008 financial crisis, however, has convinced many economists and governments of the need for fiscal interventions and highlighted the difficulty in stimulating economies through monetary policy alone during a liquidity trap.[111]

Marxism and Public choice

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Some Marxist economists criticized Keynesian economics.[112] For example, in his 1946 appraisal[113] Paul Sweezy—while admitting that there was much in the General Theory's analysis of effective demand that Marxists could draw on—described Keynes as a prisoner of his neoclassical upbringing. Sweezy argued that Keynes had never been able to view the capitalist system as a totality. He argued that Keynes regarded the class struggle carelessly, and overlooked the class role of the capitalist state, which he treated as a deus ex machina, and some other points. While Michał Kalecki was generally enthusiastic about the Keynesian Revolution, he predicted that it would not endure, in his article "Political Aspects of Full Employment". In the article Kalecki predicted that the full employment delivered by Keynesian policy would eventually lead to a more assertive working class and weakening of the social position of business leaders, causing the elite to use their political power to force the displacement of the Keynesian policy even though profits would be higher than under a laissez faire system: The elites would not care about risking the higher profits in the pursuit of reclaiming prestige in the society and the political power.[114]

James M. Buchanan[115] criticized Keynesian economics on the grounds that governments would in practice be unlikely to implement theoretically optimal policies. The implicit assumption underlying the Keynesian fiscal revolution, according to Buchanan, was that economic policy would be made by wise men, acting without regard to political pressures or opportunities, and guided by disinterested economic technocrats. He argued that this was an unrealistic assumption about political, bureaucratic and electoral behaviour. Buchanan blamed Keynesian economics for what he considered a decline in America's fiscal discipline.[116] Buchanan argued that deficit spending would evolve into a permanent disconnect between spending and revenue, precisely because it brings short-term gains, so, ending up institutionalizing irresponsibility in the federal government, the largest and most central institution in our society.[117]

Martin Feldstein argues that the legacy of Keynesian economics–the misdiagnosis of unemployment, the fear of saving, and the unjustified government intervention–affected the fundamental ideas of policy makers.[118] Milton Friedman thought that Keynes's political bequest was harmful for two reasons. First, he thought whatever the economic analysis, benevolent dictatorship is likely sooner or later to lead to a totalitarian society. Second, he thought Keynes's economic theories appealed to a group far broader than economists primarily because of their link to his political approach.[119] Alex Tabarrok argues that Keynesian politics–as distinct from Keynesian policies–has failed pretty much whenever it's been tried, at least in liberal democracies.[120]

In response to this argument, John Quiggin,[121] wrote about these theories' implication for a liberal democratic order. He thought that if it is generally accepted that democratic politics is nothing more than a battleground for competing interest groups, then reality will come to resemble the model. Paul Krugman wrote "I don't think we need to take that as an immutable fact of life; but still, what are the alternatives?"[122] Daniel Kuehn, criticized James M. Buchanan. He argued, "if you have a problem with politicians – criticize politicians," not Keynes.[123] He also argued that empirical evidence makes it pretty clear that Buchanan was wrong.[124][125] James Tobin argued, if advising government officials, politicians, voters, it's not for economists to play games with them.[126] Keynes implicitly rejected this argument, in "soon or late it is ideas not vested interests which are dangerous for good or evil."[127][128]

Brad DeLong has argued that politics is the main motivator behind objections to the view that government should try to serve a stabilizing macroeconomic role.[129] Paul Krugman argued that a regime that by and large lets markets work, but in which the government is ready both to rein in excesses and fight slumps is inherently unstable, due to intellectual instability, political instability, and financial instability.[130]

New classical

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Another influential school of thought was based on the Lucas critique of Keynesian economics. This called for greater consistency with microeconomic theory based on rational choice theory, and in particular emphasized the idea of rational expectations. Lucas and others argued that Keynesian economics required remarkably foolish and short-sighted behaviour from people, which totally contradicted the economic understanding of their behaviour at a micro level. New classical economics introduced a set of macroeconomic theories that were based on optimizing microeconomic behaviour. These models have been developed into the real business-cycle theory, which argues that business cycle fluctuations can to a large extent be accounted for by real (in contrast to nominal) shocks.

Beginning in the late 1950s new classical macroeconomists began to disagree with the methodology employed by Keynes and his successors. Keynesians emphasized the dependence of consumption on disposable income and, also, of investment on current profits and current cash flow. In addition, Keynesians posited a Phillips curve that tied nominal wage inflation to unemployment rate. To support these theories, Keynesians typically traced the logical foundations of their model (using introspection) and supported their assumptions with statistical evidence.[131] New classical theorists demanded that macroeconomics be grounded on the same foundations as microeconomic theory, profit-maximizing firms and rational, utility-maximizing consumers.[131]

The result of this shift in methodology produced several important divergences from Keynesian macroeconomics:[131]

  1. Independence of consumption and current income (life-cycle permanent income hypothesis)
  2. Irrelevance of current profits to investment (Modigliani–Miller theorem)
  3. Long run independence of inflation and unemployment (natural rate of unemployment)
  4. The inability of monetary policy to stabilize output (rational expectations)
  5. Irrelevance of taxes and budget deficits to consumption (Ricardian equivalence)

Austrian school

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F.A. Hayek, an Austrian-style economist described Keynesianism as a system of "economics of abundance" stating it is, "a system of economics which is based on the assumption that no real scarcity exists, and that the only scarcity with which we need concern ourselves is the artificial scarcity created by the determination of people not to sell their services and products below certain arbitrarily fixed prices."[132] Ludwig von Mises, another Austrian economist, describes a Keynesian system as believing it can solve most problems with "more money and credit" which leads to a system of "inflationism" in which "prices (of goods) rise higher and higher."[133] Murray Rothbard wrote that Keynesian-style governmental regulation of money and credit created a "dismal monetary and banking situation," since it allows for the central bankers that have the exclusive ability to print money to be "unchecked and out of control."[134] Rothbard went on to say in an interview that, "There is one good thing about (Karl) Marx: he was not a Keynesian."[135]

Others

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The social historian C. J. Coventry argues in Keynes from Below: A Social History of Second World War Keynesian Economics (2023) that Keynes and Keynesian economics was unpopular in the United Kingdom and Australia in the 1940s. Many workers and trades unions, as well as figures in the British Labour Party and Australian Labor Party, saw Keynesianism as a means of stopping socialism. Keynes was largely supported by business leaders, bankers and conservative parties, or tripartite third way Catholics eager to avoid socialism after the Second World War.[136] While Coventry agrees that the Keynesianism has considerable benefits, he argues that these benefits arose from the next phase of capitalism with many of the disadvantages being forced onto peoples in the third world, such as in British Malaya where there was bloodshed for crucial resources.

See also

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References

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Sources

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Further reading

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia
from Grokipedia
Keynesian economics is a macroeconomic framework articulated by in his 1936 treatise The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, positing that insufficient causes economic slumps and , which markets fail to self-correct rapidly due to rigid wages and prices. The theory emphasizes —particularly deficit-financed —to boost demand and restore , via mechanisms like the expenditure multiplier, where initial spending generates amplified income effects through successive rounds of consumption. Central to Keynesianism is the view that economies can equilibrate below , challenging classical assumptions of automatic , and that influences interest rates while animal spirits drive volatile . This approach profoundly shaped post-World War II policies, underpinning demand-management strategies in Western economies that correlated with prolonged growth and low until the . However, its dominance waned amid —simultaneous high and stagnation—which Keynesian models struggled to explain, as supply-side factors like oil shocks and wage rigidities amplified price pressures without corresponding output gains, prompting critiques from monetarists like who highlighted monetary policy's primacy. Empirical assessments of Keynesian prescriptions, such as fiscal multipliers, reveal context-dependent effects: estimates often exceed unity during recessions with slack capacity but approach zero or turn negative in expansions due to , crowding out private investment, or debt overhang. Proponents adapted via New Keynesian models incorporating like nominal rigidities, yet ongoing debates question the theory's causal claims against first-principles scrutiny of incentives and long-run supply constraints, with historical episodes like the 2008 crisis reviving interest but also underscoring risks of persistent deficits and distorted .

Core Principles and Theoretical Foundations

Definition and Aggregate Demand Focus

Keynesian economics is a macroeconomic framework developed by , emphasizing that —the total spending on in an economy—primarily determines short-run levels of output and . In this view, articulated in Keynes's 1936 The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, consists of consumption by households, by firms, government expenditures, and net exports (exports minus imports). Unlike classical theory, which presumes markets clear through flexible prices and wages to achieve , Keynes argued that demand deficiencies could trap economies in underemployment equilibria, with production decisions driven by anticipated sales rather than supply potential. The focus posits that fluctuations in its components, particularly volatile influenced by "animal spirits" or uncertain expectations, can cause business cycles, leading to when demand falls short of full-capacity output. Keynesians advocate countercyclical fiscal and monetary policies to stabilize demand, such as during downturns to raise employment toward potential levels, assuming idle resources allow output expansion without immediate price pressures. This approach influenced post-World War II policies, including the U.S. Employment Act of 1946, which committed government to economic stabilization. Empirical assessments of management reveal mixed results; while wartime spending in the 1940s boosted U.S. output as predicted, peacetime multipliers often prove smaller than Keynesian models forecast, with evidence of partial crowding out via higher interest rates reducing private investment. Nonetheless, the framework's emphasis on demand-side shocks remains central to modern policy responses, as seen in fiscal stimuli during the 2008-2009 , though debates persist over long-run efficacy and supply-side feedbacks.

Key Concepts: Multiplier Effect and Liquidity Preference

The multiplier effect in Keynesian economics describes how an initial change in autonomous spending—such as an increase in government expenditure, , or exports—generates a larger change in total national income through successive rounds of re-spending by households and firms. For instance, a decline in exports due to trade barriers reduces aggregate demand, amplifying the negative impact on national income via chain reactions in employment, investment, and consumption. formalized this in The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), arguing that recipients of the initial injection spend a fraction of it on consumption goods, thereby injecting further demand into the economy, with this process continuing until leakages like saving, taxes, or imports absorb the additional income. The theoretical multiplier kk is calculated as k=11MPCk = \frac{1}{1 - MPC}, where MPCMPC is the (the fraction of additional income spent on consumption); for an MPC of 0.8, the multiplier equals 5, implying a $1 increase in spending raises income by $5. This mechanism underpins Keynesian advocacy for fiscal stimulus during recessions, as it amplifies beyond the initial outlay, though real-world applications are tempered by factors like import leakages and financing constraints. Empirical studies of the multiplier yield mixed results, often estimating multipliers below the simple Keynesian prediction—typically 0.5 to 1.5 in advanced economies—due to crowding out of private investment, (households saving in anticipation of future taxes), and varying economic slack. For instance, post-2008 analyses found multipliers near unity during conditions but closer to zero in normal times, highlighting the concept's sensitivity to and household leverage cycles rather than universal potency. Critics from Austrian and monetarist perspectives argue the effect overstates efficacy by ignoring long-run supply-side distortions and incentive effects on saving and work, with some reduced-form evidence showing near-zero long-run multipliers. Liquidity preference theory, central to Keynes's explanation of interest rates, posits that the arises from individuals' preference to hold liquid assets rather than illiquid ones like bonds, with the emerging as the equilibrating between and this demand. Keynes identified three motives for holding money: the transactions motive, driven by routine needs for purchasing (positively related to ); the precautionary motive, for unforeseen expenses (also income-dependent but less elastic); and the speculative motive, where holders anticipate bond falls (capital losses) if rise, making money demand inversely related to expected rates and thus creating a at low rates where loses traction. In equilibrium, the central bank's fixes the via these demands, rejecting classical theory's emphasis on saving-investment productivity. This framework implies that high uncertainty elevates speculative demand, pushing rates up and potentially stifling investment, as seen in Keynes's analysis of the . However, critiques contend the theory is psychologically indeterminate—failing to specify how expectations form—and empirically narrow, overlooking real factors like or productivity of capital in rate determination, with post-Keynesian extensions attempting to incorporate banking dynamics but often diverging from Keynes's original asset-price focus. Modern New Keynesian models integrate sticky prices but retain elements in IS-LM representations, though evidence from episodes suggests speculative demand can be overcome without rate explosions, challenging the trap's severity.

Critique of Classical Equilibrium

Keynes challenged the classical economists' view that market economies automatically achieve a full-employment equilibrium through flexible prices and wages, as outlined in Chapter 2 of his 1936 work The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Classical theory posited that the real wage equals the , ensuring employment adjusts to the economy's full productive capacity, and that the equilibrates saving and investment to validate via , under which production generates equivalent income and demand. The first classical postulate, Keynes argued, breaks down because laborers negotiate in nominal terms and resist money-wage reductions even if prices fall, creating downward rigidity that prevents from adjusting sufficiently to clear the labor market. This rigidity results in , defined as a situation where additional workers would offer their labor at the current money wage without reducing others' , yet firms do not hire due to insufficient . Classical theory accommodates only voluntary unemployment (workers choosing leisure over available jobs) or (short-term mismatches), but ignores persistent equilibrium below full capacity, as evidenced by the Great Depression's prolonged high joblessness rates exceeding 20% in major economies by 1933. On the second postulate, Keynes contended that the does not solely balance and based on and thrift; instead, it reflects amid uncertainty, where hoarding cash can suppress and even at low rates, decoupling from productive use. , implying supply creates its own , thus fails in a monetary prone to deficient , as earners may save excessively or hold idle balances rather than spend, leading to output gaps rather than price adjustments. Keynes's framework thus posits economies can stabilize at equilibria, where marginal efficiency of capital falls short of full-capacity needs, necessitating over reliance on self-correcting markets. While some scholars note Keynes overstated classical uniformity on —earlier figures like Malthus had foreseen general gluts—his emphasis on demand deficiencies aligned with empirical failures like the Depression, where wage flexibility alone did not restore .

Historical Development

Pre-Keynesian Macroeconomic Thought

Pre-Keynesian macroeconomic thought, primarily embodied in classical and neoclassical economics, viewed the economy as inherently self-stabilizing through market mechanisms, with a strong emphasis on supply-side factors determining long-run output and employment at full capacity. Classical economists, beginning with Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations published in 1776, advocated laissez-faire principles, arguing that unrestricted markets allocate resources efficiently via the "invisible hand," where self-interested actions aggregate to optimal societal outcomes without systematic unemployment or gluts. This framework extended to macro aggregates, positing that real variables like population growth, capital accumulation, and technological progress—rather than monetary fluctuations—governed economic expansion, with money serving mainly as a veil over barter exchanges. A cornerstone was Jean-Baptiste Say's Law of Markets, formulated in his 1803 Traité d'économie politique, which asserted that "supply creates its own ": the act of producing goods generates income equivalent to their value, ensuring matches and precluding general or deficiency of as causes of . David Ricardo, in his 1817 Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, reinforced this by emphasizing in trade and the role of savings in funding productive investment, assuming flexible wages and prices would clear labor markets and restore equilibrium swiftly after disturbances. While acknowledging short-run frictions, classical theory maintained that deviations from were temporary, resolved by market adjustments rather than inherent demand shortfalls. The complemented these views, tracing back to David Hume's 1752 essays and formalized by in his 1911 The Purchasing Power of Money via the equation of exchange MV=PTMV = PT, where MM is , VV , PP , and TT transactions. This implied monetary neutrality in the long run: expansions in MM proportionally raised PP without altering real output or employment, which were fixed by supply-side constraints like labor's marginal productivity. , in his 1848 , integrated this with , arguing gluts stemmed from misallocated production, not aggregate insufficiency, and could be corrected by price signals. Neoclassical refinements, emerging in the late with Léon Walras's 1874 Éléments d'économie politique pure and Alfred Marshall's 1890 Principles of Economics, modeled the as a system of simultaneous equations achieving general equilibrium, where utility maximization and cost minimization under ensured as the natural state. Flexible prices and wages guaranteed , rendering involuntary unemployment anomalous and policy interventions unnecessary or counterproductive, as they might distort incentives. Dissenting voices, such as Thomas Malthus's 1798 warnings of population-driven gluts or Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi's critiques in the 1820s, highlighted potential demand deficiencies but remained marginal against the orthodox supply-centric paradigm. Overall, pre-Keynesian thought prioritized long-run equilibrium and real determinants, viewing business cycles as frictional perturbations self-corrected by entrepreneurial adjustment and gold-standard discipline on .

Keynes's Early Influences and Writings (1910s-1920s)

, born on 5 June 1883 in , , was the son of , a university lecturer in logic and economics, and , a social reformer. He attended from 1897 to 1902, where he excelled in mathematics and classics, before entering , in 1902 to study the moral sciences tripos, focusing initially on philosophy and mathematics rather than economics. Under the supervision of , Cambridge's leading economist, Keynes shifted toward economics in his final year, earning a first-class degree in 1905 and later a fellowship at in 1909 for a dissertation on probability that foreshadowed his lifelong interest in . and served as key academic mentors, instilling in Keynes the neoclassical principles of and equilibrium analysis that he would later critique and build upon. Keynes's early professional experience included a brief stint at the from 1906 to 1908, where he analyzed , providing material for his first major publication. In Indian Currency and Finance (1913), he defended India's gold exchange standard against advocates of a full , arguing that the existing system efficiently economized on reserves while managing seasonal demands from and , though he noted vulnerabilities in rupee stabilization tied to the . The book established Keynes as an expert on international currency arrangements, emphasizing practical administrative mechanisms over rigid metallic standards for colonial economies. During , Keynes joined the British Treasury in 1915, rising to advise on financial mobilization and inter-Allied debts, which culminated in his role as a delegate to the Peace Conference in 1919. Disillusioned by the Treaty of Versailles's reparations demands—estimated at 132 billion gold marks on —he resigned in protest and published The Economic Consequences of the Peace later that year. Keynes contended that the treaty's punitive terms, including territorial losses and debt burdens, would cripple Germany's productive capacity, provoke , and undermine European recovery by disrupting trade balances, rather than fostering reconciliation through moderate indemnities capped at Germany's pre-war export surplus of about 500 million gold marks annually. In the , amid and debates over returning to the standard, Keynes extended his monetary focus in A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923). He advocated stabilizing domestic price levels through adjustments to interest rates and credit, prioritizing internal over exchange rate fixity under , which he viewed as exacerbating deflationary pressures in Britain after its 1914 suspension. Keynes proposed a "managed" currency where the targets , critiquing the standard's automaticity for ignoring short-term disruptions like and shifts, and arguing that flexible policy could mitigate wastes from volatility without abandoning entirely as an international . These ideas marked his growing skepticism of classical quantity theory assumptions, laying groundwork for later concepts.

Formulation of The General Theory (1930s)

Following the publication of A Treatise on Money in September 1930, which analyzed economic fluctuations through discrepancies between and but retained assumptions of long-run equilibrium, Keynes grew dissatisfied with its inability to explain persistent mass amid the . The Treatise posited that could stabilize the and restore equilibrium, yet empirical observations of rigid wages, deficient , and stalled recovery in Britain and the —where exceeded 20% by 1932—contradicted these predictions. Keynes began reconceptualizing macroeconomic dynamics, shifting emphasis from monetary circulation to aggregate output determination via . In 1933, Keynes delivered lectures at University introducing the principle of , positing that levels are determined by the aggregate of planned expenditures rather than real adjustments or supply-side factors alone. These lectures critiqued classical theory's reliance on , arguing that arises when falls short of full-employment output, as firms base production on anticipated sales rather than potential supply. This marked a pivotal departure, incorporating a linking spending to income and highlighting volatility driven by uncertain expectations, ideas refined through ongoing debates. Keynes's formulation advanced via intensive collaboration with the "Cambridge Circus," an informal group of younger economists including Richard Kahn, Joan Robinson, and Austin Robinson, formed after the Treatise to scrutinize his work. From 1934 onward, Keynes circulated successive drafts—initially in August 1934 and revised through 1935—incorporating feedback that clarified the multiplier effect, , and the role of interest rates in equilibrating saving and investment ex post but not necessarily at . These iterations addressed earlier ambiguities, such as the Treatise's neutral money assumptions, by integrating money's non-neutrality and animal spirits as causal drivers of demand shortfalls. By late 1935, Keynes had finalized the manuscript after multiple revisions, including responses to critics like Ralph Hawtrey and Dennis Robertson, who challenged the stability of underemployment equilibria. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money appeared in 1936, synthesizing these developments into a framework where government intervention via could bridge demand gaps, as coordination failures—evident in the Depression's protracted stagnation—precluded automatic restoration. This formulation privileged short-run disequilibria over classical long-run tendencies, grounded in observed causal chains from pessimistic expectations to reduced and output.

Immediate Policy Influences During the Great Depression

In late 1929, following the Wall Street crash and rising in Britain, which reached 1.1 million by year's end, co-authored the pamphlet Can Lloyd George Do It? with Hubert Henderson, endorsing Liberal Party leader David Lloyd George's election pledge for a £250 million program over two years to combat joblessness. The pamphlet argued that such deficit-financed investment in infrastructure like roads, housing, and electrification would generate secondary employment through a multiplier effect, estimating that each £1 spent could yield £1.5 in total economic activity via increased , without causing or budget imbalances in a slack economy. This marked an early challenge to Treasury orthodoxy favoring balanced budgets and , though the incoming Labour government under Philip Snowden prioritized fiscal restraint, limiting direct implementation amid fears of constraints. Keynes continued pressing for public investment throughout the early 1930s, testifying before the Macmillan Committee on Finance and Industry in 1930 that low interest rates and targeted spending on schemes like and road-building could restore demand without wage cuts, which he viewed as ineffective due to sticky prices and wages. Britain's abandonment of the gold standard on September 21, 1931, aligned with Keynes's long-held advocacy for devaluation to boost exports and ease , enabling the to cut rates to 2% by July 1932 and fostering a boom through building society lending, which added 2.5% to GDP annually from 1932–1937. saw an unplanned deficit of £120 million (3.1% of GDP) in 1931/32 due to falling tax revenues, but deliberate Keynes-inspired expansion remained modest, confined to localized schemes rather than national programs, as governments resisted full deficit financing amid balanced-budget doctrines. Across the Atlantic, Keynes sought to shape U.S. amid the deepening Depression, where hit 25% by . In a , , open letter to President published in , he urged immediate $400 million monthly in spending—totaling about $2.4 billion over six months—to prime demand, criticizing rigidities and advocating , which Roosevelt had initiated via the dollar's 40% drop after abandoning in . Their personal meeting on May 28, 1934, yielded little accord; Keynes later described Roosevelt as opaque on economics, while the president prioritized balanced budgets and recovery over bold stimulus, with initiatives like the (1933) funding $4 billion in projects but constrained by pay-as-you-go financing and NRA codes emphasizing regulation over pure demand stimulus. Direct Keynesian influence on early fiscal expansion was thus limited, as Roosevelt's approach blended relief with structural reforms, achieving only partial (federal outlays rose from 3% to 10% of GDP by 1936) without embracing multiplier-led theory until post-1937 recession adjustments in 1938. Overall, Keynes's immediate Depression-era advocacy accelerated intellectual critiques of classical automaticity but faced resistance from entrenched ; policy shifts like and selective public investment in Britain provided modest recovery signals—unemployment fell from 22% in 1932 to 10% by 1937—yet full-scale adoption awaited wartime necessities and The General Theory's 1936 publication, underscoring causal barriers from institutional over empirical demand deficiencies.

Key Models and Mechanisms

Saving-Investment Disequilibrium

In Keynesian economics, saving and investment are not necessarily equilibrated through flexible interest rates as in classical theory; instead, ex ante discrepancies between planned saving and planned investment lead to adjustments in aggregate income and output to restore ex post equality. Planned saving depends primarily on income levels, following a marginal propensity to save less than one, while planned investment is determined by entrepreneurs' expectations of future profitability and the marginal efficiency of capital, which may not respond swiftly to interest rate changes. When ex ante saving exceeds planned investment—such as during pessimistic business expectations—firms experience unplanned inventory accumulation as consumer demand falls short, prompting production cutbacks and layoffs that reduce income until actual saving matches investment. This disequilibrium mechanism underpins the Keynesian multiplier process, where an initial shortfall in propagates through reduced consumption, amplifying the contraction in output; for instance, if the is 0.8, a $1 decrease in leads to a $5 total drop in income to rebalance and . Conversely, if planned surges due to optimistic animal spirits, income rises to elevate without requiring higher interest rates, challenging the classical view that directly finances via rate adjustments. Empirical observations during the , with U.S. collapsing to 1.6% of GDP by 1932 amid stable propensities, illustrate how persistent low failed to stimulate sufficient income growth, sustaining underemployment equilibria. The exemplifies this dynamic: an economy-wide increase in the propensity to , intended to boost future , instead contracts , lowers income, and leaves total unchanged or reduced, as the multiplier effect offsets the higher rate through diminished output. Keynes argued this holds particularly in conditions where cannot lower rates further to spur , rendering private counterproductive without offsetting fiscal expansion; historical data from U.K., where rates rose amid falling national income, supports this over classical predictions of self-correcting thrift benefits. Critics, including some post-Keynesian analyses, note that long-run growth may still favor if responds elastically, but short-run disequilibria dominate Keynes's focus.

Wage Rigidity and Involuntary Unemployment

Keynes posited that occurs when workers offer their labor at the prevailing money but remain jobless due to insufficient for goods and services, which in turn curtails for labor. Unlike voluntary unemployment, where individuals choose not to work at the market , this form arises from a failure of the labor market to clear because nominal wages resist downward adjustment despite of labor. Keynes argued in The General Theory (1936) that such is "involuntary" precisely because laborers would accept at the existing if existed, but systemic deficiencies prevent it. Nominal wage rigidity, particularly downward inflexibility, is central to this mechanism, as flexible wages would theoretically equilibrate labor by falling to restore . Keynes identified workers' resistance to nominal pay cuts as a primary cause, rooted in psychological factors like —where individuals prioritize nominal over real wages—and social norms against apparent reductions in living standards, even if offset by falling prices. Institutional factors exacerbate this, including bargaining power, which historically maintained floors during downturns, and long-term contracts that lock in rates irrespective of cyclical conditions. Keynes further contended that widespread wage reductions might not alleviate , as they could proportionally lower prices and aggregate consumption, neutralizing employment gains while introducing uncertainty that discourages . Empirical evidence from the supports the prevalence of wage stickiness: U.S. nominal wages declined by only about 23% from 1929 to 1933, compared to a 30% price drop, resulting in countercyclical real wage increases that amplified from 3% to 25%. Micro-level payroll records from the era confirm , with many firms retaining pre-Depression wage structures amid slack labor markets, consistent with Keynes's observation of stable money wages hindering adjustment. This stickiness persisted without marked intensification from policy shifts like the , indicating pre-existing downward in interwar labor markets. Such patterns underscore how rigidity sustains disequilibrium, as firms reduce output and hiring rather than bid down wages competitively. While Keynes's framework emphasizes demand deficiencies interacting with rigidity, subsequent analyses highlight that rigidities alone do not generate without shortfalls; supply-side rigidities, like minimum wages, can compound effects but were secondary in his analysis. Modern extensions, including theories where firms pay above-market rates to boost and reduce turnover, align with Keynesian persistence of but add absent in the original theory. Nonetheless, the core Keynesian insight—that wage inflexibility prolongs deviations from —relies on observed resistance to nominal cuts, validated by Depression-era data where real wage rigidity manifested through incomplete nominal adjustments.

IS-LM Framework and Liquidity Trap

The IS-LM model, formalized by in 1937, depicts the short-run equilibrium between the goods market and the money market under fixed prices, as an analytical device to interpret key elements of Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). The IS (investment-saving) curve slopes downward, representing combinations of output (Y) and interest rates (r) where equals , such that planned equals at potential adjusted for demand deficiencies. Higher interest rates reduce investment spending due to increased borrowing costs, lowering equilibrium output, while fiscal expansions like shifts the IS curve rightward, raising output and interest rates. The LM (liquidity-money) curve slopes upward, showing points where the equals a fixed , incorporating Keynes's theory where depends on transactions, precautionary, and speculative motives. As output rises, transactions increases, requiring higher interest rates to equilibrate the money market by reducing speculative holdings of non-interest-bearing cash. shifts the LM curve: expansionary policy (higher ) lowers interest rates for given output, potentially boosting and output at the IS-LM . Equilibrium occurs at the intersection of IS and LM, determining simultaneous values of output and interest rates; deviations, such as excess saving over , lead to unless offset by . This framework highlights monetary-fiscal interactions: fiscal stimulus raises output but crowds out private via higher rates, while monetary easing mitigates this. Hicks emphasized the model's role in contrasting Keynesian underemployment equilibria with classical full-employment assumptions, though he later critiqued its static nature for overlooking dynamic adjustments. Within the IS-LM setup, the emerges when interest rates approach a minimum level—near zero—where speculative becomes infinitely elastic, as agents prefer holding cash over bonds anticipating no further capital gains from falling rates. Keynes described this in Chapter 15 of The General Theory, where renders additional hoarded rather than lent, flattening the LM curve horizontally and insulating interest rates from monetary expansion. In such a trap, conventional loses effectiveness, as output cannot be stimulated via lower rates; the IS curve's position, driven by autonomous spending, governs equilibrium output instead. retains potency, shifting IS rightward to raise output without rate-induced crowding out, underscoring Keynes's advocacy for in depressions. Empirical instances, like Japan's 1990s stagnation with rates below 1% and persistent fears, have been invoked to illustrate the trap, though causal attribution remains contested due to factors such as structural rigidities. The concept implies central banks hit a , shifting reliance to fiscal tools for .

Policy Implications

Fiscal Stimulus and Deficit Spending

Fiscal stimulus constitutes a core policy recommendation of Keynesian economics, involving expansions in government purchases or tax reductions to elevate amid economic slack, particularly when spending falters due to pessimism or preferences. , in The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), contended that such interventions could counteract deficient , which he identified as the primary cause of prolonged beyond voluntary factors. By financing expenditures through borrowing rather than taxation, governments avoid the contractionary impact of higher taxes on consumption, enabling to inject funds directly into circulation. This approach posits that public outlays on , , or transfers multiply through the economy via the , where each dollar spent yields additional private spending based on the (MPC), theoretically amplifying output by a factor of 1/(1-MPC). Deficit spending, in this framework, serves as a countercyclical tool to achieve without relying solely on , which Keynes deemed potentially ineffective in liquidity traps where interest rates approach zero and money hoarding persists. He argued that balanced budgets during recessions exacerbate downturns by curtailing , advocating instead for deliberate deficits to offset private saving- imbalances, as savings not channeled into represent a leakage from the income stream. Empirical estimates of the multiplier have varied, with structural models suggesting values around 1.5 for in recessions under slack conditions, though outcomes depend on financing methods and economic state—higher multipliers occur when accommodates without crowding out private via elevated interest rates. Keynes emphasized timing: stimulus should expand during slumps but contract toward balance in booms to curb once capacity constraints bind. Critics within and outside the Keynesian tradition, including some early adopters, have highlighted risks of persistent deficits eroding fiscal sustainability if growth fails to outpace service costs, potentially leading to higher future taxes or . Keynes himself acknowledged that unchecked deficits could fuel inflationary pressures at levels, necessitating eventual fiscal restraint, though he downplayed long-term burdens assuming productive investments yield returns exceeding borrowing costs. Post-1930s applications, such as U.S. federal spending surges from 15% of GDP in 1930 to over 20% by 1936 amid programs, illustrated the approach but yielded debated efficacy, with output multipliers estimated below unity in some reconstructions accounting for contemporaneous monetary factors. Nonetheless, the doctrine influenced policies like the U.S. Act of 1946, mandating government responsibility for economic stability through fiscal means.

Monetary Policy Constraints


In Keynesian theory, monetary policy is constrained by liquidity preference, whereby agents demand money for transactions motives tied to income levels, precautionary motives against unforeseen needs, and speculative motives based on expected bond price fluctuations. The speculative demand rises sharply at low interest rates, as holders anticipate capital gains from bonds if rates fall further, making the public willing to hold unlimited cash balances without seeking higher yields. This renders increases in money supply ineffective at lowering rates or spurring investment, as excess liquidity is simply hoarded rather than channeled into spending or lending.
The emerges when nominal interest rates approach or hit the , typically around 0% in modern contexts, though Keynes posited an effective floor near 2% for long-term rates in due to prevailing expectations. Here, efforts to expand the money supply via operations fail to stimulate , akin to "pushing on a string," as Keynes described in his 1933 to President Roosevelt, where monetary easing could not reliably boost economic activity amid deflationary pressures. Instead, the horizontal portion of the LM curve in IS-LM models illustrates infinite money demand elasticity, decoupling from output and effects. Empirically, such traps have been invoked for Japan's stagnation since the , with rates at or below 0% and persistent hoarding despite interventions, though critics attribute outcomes more to structural issues like overhang than absolute . In the U.S. , Keynes argued monetary policy's impotence, evidenced by failed attempts like Hoover's 1932 lending, which did not avert deepening until fiscal shifts post-1933. Modern extensions, including , aim to bypass constraints by targeting asset purchases, but Keynesian analysis maintains that in severe traps, fiscal stimulus remains superior for restoring confidence and velocity. Debates persist on the trap's frequency, with some analyses finding limited historical evidence of true inelasticity, suggesting policy failures often stem from credibility deficits rather than inherent monetary limits.

Stances on Trade Imbalances and Protectionism

Keynes initially advocated as an "inflexible dogma" in his 1923 writings, arguing it promoted efficiency and international harmony under conditions of . However, amid the , he reversed course, proposing measures to address and trade deficits. In autumn 1930, Keynes recommended a uniform 10% on all imports alongside equivalent export subsidies to stimulate domestic demand and reduce reliance on volatile foreign markets. By , in his essay "Proposals for a Tariff," he escalated this to 15% duties on manufactured and semi-manufactured goods and 5% on others, estimating such tariffs could generate £70-80 million in revenue while protecting British industries from cheap imports, thereby boosting employment without exacerbating budget deficits through borrowing alone. This shift stemmed from Keynes's view that persistent trade imbalances, particularly deficits, drained in economies with idle capacity, as imports exceeded exports and reduced domestic production. He contended that exacerbated during slumps by forcing deflationary adjustments, whereas tariffs could redirect spending inward, raising the and relative to . In The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), Keynes implicitly endorsed temporary by rehabilitating mercantilist ideas, arguing that accumulating surpluses or reserves was not inherently harmful if it supported domestic and , contrasting with classical emphasis on balanced via automatic adjustments. He warned that export-driven recoveries often worsened , suggesting tariffs as a symmetric alternative to competitive devaluations, which risked global beggar-thy-neighbor spirals. Keynesian frameworks treat trade imbalances as manifestations of insufficient domestic , where deficits signal excess or weak , necessitating policy interventions beyond floats. Proponents argue can correct asymmetries by insulating from external shocks, though critics within the tradition, like later synthesizers, caution against long-term distortions. At the 1944 , Keynes proposed an international clearing union with the bancor unit to penalize both chronic surpluses and deficits—imposing symmetric charges on reserves—to prevent imbalances from fueling or , though the U.S.-favored dollar hegemony prevailed. This reflected his belief that unmanaged imbalances threatened stability, favoring coordinated controls over unfettered trade.

Post-War Applications and Challenges

Keynesian Dominance in the 1950s-1960s

In the United States, the Employment Act of 1946 marked a pivotal adoption of Keynesian principles into federal policy, committing the government to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power while establishing the Council of Economic Advisers to provide economic guidance to the president. This legislation reflected a post-World War II consensus that active fiscal intervention could stabilize demand and prevent depressions, influencing subsequent administrations to prioritize counter-cyclical spending over balanced budgets during downturns. Academic dissemination reinforced this shift, as Paul Samuelson's 1948 textbook Economics integrated Keynesian ideas like the IS-LM framework into neoclassical synthesis, becoming a standard for generations of students and policymakers. In the , Labour governments pursued as a core objective, building on the on Employment Policy and , which advocated to maintain low through and fiscal adjustments. rates remained below 3 percent throughout the 1950s and 1960s, averaging around 1-2 percent, with policies emphasizing wage bargaining and to offset private sector weakness. Across , similar commitments emerged in mixed economies, where reconstruction efforts combined with Keynesian-inspired stabilizers—such as progressive taxation and welfare expenditures—supported near-, with rates often under 2 percent until the late 1960s. The era coincided with robust economic expansion, dubbed the "Golden Age" of capitalism, where OECD countries achieved average annual real GDP growth of approximately 4.9 percent from 1960 to 1973, alongside historically low —around 4-5 percent in the U.S. and even lower in . U.S. policymakers exemplified Keynesian application through the 1964 Revenue Act, which reduced top marginal rates from 91 percent to 70 percent and corporate rates from 52 percent to 48 percent, aiming to stimulate via deficit-financed cuts as endorsed by Kennedy's advisors. This "fine-tuning" optimism permeated the decade, with governments using fiscal multipliers and monetary accommodation to smooth cycles, though much stability derived from automatic stabilizers rather than aggressive discretionary action. Theoretical dominance was evident in the widespread acceptance of Keynesian models for short-run demand fluctuations, sidelining classical concerns over long-term supply constraints or incentives, as macroeconomic orthodoxy viewed persistent as solvable through without risking . By the mid-1960s, this framework underpinned international institutions like the IMF, which promoted expansionary policies for growth, though emerging inflationary pressures began testing its limits toward decade's end.

Breakdown During 1970s Stagflation

In the 1970s, major Western economies, particularly the , experienced characterized by simultaneous high and elevated rates, undermining the core predictions of Keynesian economics. U.S. consumer price averaged over 7% annually from to 1982, peaking at 13.5% in 1980, while rose from 4.9% in to 8.5% by and further to 7.1% in 1980. This combination defied the Keynesian reliance on the , which posited an inverse relationship between and , suggesting policymakers could accept mild to achieve low through demand stimulus. The primary triggers were supply-side shocks, notably the 1973 OPEC oil embargo following the , which quadrupled global oil prices from about $3 to $12 per barrel by early 1974, and the 1979 , which doubled prices again to around $40 per barrel. These events increased production costs across industries, shifting curves leftward and generating independent of demand pressures, a dynamic Keynesian models, focused on demand deficiencies and sticky wages, were ill-equipped to address. Keynesian policymakers, adhering to full-employment mandates like the U.S. Employment Act of 1946, responded with expansionary fiscal and monetary measures, such as and loose credit, which exacerbated without sustainably lowering , as adaptive expectations led workers and firms to demand higher wages and prices. The breakdown highlighted theoretical shortcomings in Keynesianism, including its underemphasis on monetary factors and supply constraints; monetarists like had predicted such failures by arguing that was a monetary phenomenon and that the tradeoff would vanish once expectations adjusted. By the late 1970s, repeated policy missteps—such as the Federal Reserve's accommodation of fiscal expansion under Chairs Arthur Burns and —entrenched inflationary expectations, culminating in double-digit and recessions in 1973–1975 and 1980–1982. This empirical disconfirmation eroded confidence in demand-management strategies, paving the way for alternatives like and supply-side reforms under leaders such as , who prioritized control via tight starting in 1979.

Synthesis with Neoclassical Elements

The integrated Keynesian macroeconomic analysis with neoclassical microeconomic foundations, asserting that short-run output fluctuations stemmed from demand deficiencies addressable by fiscal and monetary intervention, while long-run equilibrium restored through flexible prices and wages. Formulated notably by in 1937 via the IS-LM model and advanced by in his 1948 textbook Economics: An Introductory Analysis, this approach treated Keynesian rigidities as temporary deviations from Walrasian general equilibrium, enabling a unified framework for policy advocacy during postwar reconstruction. Samuelson's synthesis dominated academic curricula and influenced institutions like the IMF and World Bank, promoting mixed economies with countercyclical stabilization. The 1970s and , which highlighted inconsistencies in policy rules under , prompted the New Keynesian response in the late 1970s, emphasizing microfoundations for nominal rigidities within optimizing representative-agent models. Stanley Fischer's 1977 model of staggered nominal wage contracts demonstrated how multi-period contracts could generate persistent real effects from monetary shocks, even with rational agents, by locking in nominal terms that misalign with changing economic conditions. John Taylor's 1980 extension to staggered pricing formalized dynamic persistence, while N. Gregory Mankiw's 1985 framework showed that small fixed costs of price adjustment, rationalized by , could amplify aggregate output responses to demand shifts. These elements converged in the of the 1990s, as outlined by Marvin Goodfriend and Robert King in 1997, which embedded short-run nominal frictions—such as Calvo-style infrequent price resets—into (DSGE) models with forward-looking agents and in the absence of rigidities. This hybrid yielded the New Keynesian Phillips curve, relating inflation to the via expected future inflation and marginal cost pressures under , rather than backward-looking adaptive expectations. DSGE variants, incorporating habit formation and variable capital utilization, became central to forecasting, as at the post-2000, though empirical calibration often reveals modest rigidity durations (e.g., quarterly price adjustments) insufficient to explain deep recessions without auxiliary shocks.

Empirical Assessments

Evidence of Short-Term Demand Management Effects

Empirical analyses of fiscal expansions during economic downturns provide evidence supporting short-term increases in consistent with Keynesian predictions. Studies utilizing vector autoregressions and identification methods indicate that government spending multipliers—measuring the GDP response to additional public expenditure—are typically greater than unity in recessions, often ranging from 1.5 to 2.0, as idle resources and constrained amplify the initial injection. This effect is particularly pronounced at the , where interest rates cannot be further reduced, limiting crowding out and enhancing the potency of demand-side interventions. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, enacting approximately $800 billion in fiscal measures amid the , offers a modern case study. Congressional Budget Office estimates attributed 1.5 to 4.2 million additional jobs preserved or created by mid-2010, with multipliers for direct spending averaging around 1.0 to 1.5 in the short term, contributing to GDP growth of 0.7 to 3.4 percentage points through 2010. Peer-reviewed analyses of state-level ARRA allocations similarly found jobs multipliers of 0.4 to 1.0 per dollar spent, implying short-term employment gains without immediate offsets from reduced private activity. Excluding less productive outlays, some estimates suggest overall fiscal multipliers exceeding 2.0, aligning with efficacy in high-unemployment contexts. Historical precedents, such as U.S. spending surges preceding , further illustrate short-term demand effects. From 1939 to 1941, federal outlays rose sharply against a backdrop of Depression-era slack, correlating with GDP expansion and decline from 17% to below 10%, with implied multipliers above 1.0 as wartime absorbed underutilized capacity. In contrast to expansions during near-full employment, where multipliers approximated 0.5 due to inflationary pressures, the pre-WWII period's resource gaps enabled sustained output gains without equivalent crowding out. These patterns underscore how short-term fiscal impulses can mitigate demand deficiencies when confidence lags, though long-run sustainability remains contingent on subsequent adjustments.

Failures in Explaining Inflation and Long-Term Stagnation

Keynesian economics, which posits that demand management through fiscal and monetary stimulus can maintain full employment without generating sustained inflation, encountered significant empirical challenges during the 1970s stagflation episode. In the United States, consumer price inflation surged to 11.0% in 1974 and peaked at 13.5% in 1980, while unemployment simultaneously climbed to 9.0% in 1975 and 10.8% in 1982, directly contradicting the downward-sloping Phillips curve trade-off central to Keynesian policy prescriptions. This breakdown occurred as supply shocks from oil price quadrupling in 1973-1974 interacted with accelerating inflation expectations, rendering demand-pull explanations inadequate; monetarist critiques, such as Milton Friedman's 1968 presidential address, demonstrated theoretically and empirically that the Phillips curve is vertical in the long run due to adaptive expectations, invalidating short-run exploitation for lower unemployment. The inability of Keynesian frameworks to incorporate supply-side disruptions and expectation dynamics led to policy failures, as fine-tuning via expansionary measures exacerbated inflation without resolving stagnation; for example, U.S. federal deficits averaged 2.5% of GDP in the mid-1970s amid rising growth exceeding 10% annually, fueling rather than output recovery. Post-1970s syntheses attempted to salvage the model by augmenting it with expectations-augmented Phillips curves, but these adjustments highlighted the original theory's oversight of monetary aggregates and rigidities, with empirical tests showing no stable trade-off persisting beyond . Critics attribute this to Keynesianism's underemphasis on independence and velocity stability, as evidenced by the Federal Reserve's accommodation of fiscal expansion under Arthur Burns, which prolonged the crisis until Volcker's tight money in 1979-1982 restored at the cost of a . Regarding long-term stagnation, Keynesian reliance on stimulation has proven insufficient to explain or reverse prolonged low-growth equilibria in cases like Japan's "Lost Decade" extending into the , where real GDP growth averaged under 1% annually from 1991 to 2003 despite cumulative fiscal stimulus exceeding 100 trillion yen (about 20% of GDP at peak efforts). Structural analyses reveal that banking sector , firm preservation, and regulatory barriers suppressed and , outcomes unaddressed by demand-side interventions that instead ballooned public to 200% of GDP by 2010 without restoring trend growth above 1.5%. Empirical studies confirm a vertical IS curve in , indicating that output gaps stemmed from supply constraints rather than deficient demand or liquidity traps, challenging Keynesian prescriptions for endless deficits; Harrodian extensions of Keynesian models fail to account for these micro-level distortions, as declined 0.5% annually in the due to misallocated capital. Similar patterns emerged post-2008 globally, with advanced economies experiencing —U.S. potential GDP growth falling to 1.8% annually by 2019 despite zero interest rates and deficits over 5% of GDP in recovery years—attributable to demographic shifts, skill-biased , and policy-induced disincentives rather than chronic demand shortfall. Keynesian explanations invoking "" overlook causal evidence from supply-side reforms, such as U.S. acceleration post-1990s contrasting with Europe's slower recovery amid higher ; cross-country regressions show fiscal multipliers below 0.5 in open economies with high debt, implying stimulus crowds out private without addressing root stagnation drivers like entitlement burdens and barriers. Thus, these failures underscore Keynesianism's limited scope in modeling long-run growth as endogenous to incentives and institutions, not merely exogenous demand fluctuations.

Multiplier Estimates and Crowding-Out Effects

The in Keynesian theory quantifies the amplified effect of autonomous changes in , such as , on total output through successive rounds of induced consumption. In the simple closed-economy model without leakages, the multiplier equals 11MPC\frac{1}{1 - MPC}, where MPC is the , often implying values exceeding 1 when slack exists in the . Empirical assessments, however, reveal more modest and context-dependent figures, frequently below theoretical expectations due to offsets like leakages, , or monetary responses. Recent surveys of empirical literature indicate multipliers typically range from 0.4 to 0.8 at impact, with peaks up to 1.0 or higher during recessions or at the on interest rates, where cannot fully accommodate. For instance, Valerie Ramey's analysis of U.S. military spending shocks estimates multipliers around 0.3 during low periods and near 1.0 amid high slack, highlighting cyclical variation. -based multipliers often differ; some studies find cuts yield higher growth impacts than equivalent spending increases, particularly when targeting distortionary taxes, though estimates suggest spending multipliers (around 1.5 in downturns) exceed those for broad tax cuts (0.4-1.0).
Study/SourceMultiplier TypeEstimateKey Context
Ramey (2011)0.3 (low slack); 1.0 (high slack)U.S. military buildups
IMF Technical Note (2014)General Fiscal0.9-1.5 (ZLB); <0.5 (normal times)Advanced economies
CBO AnalysisSpending vs. Tax Cuts1.5 (spending in ); 0.4-1.0 (tax cuts)Short-run U.S. effects
Recent Survey (2025)Impact Multiplier0.4-0.8Broad empirical literature
Crowding-out effects mitigate multipliers by channeling fiscal expansions into higher interest rates, displacing private and consumption. In IS-LM frameworks, increased borrowing shifts the LM curve or raises rates directly, leading to partial offset; full crowding out occurs under classical assumptions of or perfect capital mobility. confirms deficits correlate with elevated long-term interest rates, with studies estimating 10-30 increases per of GDP in deficits, reducing private by comparable magnitudes. In open economies, fiscal stimuli can appreciate currencies, further eroding net exports and amplifying crowding via external channels. While short-run multipliers may exceed 1 during liquidity traps—where central banks sterilize rate pressures—longer horizons reveal greater crowding, often rendering net effects near zero or negative when for future adjustments. These findings underscore that institutional biases in academic modeling, favoring demand-side assumptions, may inflate multiplier estimates relative to real-world fiscal offsets observed in vector autoregressions and approaches.

Major Criticisms and Theoretical Flaws

Incentive Distortions and Debt Accumulation

Keynesian advocacy for countercyclical fiscal deficits, intended to stabilize during recessions, has been criticized for distorting s by signaling future tax increases or to finance accumulated obligations, thereby discouraging savings and productive . Such policies, by subsidizing consumption through transfers and , can foster dependency on support, reducing labor force participation and entrepreneurial risk-taking as individuals anticipate fiscal redistribution rather than market-driven rewards. Empirical analyses indicate that persistent correlates with diminished work s, as evidenced by studies linking expanded welfare provisions under Keynesian frameworks to lower employment rates in affected demographics. A core mechanism of these distortions manifests as crowding out, where government borrowing competes for scarce capital, elevating interest rates and diverting funds from private projects with higher prospective returns. on advanced economies demonstrates that increases in public debt-to-GDP ratios above 90% significantly reduce private investment by 0.2-0.5 percentage points per annum, as firms face higher borrowing costs and reduced access to markets. For instance, from developing and countries reveal a negative elasticity between sovereign debt surges and non-government , with institutional quality mitigating but not eliminating the effect. This dynamic undermines the purported multipliers of fiscal stimulus, as short-term GDP boosts from spending are offset by long-run contractions in . Debt accumulation under Keynesian regimes exacerbates these issues by imposing intergenerational burdens through sustained deficits, often exceeding 5-10% of GDP during stimulus episodes, leading to debt-to-GDP trajectories that impair growth. , federal debt rose from 64% of GDP in 2007 to 100% by 2012 following the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's $831 billion outlay, with subsequent analyses attributing 1-2% annual growth reductions to the ensuing fiscal overhang. Cross-country regressions confirm that public debt levels correlating with Keynesian-era expansions inversely affect private investment and overall output, with thresholds around 77-90% triggering nonlinear declines in economic performance. Critics argue this pattern reflects not mere correlation but causation via , where rational agents preemptively adjust behavior against anticipated repayment, nullifying stimulus efficacy while entrenching higher taxes or monetization risks.

Ignoring Supply-Side Dynamics and Time Lags

Keynesian economics has been criticized for its primary emphasis on management, which often overlooks supply-side dynamics such as productivity enhancements, labor market incentives, and that drive long-term . In standard Keynesian models, fiscal and monetary stimuli are presumed to boost output by increasing demand, with supply assumed to respond elastically in the short run via underutilized resources; however, this framework neglects how sustained can erode supply capacity through higher marginal tax rates that discourage work and investment, or through inflationary pressures that distort relative prices and . For instance, during the , supply shocks like the 1973 oil embargo led to —simultaneous rises in and —which Keynesian demand-management prescriptions failed to address effectively, as they underestimated persistent supply constraints from energy costs and regulatory rigidities. Critics including supply-side proponents argue that Keynesian policies inadvertently constrain by prioritizing short-term demand boosts over structural reforms, such as reductions or , which links to sustained growth; for example, post-1980s U.S. cuts correlated with accelerations, contrasting with pre-Reagan stagnation under demand-focused interventions. This neglect is evident in the inability of Keynesian multipliers to account for endogenous supply responses, where government borrowing raises interest rates and crowds out innovation, as documented in analyses showing fiscal expansions reducing non-government by comparable magnitudes. Compounding these issues are the significant time lags inherent in discretionary Keynesian fiscal policy, which undermine its countercyclical intent. These include recognition lags (identifying economic downturns, often 6-12 months), decision lags (legislative debates and approvals, averaging 3-6 months in the U.S.), and implementation lags (spending disbursement, up to 18 months for projects), resulting in policies frequently arriving after recoveries have begun, thereby fueling inflationary overheating rather than stabilization. emphasized that such lags render fiscal fine-tuning unreliable, as evidenced by historical episodes where U.S. federal spending increases post-recession amplified booms, with econometric studies confirming pro-cyclical biases in discretionary actions from 1960-2000. Empirical assessments reinforce this critique, showing that discretionary fiscal multipliers are diminished or negated by lags; for example, a 2009 review found no robust evidence supporting timely countercyclical efficacy, with policy shocks often correlating inversely with contemporaneous output gaps due to delayed impacts. In contrast, rules-based approaches, like monetary targeting, mitigate these timing errors, highlighting how Keynesian reliance on activist intervention ignores the causal complexities of economic transmission mechanisms.

Paradoxes of Thrift and Thriftiness as Self-Fulfilling

The , central to Keynesian analysis, posits that while individual enhances personal wealth, a simultaneous increase in saving propensity across households reduces aggregate consumption, thereby contracting total , output, and , often resulting in no net rise or even a decline in aggregate saving. This arises in Keynes's framework under conditions of insufficient response, where saving exceeds investment opportunities, leading to unintended macroeconomic contraction. Critics from classical and Austrian perspectives contend the paradox rests on flawed assumptions, neglecting the equilibrating mechanism of interest rates in markets, where higher lowers rates, channeling funds into productive without necessitating output loss. Austrian emphasizes that thrift reallocates resources from current consumption to capital goods, boosting and long-run supply capacity, rather than trapping the in demand deficiency. Neoclassical rebuttals highlight market self-correction via price adjustments, restoring absent rigidities like those Keynes invoked. Empirical evidence undermines the paradox's predictions, revealing positive correlations between national saving rates and GDP growth across countries and periods. For example, higher lagged saving rates associate with accelerated productivity growth in low-income economies, enabling sustained investment-led expansion. Post-World War II recoveries in the U.S. and , fueled by elevated saving amid reconstruction, coincided with rapid output gains, illustrating thrift's role in financing rather than perpetuating stagnation. Thriftiness operates as self-fulfilling in a constructive manner through causal chains of and enhancement: greater supplies capital, lowers its cost, spurs entrepreneurial activity, and elevates future incomes, enabling higher consumption without relying on demand stimulus. This contrasts with Keynesian depictions of self-reinforcing contraction via or , which empirical patterns suggest arise more from institutional distortions—like errors—than inherent thrift dynamics. In flexible markets, thrift thus fulfills growth trajectories by aligning intertemporal preferences with real , avoiding the fallacies of composition embedded in the .

Alternative Economic Perspectives

Monetarist Critiques and Quantity Theory Revival

Monetarists, led by , contended that Keynesian economics unduly minimized the influence of monetary factors on economic activity, attributing business cycles primarily to real shocks and fiscal interventions rather than variations in growth. argued that expansions in the money stock initially stimulate output through increased but ultimately manifest as , with money remaining neutral in the long run regarding real variables like and . This perspective revived interest in the , reformulated by in his 1956 essay as a theory of holdings, where the equation of exchange MV=PYMV = PY holds, with VV exhibiting predictable behavior over cycles despite short-term fluctuations. Empirical analyses bolstered monetarist claims, particularly during the Great Inflation period from approximately 1965 to 1982, when U.S. (M2) growth averaged over 10% annually, correlating closely with rates peaking at 13.5% in 1980, alongside rising that contradicted the stable inflation- trade-off posited by the original . Friedman's 1968 integration of adaptive expectations into the Phillips framework demonstrated that anticipated erodes any long-term , a validated as policymakers' attempts at demand stimulation via discretionary fiscal and monetary easing fueled accelerating without sustainable employment gains. Cross-country data spanning 1870 to 2020 across 18 economies further affirm the quantity theory's core proposition that sustained money growth exceeding output expansion drives , with correlations exceeding 0.9 in long-run estimates. Keynesian advocacy for activist stabilization policy faced scrutiny for ignoring policy lags and , as discretionary interventions often amplified volatility; monetarists countered with from Friedman's collaborative work showing the Federal Reserve's monetary contraction in 1929-1933 prolonged the by reducing by one-third. In policy terms, proposed a rules-based approach—a steady 3-5% annual increase in aligned with potential output growth—to supplant Keynesian discretion, arguing that predictable monetary growth minimizes inflationary surprises and avoids the time-inconsistency problems inherent in fine-tuning, where authorities deviate from announced paths for short-term gains. The Volcker Fed's initial targeting of money aggregates in 1979-1982, which curbed inflation to below 4% by 1983 without a deep , provided practical vindication, though subsequent velocity instability prompted shifts toward . Despite entrenched Keynesian influence in academia, where models often abstracted from monetary dynamics, monetarist frameworks gained traction through superior explanatory power for stagflation episodes, underscoring that is "always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon," as asserted in 1963. This revival emphasized supply-side monetary rules over demand-management activism, influencing central bank practices worldwide by the .

Austrian Business Cycle Theory Contrasts

Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT), originating with in the 1910s and elaborated by in works such as Prices and Production (1931), attributes economic booms and busts to expansions of bank credit beyond voluntary savings, artificially suppressing interest rates below their equilibrium level. This distortion misallocates resources toward longer-term, capital-intensive projects unsupported by actual savings, fostering an unsustainable boom characterized by overinvestment or "malinvestment" in higher-order goods like machinery and . The ensuing bust represents a necessary market correction, liquidating these errors through bankruptcies, price adjustments, and resource reallocation to consumer-preferred uses. In stark contrast, Keynesian economics, as outlined in John Maynard Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936), identifies insufficient —driven by factors like pessimistic "animal spirits," sticky wages, and liquidity traps—as the primary cause of recessions, with supply-side adjustments presumed to follow demand restoration. Keynesians view business cycles as amplifications of demand fluctuations amenable to countercyclical intervention, dismissing malinvestment explanations as secondary or irrelevant amid underutilized capacity. ABCT, however, rejects this demand-centric focus, arguing that Keynesian analysis aggregates away critical intertemporal discoordinations, ignoring how credit-fueled booms inflate apparent demand while depleting the structure of production's sustainability. Policy prescriptions diverge sharply: Keynes advocated deficit-financed and easing to bridge demand gaps, positing multipliers that amplify output without significant crowding out. Austrians counter that such measures perpetuate distortions by injecting further substitutes, prolonging the boom and intensifying the inevitable bust, as seen in historical episodes like the U.S. preceding the , where rate cuts from 2001–2004 fueled unsustainable lending. ABCT emphasizes sound money—ideally a or —to align interest rates with time preferences, enabling genuine savings-led growth and averting cycles altogether, whereas Keynesian stimulus is critiqued for , inflating debt, and eroding incentives for prudent investment. Theoretically, ABCT's emphasis on heterogeneous capital, subjective value, and the impossibility of central planners mimicking market signals—rooted in —clashes with Keynesian reliance on macroeconomic aggregates and IS-LM models that abstract from capital's time structure. specifically faulted Keynes for conflating savings with and overlooking signals that coordinate production stages, arguing that forced consumption via policy undermines the very thrift needed for sustainable expansion. Empirical contrasts persist: while Keynesian models struggled to anticipate surges post-2020 stimulus, ABCT aligned with observed patterns of booms preceding contractions in data from the 19th and 20th centuries, though mainstream econometric tests often favor shocks due to assumptions favoring interventionist paradigms.

Supply-Side and New Classical Challenges

Supply-side economics, emerging prominently in the late 1970s amid , critiqued Keynesian emphasis on demand management for neglecting incentives that drive production and long-term growth. Proponents argued that high marginal rates and regulatory burdens discouraged labor participation, , and , leading to supply constraints rather than mere demand deficiencies. For instance, Arthur Laffer's curve illustrated how rates above an optimal point reduce revenue by stifling economic activity, contrasting Keynesian views that tax cuts primarily stimulate consumption without addressing supply distortions. This perspective gained traction as U.S. data from the 1970s showed persistent high and coexisting, undermining Keynesian predictions of an inverse trade-off. Empirical applications, such as the U.S. Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which reduced the top marginal income tax rate from 70% to 50%, were cited as evidence of supply-side efficacy. Real GDP growth averaged 4.3% annually from 1983 to 1989, with inflation falling from double digits to around 4% by decade's end, despite large deficits—outcomes supply-siders attributed to unleashed incentives rather than Keynesian demand boosts or monetarist controls alone. Critics within Keynesian circles contended that growth stemmed from monetary easing and deficit spending, but supply-side analyses highlighted increased labor force participation (rising from 64% in 1980 to 67% by 1990) and capital formation as causal factors neglected in demand-focused models. New Classical economics, developed in the 1970s by Robert Lucas, Thomas Sargent, and others, mounted theoretical challenges via and , arguing that Keynesian models failed to account for agents' forward-looking behavior. The , articulated in 1976, posited that historical correlations in econometric models break down under policy changes because individuals adapt expectations and optimize accordingly, rendering predictions of fiscal or monetary interventions unreliable. For example, anticipated would prompt agents to adjust savings or labor supply, neutralizing intended stimulus effects—a flaw in Keynesian assumptions of stable behavioral parameters. The policy ineffectiveness proposition extended this by asserting that only unanticipated policy shocks influence real output, as rational agents neutralize systematic interventions; predictable fiscal expansions, for instance, lead to equivalent private sector offsets via , where debt-financed spending is viewed as future taxes. This invalidated Keynesian advocacy for countercyclical fine-tuning, as evidenced by the 1970s failure of such policies to avert , where models overestimated stimulus impacts amid accelerating inflation. , building on New Classical foundations, further attributed fluctuations to supply shocks like oil prices rather than demand shortfalls, with empirical variance decompositions showing technology shocks explaining over 50% of postwar U.S. output variability in calibrated models. These challenges collectively exposed Keynesian vulnerabilities in handling expectations, incentives, and supply dynamics, prompting shifts toward rules-based policies and microfounded models in subsequent decades. While New Keynesians later incorporated with nominal rigidities, the core critiques persisted, emphasizing that demand-side interventions overlook agents' strategic responses and long-run supply fundamentals.

Modern Variants and Recent Applications

New Keynesian Models with Microfoundations

New Keynesian models emerged in the 1980s as an effort to reconcile Keynesian macroeconomic outcomes—such as countercyclical effects on output—with microeconomic foundations grounded in optimizing agents and , addressing the that policy evaluations require explicit behavioral models to ensure parameter stability. These models retain management but derive short-run non-neutralities of money from nominal rigidities, rather than assumptions, positing that temporary deviations from flexible-price equilibria arise due to costly price adjustments by forward-looking firms. Central to these frameworks are microfoundations for nominal rigidities, including menu costs—small fixed costs of changing prices that lead firms to adjust infrequently despite rational optimization—and staggered pricing mechanisms, such as Calvo-style models where only a fraction of firms update prices each period, generating persistence in inflation dynamics. Labor market rigidities are similarly justified through theories, where firms pay above-market wages to incentivize worker effort and reduce shirking, as in Shapiro-Stiglitz models, resulting in sticky that amplify demand shocks. underpins firm behavior, with each producer facing downward-sloping demand curves and setting prices as markups over marginal costs, allowing aggregate price level sluggishness even under . The canonical New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model integrates these elements into Euler equations for consumption (yielding a forward-looking IS curve), a New Keynesian Phillips curve linking to expected future and output gaps via optimized price-setting, and a monetary policy rule like the for interest rates. This structure implies that monetary policy influences real activity through intertemporal substitution and cost-push effects during rigidity episodes, but converges to classical neutrality in the long run as prices fully adjust. Empirical implementations, often estimated via Bayesian methods on post-1980s data, have informed practices, though debates persist over rigidity parameters, with models explaining observed low-frequency price changes. Key contributions include Stanley Fischer's 1977 overlapping contracts for wages, extended to prices, and developments by Laurence Ball, N. Gregory Mankiw, and Julio Rotemberg in the late , which formalized coordination failures and near-rationality to sustain Keynesian multipliers without invoking irrationality. These models contrast with real alternatives by emphasizing demand-side fluctuations amplified by frictions, yet rely on empirical validation of rigidity microevidence, such as infrequent adjustments documented in scanner data from the onward.

Resurgence in 2008 and COVID-19 Crises

The 2008 global financial crisis, triggered by the collapse of on September 15, 2008, prompted a shift away from the pre-crisis consensus favoring limited fiscal intervention toward renewed advocacy for Keynesian-style . Policymakers in major economies implemented large-scale fiscal stimuli to counteract falling , with the U.S. enacting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) on February 17, 2009, which allocated approximately $831 billion for , cuts, and extended to boost consumption and investment. This approach echoed Keynesian prescriptions for countercyclical spending during liquidity traps, where alone proved insufficient amid credit freezes and private sector . Globally, similar measures included the UK's £20 billion fiscal expansion in November 2008 and China's 4 trillion yuan package, reflecting a temporary resurgence in fiscal activism as neoclassical models failed to anticipate or adequately address the downturn's depth. Intellectually, the crisis revived interest in Keynesian frameworks, with economists like arguing that insufficient stimulus prolonged the recession, while empirical analyses estimated ARRA's fiscal multiplier at around 1.5 for certain components, though overall GDP impact estimates varied from 1-3% uplift by 2010. Critics, however, contended that much of the spending crowded out private investment and contributed to long-term debt burdens without proportionally accelerating recovery, as U.S. public debt-to-GDP rose from 64% in 2007 to 94% by 2012, raising sustainability concerns under where households anticipate future tax hikes. This resurgence marked a departure from the 1980s-2000s emphasis on rules-based and , but its durability was questioned as recovery gained traction by 2010, shifting focus back to structural reforms. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 amplified this trend with unprecedented fiscal responses framed in Keynesian terms to offset lockdowns' demand and supply shocks. The U.S. , signed March 27, 2020, provided $2.2 trillion (about 10% of GDP) in direct payments, enhanced unemployment insurance, and business support, followed by additional packages totaling over $5 trillion through 2021, aimed at sustaining household income and preventing a depression-like collapse. Internationally, the EU's €750 billion NextGenerationEU recovery fund and debt suspensions exemplified coordinated stimulus, with proponents citing stabilization of consumption as evidence of efficacy, particularly for low-income households where is high. Yet, debates persist on net benefits: while fiscal measures mitigated GDP contraction to -3.4% in the U.S. in 2020, multipliers were estimated below 1 (e.g., 0.58 for components), and excess demand fueled the 2021-2022 inflation surge peaking at 9.1% in June 2022, exacerbating debt-to-GDP ratios exceeding 120% and prompting monetary tightening. These episodes highlighted Keynesianism's appeal in acute crises but underscored risks of fiscal dominance, where loose policy interactions amplify inflationary pressures and long-term crowding out without addressing underlying supply constraints.

Contemporary Debates on Inflation and Post-Growth Interpretations

The surge in global following the , peaking at 9.1% for U.S. CPI in June 2022, has reignited debates over Keynesian prescriptions for demand stimulus, with critics attributing much of the persistence to excessive fiscal expansion that outpaced supply recovery. Proponents of New Keynesian models, incorporating sticky prices and forward-looking expectations, initially framed the episode as largely transitory, driven by supply disruptions rather than demand-pull from interventions like the U.S. ($2.2 trillion in March 2020) and American Rescue Plan ($1.9 trillion in March 2021), which boosted amid constrained output. However, empirical analyses reveal a weakened relationship between and since the 1980s, exacerbated post-2020, where low (3.5% U.S. average in 2023) coincided with only after aggressive monetary tightening, challenging models reliant on demand management alone. These dynamics underscore tensions in Keynesian frameworks over fiscal-monetary interactions, as two-sector New Keynesian simulations incorporating input-output linkages show that coordinated loose amplified via pent-up and fiscal dominance, where central banks accommodated deficits through asset purchases. Detractors, drawing on quantity theory elements, highlight rapid M2 money supply growth (U.S. +40% from 2020-2021) as a causal driver overlooked in demand-centric narratives, with historical precedents like Keynes' own cautions against unchecked fueling price pressures. Post-pandemic reviews classify arguments into demand-driven (Keynesian-leaning), supply-shock, and cost-push camps, noting that while stimulus mitigated depths, it contributed to misallocation and welfare losses from sluggish price adjustments in rigid markets. This has prompted refinements in New Keynesian measures, acknowledging biases in fixed-weight indices that understate compared to bounded model predictions. Parallel discussions interpret Keynesian thought through a post-growth lens, emphasizing his 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren," where he forecasted that compound capital accumulation and productivity gains would resolve the "economic problem" within a century, enabling a 15-hour workweek and shift from growth obsession to leisure and arts by around 2030. Post-Keynesian extensions, focusing on effective demand and institutional instability, adapt this vision to ecological constraints, modeling unilateral post-growth transitions via stock-flow consistent frameworks that simulate reduced working hours and investment to balance North-South divides without perpetual expansion. These interpretations posit capitalism's inherent instability as compatible with steady-state economies, prioritizing demand-led policies for unemployment reduction over GDP targets, though mainstream Keynesians remain tied to growth for fiscal sustainability. Critics argue such readings strain causal realism, as empirical growth paths since 1930 have relied on demand stimuli that exacerbate resource depletion, with Post-Keynesian growth theory extending short-run demand effects into path-dependent supply dynamics but underemphasizing innovation's role in averting stagnation.

References

  1. https://www.[researchgate](/page/ResearchGate).net/publication/376097329_Austrian_vs_Post_Keynesian_explanations_of_the_business_cycle_an_empirical_examination
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