Rethinking the Keynesian Revolution: Keynes, Hayek, and the Wicksell Connection - Hardcover

Goodspeed, Tyler Beck

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199846650 ISBN 13: 9780199846658

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2012

Synopsis

While standard accounts of the 1930s debates surrounding economic thought pit John Maynard Keynes against Friedrich von Hayek in a clash of ideology, this reflexive dichotomy is in many respects superficial. It is the argument of this book that both Keynes and Hayek developed their respective theories of the business cycle within the tradition of Swedish economist Knut Wicksell, and that this shared genealogy manifested itself in significant theoretical affinities between the two supposed antagonists. The salient features of Wicksell's work, namely the importance of money, the role of uncertainty, coordination failures, and the element of time in capital accumulation, all motivated the Keynesian and Hayekian theories of economic fluctuations. They also contributed to a fundamental convergence between the two economists during the 1930s. This shared, 'Wicksellian' vision of economic problems points to a very different research agenda from that of the Walrasian-style, general equilibrium analysis that has dominated postwar macroeconomics.

This book will appeal to economists interested in historical perspective of their discipline, as well as historians of economic thought. The author not only deconstructs some of the historical misconceptions of the Keynes versus Hayek debate, but also suggests how the insights uncovered can inform and instruct modern theory. While much of the analysis is technical, it does not assume previous knowledge of 1930s economic theory, and should be accessible to economists, political scientists, and historians with general economics training, as well as to graduate students in these fields.

About this title

Review:

Goodspeed has here provided a solid, techinal and historical recounting of the older Cambridge Capital Controversies that will be quite useful for scholars interested in Keynes, Hayek, and the economics that issued from Cambridge. (The European Journal of Economic Thought)

About the Author:

Currently a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University, Goodspeed was previously a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, earning Class I* Honours for his dissertation on Keynes and Hayek. He received an A.B. with highest honors in economics and history from Harvard.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0199846650
• ISBN 13: 9780199846658
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 204