Rethinking the Keynesian Revolution Keynes, Hayek, and the Wicksell Connection

by Goodspeed, Tyler Beck

• ISBN13: 9780199846658
• ISBN10: 0199846650
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-07-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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 respectivetheories 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 ofuncertainty, 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 ofeconomic 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 informand 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.

Author Biography

Currently a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University, Tyler 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.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Rethinking the Keynesian Revolution	p. 1
The Wicksell Connection	p. 16
Wicksell's Monetary Theory	p. 18
Wicksell's Capital Theory	p. 24
The Wicksell Connection	p. 29
A Treatise versus Prices and Production	p. 40
A Treatise on Money	p. 41
Prices and Production	p. 51
The Wicksell Connection	p. 58
The Sraffa Connection	p. 67
Hayek on Keynes	p. 68
Keynes on Hayek	p. 70
Sraffa on Hayek	p. 73
The General Theory	p. 86
Own-Rates of Interest and the Marginal Efficiency of Capital	p. 88
Liquidity Preference	p. 94
The Cumulative Process	p. 99
Pure Theory of Capital	p. 118
Rates of Increase of the Product	p. 119
Marginal Value Product of Investment	p. 121
The Cumulative Process	p. 135
Keynes, Hayek, and the Wicksell Connection	p. 158
Acknowledgements	p. 173
Bibliography	p. 175
Index	p. 189
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