Involuntary Unemployment, from Keynes to the New Keynesians
The objective of the present study is to reflect upon the evolution of Keynesian theory from a specific angle of attack, by recounting the evolution of ideas regarding the theoretical acceptability of one particular yet central concept, namely involuntary unemployment. The first part presents my own reconstruction of the theoretical project Keynes set himself forth in his General Theory . In the second part, I look at the fundamental difficulty encountered with this project. In the third part I develop the thesis, which some will find provocative, that, despite appearances, the involuntary unemployment result is obtained neither in the General Theory, nor in the standard IS-LM models. The fourth part is devoted to a discussion of Patinkin and Clower’s interpretation of involuntary unemployment as well as Barro and Grossman’s synthesis of their views. In the fifth part, I evaluate the anti-Keynesian offensive spearheaded by Friedman and Lucas. In the sixth part, I look at the significance of involuntary unemployment in some ‘new Keynesian’ models.