Keynes, Sraffa and the Emergence of the General Theory: Some Thoughts

This note looks into the issue of whether or not Sraffa had any significant influence on Keynes’s thinking in the period of preparation of the General Theory. Questioning the view recently expressed by Pasinetti (2007), we suggest there is reason to surmise that Sraffa may have pointed Keynes to a way of escape from the traditional conception of the rate of interest, a line of thought which Keynes developed into the liquidity preference explanation of interest on money.