The Classical Concept of Saving and the Stockholm School

This paper explores the connections between the theories of the Stockhom School and the economic orthodoxy of the 1930's. First, we reconstitute the classical, Cambridge and Wicksell's conceptions on saving and its relations with investment. Next, we define the unifying principle behind the analyses of these different approaches as regards the stability of macroeconomic dynamics. After that, we compare the orthodox theories of saving with Lindahl, Myrdal and Ohlin's views on wicksellian cumulative processes. The main conclusion is that the Swedish authors, when dealing with crucial points of their models, stayed too close to the traditional economic thought then in vogue, impairing thus the capacitity of their own theories to become a true anticipation of the keynesian ideas