The dominant role of the "new consensus models" in central banks' policy-making in the last two decades has triggered the reaction of post-Keynesian economists to examine alternatives to inflation-targeting monetary strategies and to Taylor-type interest rate rules. This paper develops a simple...

This paper argues that the natural rate of unemployment hypothesis, in which equilibrium unemployment is determined by 'structural' variables alone, is wrong: it is both implausible and inconsistent with the evidence. Instead, equilibrium unemployment is haunted by hysteresis. The curious...

The volume of profits in an economy is a magnitude, which is out of sight of orthodox macroeconomic textbooks and effectively ignored by neoclassical macroeconomics. In contrast, Kalecki's approach brings to the forefront the sources of profits and makes possible their further analysis. In a...

This paper covers the history of secular stagnation from Alvin's Hansen's AEA Presidential address in 1938 to the recent re-discovery of the idea by Lawrence Summers. It is argued that the story of secular stagnation is more complicated than the simple version usually told: the theory changed in...

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was an economist and journalist. A member of the French Liberal School, he is best known for his free trade ideas and his philosophy of law. Mark Blaug ranks him as one of the 100 greatest economists before Keynes. Schumpeter called him a brilliant economic...

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist and journalist. One of his classic works is The Candlemakers' Petition, which uses the reductio ad absurdum philosophical technique to dismantle the arguments the French protectionists put forth to protect French industry in the mid-nineteenth...

This paper provides an overview and discussion of the legal and economic philosophy of Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), a French political economist. A bibliography with links to other Bastiat studies is also included

Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) was an economist and journalist. A member of the French Liberal School, he is best known for his free trade ideas and his philosophy of law. Mark Blaug ranks him as one of the 100 greatest economists before Keynes. Schumpeter called him a brilliant economic...

Keynes is back. President Obama's economic stimulus package is based on the premise that we can spend our way out of recession. It is an application of the Keynesian multiplier theory, which was expounded in Keynes' 1936 economic treatise, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money....

The Obama stimulus package has been less than a total success if one is to compare what was predicted to what has been delivered to date. The crux of the problem is that the economic planners have ignored or failed to take into account the secondary effects that increased government spending has...