The monetary economy has properties that cannot be analyzed using the tools of today's dynamic general equilibrium analysis. Keynes's economics, far from being an aberration in the otherwise orderly evolution of modern macroeconomics from Adam Smith's ideas about the invisible hand, was a major...

This paper examines Robert E. Lucas's views on the relationship of macroeconomics to real world economic phenomena, and on Keynes's place in its history, suggesting that these stem from a particular and debatable understanding of how the subdiscipline has evolved. It considers some implications...

The monetary economy has properties that cannot be analyzed using the tools of today's dynamic general equilibrium analysis. Keynes's economics, far from being an aberration in the otherwise orderly evolution of modern macroeconomics from Adam Smith's ideas about the "invisible hand", was a...

Modern growth theory derives mostly from Robert Solow's "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth" (1956). Solow's own interpretation locates the origins of his "Contribution" in his view that the growth model of Roy Harrod implied a tendency toward progressive collapse of the economy. He...

Modern growth theory derives mostly from Robert Solow's "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth" (1956). Solow's own interpretation locates the origins of his "Contribution" in his view that the growth model of Roy Harrod implied a tendency toward progressive collapse of the economy. He...

From its flow tide, fueled by the Cold War, to its ebbing with the anti-growth movement and the economic crises of the early 1970s, the "growthmen" of MIT stood at the center of the dominant field in macroeconomics. The history of MIT growth economics is traced from Solow's seminal neoclassical...

MIT emerged from "nowhere" in the 1930s to its place as one of the three or four most important sites for economic research by the mid-1950s. A conference held at Duke University in April 2013 examined how this occurred. In this paper the author argues that the immediate postwar period saw a...

Peter Howitt is best known for his contributions to growth theory, but his work in short- run economics, which began with his Ph.D thesis and still continues, is important and deserves attention. It lies firmly in the Keynesian macro-disequilibrium tradition of Clower and Leijonhufvud, and for a...

This paper explains the connection between ideas developed in my recent books and papers and those of economists who self-identify as post-Keynesians. My own work is both neoclassical and 'old Keynesian.' Much of my published work assumes that people have rational expectations and that 'animal...

The Financial Crisis of 2008, and the Great Recession in its wake, have shaken up macroeconomics. The paradigm of the 'New' Neoclassical Synthesis, which seemed to provide a robust framework of analysis for short-run macro not long ago, fails to capture key elements of the recent crisis. This...