The canonical history of macroeconomics, one of the rival schools of thought and the great economists, gives Robert Lucas a prominent role in shaping the recent developments in the area. According to it, his followers were initially split into two camps, the "real business cycle" theorists with...

The fit of empirical Taylor Rules to Brazilian data improves if we consider the hypothesis of interest rate inertia. Inertia seems to be part of monetary policy of several countries and reflects the action of Central Banks of not adjusting once-for-all to changing conditions. This article...

Present-day macroeconomics has sometimes been dubbed ‘the new neoclassical synthesis’, suggesting that it constitutes a reincarnation of the neoclassical synthesis of the 1950s. This paper assesses this understanding. To this end, we examine the contents of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’...

Frank P. Ramsey (b. 1903 – d. 1930) was a Cambridge mathematician who interacted closely to leading economists of his time such as Arthur Cecil Pigou, John Maynard Keynes and Roy Harrod. In the 1920s he was considered by many as a brilliant student who was clearly integrated to the elite group...

Paul Anthony Samuelson proposed and practiced a program for the Whig history of economics. One such example is his account of Frank Ramsey’s contribution to optimal taxation in 1927. For him, and mainly for the public finance economists who rediscovered later Ramsey’s contribution, Ramsey...

Macroeconomists have emphasized the force of facts in forging a consensus understanding of business cycle fluctuations. According to this view, rival economists could no longer hold disparate views on the topic because “facts have a way of not going away” (Blanchard 2009). But how can...

Macroeconomics, or the science of fluctuations in aggregate activity, has always been portrayed as a field composed of competing schools of thought and in a somewhat recurrent state of disarray. Nowadays, macroeconomists are proud to announce that a new synthesis characterizes their field: no...