Talk:Keynesian economics/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

a request for more detail

Can someone put this in layman's terms please! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.235.46.2 (talk) 00:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone needs to go into more detail about the critiques of Keynes, and later developments. Stirling Newberry 23:05, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Dang that is some very good editting jd Stirling Newberry 02:36, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

thanks. I like to edit. Jdevine 04:22, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It reads extremely well now, much more polished and much smoother. It seems we probably need a neo-Keynesian page to differentiate between what might be called classical Keynesianism and more recent work. Stirling Newberry 06:11, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You've really been a flurry of activity on this page, and the article shows it in quality. My suggestion is to move the entire section "subsequent developments" to a second article. This one is bumping up against length limits. Stirling Newberry 21:36, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've started the article at Neo-Keynesian Economics, which right now more or less has the bottom section of this article. Have not removed anything from this article yet, but the logical thing to do would be to cut the bottom. I've also removed the "liberalism" link, since it is, currently, heavily libertarian POV. Perhaps when there has been some time to get it to settle, but for right now, especially while there is a "this article is undergoing a major edit" hold on it, I am uncomfortable with linking to it. Stirling Newberry 21:52, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

good idea: move most of the stuff at the end of Keynesian economics entry to a new article. That leaves more space to make the Keynesian page a bit deeper. But isn't it "New Keynesian" rather than "neo-Keynesian"? Mankiw calls it "new Keynesian" and he's the leader of that pack. jim Jdevine 16:34, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I am going to hold off from editing the last part of this entry, so you can slice off the "new Keynesian" parts. I also have some scraps of the previous version that I want to put back in the earlier parts, but they're at work (and I'm at home). Jdevine 17:12, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I dropped this paragraph:>One way to see this is to think in terms of stocks of money. If households cut their consumption, they accumulate money. But the overall stock of money in the economy does not change as a result of their saving. It simply means that there is less in the bank accounts of business and more in the bank accounts of households. And if the overall stock of money (and other assets) is unchanged, it is unclear why interest rates should move in response to changes in saving behaviour.< I'll rewrite it so that it makes more sense to me and then put it back in. Jim 23:45, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

While I have the utmost respect for Keynes and how his ideas shaped history during a serious crisis in international economics, can someone please explain how Keynes distrusted "speculation" while he himself engaged in heavy currency trading and speculation? --L. 14:23, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Post-Keynesian Economics

Someday, when I get around to it, I'll add a section on post-Keynesian economics. In the interim, I would strongly suggest that such a section be added. See Foundations of International Economics: Post Keynesian Perspectives, for example.

--Imagine&Engage 10:17, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Keynes and Chaos

You know, those diagrams with the lines remind me very much of those diagrams that generate chaotic atractors. There is an assumption that the market must settle at the intersection point. That is the case for damped systems, but not for free ones.

Would it be worthwhile adding some links from here to the chaos theory related pages?

No. The free market is systemically dampened. There are multiple feedback mechanisms (primarily price) that drive supply and demand toward an equilbrium point. An example is that increases in price dampen demand and increases in supply dampen prices. As an EE (and someone who's read Wealth of Nations cover to cover) I am using these terms in their technical/mathematical sense.

The same goes for chaos theory. I suspect you don't have a mathematical background for applying these technical concepts to economics, nor do I think this is the place to do. I fear you'd be treading on some dangerous ground there friend.

Noahmercy4u (talk) 12:38, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

External Links

I think that having Hayek's Road to Serfdom as the only external link is disengenuous. Clearly we should have some links to sites about Keynes or Keynesian economics. I'll see about putting some more in when I have time. Also, the link to Hayek's Road to Serfdom, which came out in 1944, needs to be contextualized: until the neoliberal turn in the late 70s, Hayek, Friedman, and that crowd were thought to be extremists and were virtually off the scope of scholarly debate at that time. Just my thoughts... Originalexplorer 19:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Misqotation for Keynesian article:

Misqotation for Keynesian article:

Richard Nixon did not say "We are all Keynesians now." Milton Friedman did. What Nixon said: "I am now a Keynesian."

The story:

In response to the US economic decline of late 1969-1970, which he precipitated by following conservative economist Milton Friedman's advice on tightening the US money supply so to check inflation, but then promptly reversing course when the country fell into a recession, what Nixon actually said, in an interview with Howard K. Smith of ABC (January 4, 1971), was "I am now a Keynesian."

The quote "we are all Keynesians now," was said by the same Milton Friedman, responding to Lyndon B. Johnson's Keynesian tax cut of 1964, which was a triumph even beyond the expectations of the liberal (Keynesian) economists advocating it, as well as to the more laissez-faire Friedman. One may note that Friedman in his earlier career, during the 1940's, was more Keynesian: cf.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Political_views

The positive effects of the Johnson tax cut and resulting dynamic economic growth is the feature article in the Dec. 31, 1965 issue of Time Magazine, "We Are All Keynesians Now.": http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,842353,00.html

(Curiously, Friedman, as best as my reviewing could tell, is not mentioned or cited in this Time article, though his quotation is the basis for the article title.)

Source for the above concerning the quotations: William E. Leuchtenburg, A Troubled Feast: American Society since 1945, updated edition (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1983), pp. 137, 225.

p. 137 contains the Friedman quote; p. 225 has the Nixon quote.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Keynesian_economics"

This is Keynesian propaganda.

"In one sense, we are all Keynesians now; in another, no one is a Keynesian any longer. We all use the Keynesian language and apparatus, none of us any longer accepts the initial Keynesian conclusions." - Milton Friedman

http://www.mskousen.com/Books/Articles/exkeynes.html

68.70.219.17 17:35, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, no--this is not Keynesian propaganda (at least not meant to be). The above quote was made by Friedman in 1968 (as the article in the link indicates), clearly when the US economy was on more shaky ground. The original quote of "we are all Keynsian now" was first uttered in 1964 by Friedman, who was clearly more of a conservative at this point, but the context of the quote was clearly due to the success of the 1964 tax cut. The idea that he was misquoted in 1964 strikes me more as Friedman's own propaganda, as he was then serving as an economic advisor to Barry Goldwater, whose own economic platform was totally lasseiz faire, and who was arguing for the total dismantling of the New Deal--the very idea of not being a Keynesian AT ALL, and clearly under the influence of Friedman's monetarism, where for the first time sense the Depression that such ideas were being given some credence (though it wouldn't be until the Reagan era that they gained ground and practical implementation).

And speaking of propaganda is this why you (I assume) deleted entirely this section on Nixon and Friedman on the actual Wikipedia page for "Keysenian Economics?" Why not just keep it--and add your own comments to them. After all, I cited my source for my quotations to show good faith, nor were my quotations in error, as I double-checked my source for them before submitting the article. And it would let readers more readily decide for themselves.

Other web-reading:

Cf. http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/1976/friedman-autobio.html Cf. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/06/the_pragmatist_and_the_utopian?pg=full Cf. http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/0305.shtml

I removed it because the factuality of it is credibly disputed and discussion of whether Friedman said this or that has no place in this article.

The lone Nixon quote does not belong here either. Nixon is not an authority on economics. The personal viewpoint of any particular President of the United States on Keynesianism has no place in an article on Kenesian Economics. If you can somehow integrate it into the rest of the article as a side note in a way that isn't forced I have no problem with it, but having a separate point just to say that Nixon once announced he was a Keynesian is ridiculous. It belongs in Wikiquote, or maybe in an article about Nixon. Not here.

pronunciation

"Keynesian economics (pronounced KAYNzian)"... That pronunciation guide is almost completely useless; someone care to put it in IPA? Is the correct pronunciation ['kejnziən] or ['kajnziən], or neither? My economics teacher pronounces it ['kinziən]. Mscnln 03:27, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

According to Economics Explained by James Heilbroner and Lester Thurow, "Keynes" is pronounced "Canes." --Mr. Billion 21:15, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

There's links to pro-Hayekian sites. Are there any good pro-Keynesian sites we can link to?

82.32.21.160 15:24, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Confusing sentence

In the Historical Background section, there is this sentence: "With the global drop in production, critics of the gold standard, market self-correction, and production-driven paradigms of economics moved to the fore."

I don't understand. Was it market self-correction or critics of market self-correction that moved to the fore? What does moving to the fore mean? Maybe someone who understands it could rewrite it. Sarah crane 14:21, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

---

And another: In the Active Fiscal Policy section, it says "But to many the true success of Keynesian policy can be seen at the onset of World War II, which provided a kick to the world economy, removed uncertainty, and forced the rebuilding of destroyed capital." Okay, I can see how WWII forced the rebuilding of destroyed capital, but how did it provide a "kick" to the world economy? It used up huge amounts of Europe's capital in destroying itself. Afterwards Europe ceased being a world power, and European countries had to give up all their overseas territories. When England spent tons of pounds to make bombs that blew up German bridges (and the bombs themselves), or vice versa, I can't see how that helped either England's or Germany's economy. And "removed uncertainty"? WWII had to be the most uncertain period in modern European history! Could someone either remove that sentence or explain it? Sarah crane 15:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The end of laissez-faire?

I am no expert on economics, but the claim that Keynesian economics marked THE END of laissez-faire economics seems overly definitive. Is that really true? I had thought that there is no one true economic theory - each theory involves its own set of assumptions and models only particular aspects of an economy. If so, then how can one theory completely supplant another? And what does it mean for an economic theory to "end." Unlike scientific theories which can be disproved upon experimentation, how can you really say that "laissez-faire" economics was ended?

Did you mean that the emergence of Keynesian economics marked the falling out of favor of "laissez-faire" policy?

                     (Muhammad Farooq Usman)Italic text

Reply: Keynesian economics is not exactly so much a killing of Laissez-Faire (known as Classical Economics), but it introduced the opposing side of the economic ideologies. In reality the economy performs in the middle, where government interference does have its consequences in terms of the inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment. Both Keynesian and Classical economics are essentially simplifications of the system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.213.84.168 (talk) 15:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

class paper

reads far too much like a class paper than an encyclopedia article. author draws too many of his own conclusions, uses lofty language inappropriate for a reference work, e.g.: Into this tumult stepped Keynes, promising not to institute revolution but to save capitalism. that's really not a hard and factual telling of events, just a lame interpretation like the rest of the article.

This post reads more like the first draft of a class paper than a constructive criticism. Oooh.--Blingice 03:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Escessive Savings

In theory, savings in excess of investment would push toward a current account surplus. Excess funds would be used by the financial sector to reduce foreign debt or to increase their overseas holdings (depending on the difference in interest rates). Instead of promoting recession, excess savings would cause a devaluation in the currency (extra supply created by selling currency on the forex market) which would promote exports and reduce imports (boosting domestic producers, in theory). Secondly, savings in excess of investment would tend to reduce interest rates (at least somewhat) and boost investment and consumption to return the savings-investment balance (nonetheless this effect would be smaller than the first postulate).

Although the article is largely correct, it misses out these factors which in theory deny that excess savings are recessionary.

If too much money entered the financial sector, funds managers would be content speculating on riskier investments or assets, creating massive instabilities at a macro level. Empirically, every historical growth of the financial sector has resulted in such risky practices, instabilities, and collapses. Your theory rests on too many a priori assumptions. 65.31.118.134 (talk) 03:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

TECHNOCRATS

just wondering why everyone seems to associate "keynesians" with "technocrats" i meaan are they like a god or somehting?

This is not a forum, and I don't see where you see this. 128.95.209.147 (talk) 22:01, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

---

Economics articles

From a little more than a brief glance at its peers, this page presents itself as a quality written article on economics Thanks to the contributors for their work. --Kenneth M Burke 03:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

What's missing here?

"In his political views, was very critical of rentiers and speculators, from a somewhat Fabian perspective."

I'm just scanning this article briefly while at work, and know little on the subject. Someone please complete the sentence. Should it begin with the name "Keynes?"

That sentence has been repeatedly cut, pasted, and chopped up by people asserting different things about his (Keynes') political views. Someone who actually knows something should provide a referenced description of his views. --Rinconsoleao 08:51, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

conclusory esp. on redistribution

This is not an encyclopedia POV article, but too often a polemic from the mainstream/Friedman economics perspective that concludes (as that perspective does) with dismissal on various grounds of Keynesian economics. Particularly so in the sections on redistribution and its effects.Haberstr (talk) 20:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Getgo

I have a huge problem with the first sentence of the lede:

Keynesian economics (pronounced /ˈkeɪnziən/, also Keynesianism and Keynesian Theory, is an economic theory based on the ideas of twentieth-century British economist John Maynard Keynes.

There are numerous interpretations and there is endless argument about “what Keynes really meant”. As such, the term “Keynesian economics” refers to a cluster of economic theories based upon various interpretations of the work of John Maynard Keynes, rather than being an economic theory. —SlamDiego_←T 23:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Yep. This has been the only correct contribution on this talk page. Any economist can confirm that Keynesian economisc/Keynesianism is:

• in economics: nothing but a collective designation for theories that claim to be based on Keynes (otherwise they have no systematic string of ideas in common, because Keynes died before he was able to specify major details of his theories and the written texts are very disputed and allow hundreds of interpretations)
• informally or in politics (here cited from N. Gregory Mankiw from the book Modern Macroeconomics, 2005):
  • the belief that the business cycle represents some sort of market imperfection, or
  • the belief in fine-tuning the economy so that the government controls every wiggle of ups and downs
  • the belief that the business cycle is a sign of market perfection
  • ....

So: there is the theory of Keynes himself, there is the theory of the Neoclassical synthesis, the Neokeynesians, Postkeynesians, New Keynesians etc., but a theory (one theory) that could be called Keynesian Economics simply does not exist and has never existed. Keynesianism only exists as an informal designation for some of the above mentioned (or similar) believes, the above list of believes could be extended endlessly. This article is a nice example of pages covered by text being inherently wrong. But I admit that the myth that there is an economic theory that could be called Keynesianism is very popular among non-economists. The following language version of the wikipedia is the only one I have found to provide a correct article on Keynesianims - a disambiguation page: [1] Econ666 (talk) 02:48, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Since when are there completely unified schools of thought in any field of research? Any field of research where a perfect consensus has not yet been reached will have many points of view. Lecturers and writers and historians will label people or papers, saying "that's a Keynesian viewpoint" or "that's an Austrian viewpoint" or "that's a Darwinian viewpoint" or "that's a version of string theory". But there is debate within Keynesian economics, and within Austrian economics, and within Darwinian biology, and within string theory. What should we do: give every researcher's point of view a different name? Even that wouldn't work, since sometimes individual researchers change their minds or work within multiple schools of thought.

The useful way of studying the history of thought, in any field, is to summarize points of view according to broad similarities. Otherwise readers and students and researchers and certainly the general public just get lost in a marsh of endless debate. There is a coherent pattern of ideas in Keynesian economics, and in my personal opinion it is neither more nor less coherent than the pattern of ideas in neoclassical economics, or Darwinian biology, for example (I know less about Austrian economics and string theory, so I can't judge how coherent those points of view are).

Therefore I would strongly oppose turning Keynesian economics into a disambiguation page. Of course I would support improving it (it's basically a mess), and I support writing articles on some more specific schools within Keynesianism, such as New Keynesian economics. But just because schools have subschools does not mean the classification is unhelpful. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 08:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Point well taken – I’ve elaborated some on different schools of thought in Keynesian economics#Postwar Keynesianism and fronted in the lede that interpretation is contentious; it could certainly bear elaboration (I’ve mostly said: “Some people put a neoclassical interpretation, some reject that”.).

Agreed that it should not be a disambiguation page – the term “Keynesian economics” is both widely used and a useful concept with broadly agreed on components, but with much debate on interpretation.

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 12:57, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

No, Ricons..., you are definitly wrong on this. You are wrong in that you are simply assuming that because people use the term Keynesian, it somehow first "must" be a school and second the term somehow "must" have a precise meaning. Both assumptions are plainly wrong. In addition, Keynesian economics is NOT analogous to any other economic or philosophical school having "subschools" (and here again you simply assume this), because the term Keynesian is very specific in that it simply has no universal meaning. To be more precise, (a) just write down exactly the characteristics of the individual schools known as "Keynesian" - you will find out that they - as a whole, i.e. ALL of them taken together - simply do not have anything substantial in common (and of course certainly do not have more in common than say any other two "officially" unrelated schools); those who find similarities simply have not studied economic thought properly and oversimplify things in this case, (b) take encyclopaedias and dictionaries, you will see that there are maybe 50 DIFFERENT definitions - and there is no standard, no law, which could be used as a reference to decide which one is right or wrong, because the term simply has many meanings - it is as simple as that (c) if you look at the correct list above (by Econ66) the term is largely defined by various believes/one-sentence "views"; again this shows clearly that it is not a school of thought - it is simply a political buzzword or a collective term for various schools having not enough in common (except that they formally declare that they are successors of Keynes, which they usually are not). The belief that government spending is good (as an example) is not a school of thought, but it is frequently known as Keynesianism (whether you or me or other economists like this definition or not), (d) take for example the book Snowdon: Modern Macroeconomics and the interview with Mankiw (certainly the most prominent "Keynesian") - he himself insists there that the term has no clear or single meaning. To sum up, this article is simply misleading, it does not have to be a disambiguation page but it should be nothing more than a commented list of the many differing possible meanings of the term., i.e. basically a more linguistic than economic text. Deliberately choosing one of the meanings and pretending that this is the correct meaning (which the article currently does) is original research and simply "wrong information". IIIabop (talk) 00:18, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The lemma lets it seem as if Keynesianism were the natural and direct outcome of Keynes' General Theory. That is not at all the whole truth, since in the history of economic theories Keynesianism in its offical American version is stemming from Paul Samuelson, and this one is rather innocent of the reading of the General Theory. See hereto that quote (IV: HOW DID SAMUELSON LEARN KEYNES’S THEORY?):

"Samuelson has indicated that his first knowledge of Keynes’s General Theory was gained from Bryce [C–L, 1996, p. 158]. Moreover, even after reading the General Theory in 1936, Samuelson, perhaps reflecting Bryce’s view of the difficulty of understanding Keynes’s book, found the General Theory analysis “unpalatable” and not comprehensible [C-L, 1996, p. 159]. Samuelson finally indicated that “The way I finally convinced myself was to just stop worrying about it [about understanding Keynes’s analysis] . I asked myself: why do I refuse a paradigm that enables me to understand the Roosevelt upturn from 1933 till 1937? ... I was content to assume that there was enough rigidity in relative prices and wages to make the Keynesian alternative to Walras operative” [C-L, 1996, pp159-160].

Paul Davidson: Keynes' Serious Monetary Theory.

To the question: Was Keynes a Keynesian? see also my: War Keynes ein Keynesianer? and see here also the listed literature. --Meffo (talk) 10:03, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Politicians mangle economics

...and we need to untangle the mess. On the subject of what constitutes Keynesian economics, a reasonable litmus test is that the material is reasonably in line with what Keynes wrote, especially in the General Theory.

The work is first and foremost highly technical, written for professional economists - addressing certain assumptions in now forgotten economic models; policy recommendations are secondary and brief.

• in regard to the theory, it assumes free enterprise.

• to the extent that it does deal with policy recommendations: In stark contrast to some of the characterizations of Keynes and The General Theory by politicians, pundits, and in print over the decades, the work advocates transforming a greater part of society to embrace the meritocracy and risk taking of private ownership and free markets - as opposed to the now anachronistic mentality that only the rich take part in such activities.

`Debate` and `controversy` are often weasel words in this regard: if a characterization is wrong, then it should be absent from an encyclopedia, or clearly labeled as such, along with the historical notability.

It is bizarre how often I hear and read people advocate the same things Keynes advocated, and yet frame them as anti-Keynesian. Blablablob (talk) 21:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

By "the work" do you mean the article or the work of Keynes? I'm having a hard time following your comments. Are you saying the article assumes free enterprise? Your second bullet is even less clear to me... what exactly is your point? —Memotype::T 03:48, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Hoover raised taxes?

"For example, Keynesians see Herbert Hoover's June 1932 tax increase as making the Depression worse." I thourght he cutted the taxes. That is what there is tolde here: Herbert Hoover. I would like to see some citation of that. --Lindberg47 (talk) 23:27, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

What of individual investment of individual savings

Savings are thought of as potential energy; as energy available to drive an economy rather than actually driving it. Savings are thought of as residing in a bank which lends them out responsibly to create debt on the one hand and wealth on the other. An alternative view of savings might include money invested by individuals to privatise debt and wealth eliminating the middle man. This market consumerism; individuals buying market equity instead of new cars, houses, or consumables doesn't directly affect the price of goods, create demand for production, reduce supply, create jobs or contribute to inflation except as it creates wealth and debt. Rktect (talk) 10:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Keynesianism is a macroeconomic theory; suppositions about individual consumer behavior are microeconomic.

The alternative view of savings that you put forth suggests that investing and saving aren't distinct concepts; Keynesian theory contends that they are. Also how can money invested by individuals "privatize" debt and wealth? By eliminating which middle man? I'm not sure I follow you. Daydream set (talk) 20:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

it should be the other way round —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.27.235.93 (talk) 13:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

This article needs an introduction

The leading section of this article is a series of nearly unconnected paragraphs. What the article needs is an introduction that makes the main points. Further details should be moved to other sections. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 12:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I’ve provided a summary in this revision – hope it satisfies!

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 12:53, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Historical Accuracy

I would suggest that anyone editing Keynes related articles read the last chapter of the General Theory if they havn't already; there is much urban myth regarding Keynes attitude toward entrepreneurship and the roll of government - the summary chapter of his most famous work should clear much of that up —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blablablob (talk • contribs) 05:30, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, to mangle a quote, he came to praise the free-market economy, not to bury it. LK (talk) 05:06, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I’ve put a note in the lede saying as much (mixed economy, middle way, criticized from both left and right); the point may bear elaboration in later sections.

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 12:52, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Criticism from the left

The "Criticism" section only deals with neoliberal, laissez faire critiques. There is just as much socialist criticism. I am not qualified to write a subsection on this, but I think that someone should. --n-k, 02:19, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Austrian criticism is misrepresented

The current section can be summarized as this:

• keynesian theory easily leads to oversized government
• keynesian theory easily leads to abuse of power
• keynesian theory is fundamentally flawed

However, this is not the most important criticism by Austrians. Austrians claim that any Keynesian policies inevitably lead to recession, and actually created many. Even if the government is small, even if it uses its power with the best intentions. And it is not some philosophical theoretical point, but rather real.

I tried to add this, but was reverted by Lawrencekhoo as too much.

Krisztián Pintér (talk) 18:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be good if you could, 1) Source any additions 2) condense the section as it is already overweight. LK (talk) 23:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

instead of adding as new information, i tried to reformulate the first argument to this more relevant one, and link to the body of the theory. i wonder if you agree that version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krisztián Pintér (talk • contribs) 20:18, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Quote from antiquity was misrepresented/misunderstood and does not prove the point

"There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.

The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself."

— Proverbs 11:24–25

This is an ancient Hebrew poetry/wisdom literature device called a "couplet."

The left-hand side talks of the use of material goods, while the right-hand side talks of spiritual consequences.

So, whomever is *generous* profits their own *soul*.

These verses do *not* promote socialism or government intervention of wealth.

It does not promote forced altruism but tells us that voluntary altruism makes the heart joyful.

This has nothing to do with Keynesian Economics, Communism, Socialism, or Capitalism at all!

I removed it from the main page, since it was totally taken out of context and does not prove your point at all! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikehoskins (talk • contribs) 03:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Unemployment on average as too high? from Alan Blinder encyclopedia article.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/KeynesianEconomics.html , Alan Blinder, 2002, the following is from the fourth numbered point:

“ . . In fact, Keynesians typically see unemployment as both too high on average and too variable, although they know that rigorous theoretical justification for these positions is hard to come by. Keynesians also feel certain that periods of recession or depression are economic maladies, not, as in real business cycle theory, efficient market responses to unattractive opportunities. . ”

this is a straightforward claim, that Keynesians view unemploymet as typically too high. I'm just wondering if we have included it in our article in a similar straightforward way? 74.124.35.214 (talk) 17:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

And from Blinder's fifth numbered point: " . . Yet many Keynesians still believe that more modest goals for stabilization policy—coarse-tuning, if you will—are not only defensible but sensible. For example, an economist need not have detailed quantitative knowledge of lags to prescribe a dose of expansionary monetary policy when the unemployment rate is very high. . " —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.124.35.214 (talk) 17:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The part where we talk about deficit spending is good

"Precursors " . . While a number of the policies Keynes advocated (notably government deficit spending) . . "

"Active fiscal policy

" . . Rather than seeing unbalanced government budgets as wrong, Keynes advocated what has been called countercyclical fiscal policies, that is policies which acted against the tide of the business cycle: deficit spending when a nation's economy suffers from recession or when recovery is long-delayed and unemployment is persistently high . . "

and also including the part with Keynes' famous quote

" . . He argued that governments should solve problems in the short run rather than waiting for market forces to do it in the long run, because "in the long run, we are all dead."[13]" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.124.35.214 (talk) 18:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

but we may be losing an opportunity

"priming the pump"

"alphabet-soup programs of the New Deal"

That is, we may have an opportunity to talk about, in very straightforward fashion, some of the better known aspects of Keynesian economics.

at least it seems that way to me. 74.124.35.214 (talk) 18:20, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Audible pronunciation?

There is a little speaker icon [2] next to the pronunciation key of this article, but it is not clickable in multiple browsers I've tried it in. I guess this speaker should be removed, or link to an actual audio file. dtemp (talk) 04:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Is this a error in the article?

This part of the article""" Classical economics, on the other hand, argues that one should cut taxes when there are budget surpluses, and cut spending—or, less likely, increase taxes—during economic downturns.

Keynesian economists believe that adding to profits and incomes during boom cycles through tax cuts, and removing income and profits from the economy through cuts in spending and/or increased taxes during downturns, tends to exacerbate the negative effects of the business cycle."""

Is it just me, or is this saying the same thing twice? This part of the article needs to be corrected- as Keynesian theory does not perfectly match Classical Theory in those situations.

Finally, this occurs in multiple places in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.85.145.196 (talk) 16:53, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Active Fiscal Policy

As the tag notes, there is a lot of unsourced BS'ing going on in this section of the article. I find the third to last paragraph in the section to be the worst offender - I assert that it's confusing, irrelevant and unsourced. I'm going to remove the whole thing unless someone either sources it or makes a compelling case why it should be in the article. Nwlaw63 (talk) 15:49, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Gini index and the collapse of planned investment

"To Keynes, excessive saving, i.e. saving beyond planned investment, was a serious problem,
encouraging recession or even depression. Excessive saving results if investment falls, perhaps due
to falling consumer demand, over-investment in earlier years, or pessimistic business expectations,
and if saving does not immediately fall in step, the economy would decline."  

Is it just me, or is the vast difference between wages (labor) and salary (management) creating a vast gulf between "consumer demand" and [not-so-intelligently] "planned investment"? All the money is at the top of the pyramid, looking for dividends and speculative income, and not finding anything safe, as consumer spending cannot create any more investment opportunities than it already has. Consumers are buying all that they have the income to afford, and then spending even more than that through extensions of credit.

Further, I've been reading the original work by Keynes, and how he defines terms like "marginal utility of capital" seems to be grounded entirely in a world-view which now seems archaic. Information and cybernetic economies and business have no place in it, along with "just-in-time" production, and many other phenomena we now take for granted.

I realize that all of this falls easily under "original research", but I consider such observations to be vastly more intelligible and accessible than the material I see in the Criticisms section.

Do you remember when George Bush Sr. was startled by the laser UPC reader at a grocery store? Academic economists and economics continuously remind me of that moment. -- TheLastWordSword (talk) 14:35, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Removed claim that stagflation has "plagued" Barack Obama

Simply not true. Stagflation requires high unemployment and high inflation at the same time. That has not happened during Obama's presidency. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.219.29.34 (talk) 03:44, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

potential resource

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/28/the_global_thinkers_20_most_recommended_books?page=0,12

99.19.42.30 (talk) 07:29, 4 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.190.81.65 (talk)

That would be a Further Reading, Keynes: The Return of the Master (2009) by Robert Skidelsky. Recommended by Saskia Sassen and Martin Wolf

99.181.130.209 (talk) 01:09, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Not a shred of potential relevance to this article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:31, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Keynes: The Return of the Master 99.181.128.45 (talk) 09:26, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Huh? Second paragraph makes no sense/doesn't fit

I'm not the right person to edit this, but what is the second paragraph talking about? Why does it begin with "also"? --132.69.237.157 (talk) 19:45, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment on para 3 within Concepts / Wages and Spending

This paragraph starts with 'He also argued that to boost employment, real wages had to go down ...' The whole paragraph then suggests that boosting employment would decrease aggregate demand, because of wage cuts, and this would make matters worse.

This paragraph is badly flawed in that it seems to make Keynes say the opposite of what he actually said. A major concern for Keynes was to reduce what he called 'involuntary unemployment'. So his General Theory dealt with how to boost employment especially in a recession or depression. To argue that boosting employment in a recession would make things worse is completely contrary to what Keynes said.

A SUGGESTED ALTERATION

Either the whole paragraph starting with 'He also argued..' and ending 'make matters worse' should be removed. Or it could be replaced with the following:

Keynes considered the explanations underlying the idea held by Classical Economists that wage reductions would cure recessions. He showed that each explanation was faulty (General Theory chapter 19). Keynes then examined the most likely consequences of wage reductions in a recession in various different circumstances. He concluded that wage reductions across the whole economy would be more likely to make a recession worse rather than better.

I have now changed the article by replacing the paragraph with a more correct one, and I hope it is more clear and succinct than my suggestion above! Botanic88 (talk) 15:22, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Introduction

I have a serious problem with the ending of the introduction section. "The advent of the global financial crisis in 2008 has caused a resurgence in Keynesian thought" Is only citing one source, this is hardly a "resurgence". Also, if anything the financial crisis has actually made economist look more critically at government's role in economic policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.88.174 (talk) 02:09, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Austrian School criticisms

I noticed that the "Austrian School criticisms" section of the Keynesian economics article only mentions Hayek and Hazlitt and I was wondering what it would take to be able to include any related information newer than Hazlitt's The Failure of the New Economics. The Austrian School still continues on today, so I feel that it would be beneficial if we could mention information newer than 1959.

For instance, would one be able to mention another publication if it was endorsed by the Ludwig von Mises Institute and/or a given number of reputable Austrian economists? If someone could provide me with a reasonable idea of what would be comparable enough to these two figures and their works to be worthy of inclusion, that would be very helpful. Thanks. Wormbread (talk) 18:22, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Robert Murphy is probably a good choice. The Mises Institute website has plenty of stuff that can be included. Byelf2007 (talk) 15 August 2012

Thank you for the suggestion, but I was mainly looking for some rough (or detailed) guidelines in terms of what would make a given publication reputable/notable enough to possibly be included in this section (without it being considered undue weight in the context of Hayek and Hazlitt). Any assistance in that regard would be great. Wormbread (talk) 15:24, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Guys, please pay attention to undue weight. If it's not in major newspapers or major economic journals, it shouldn't be here. LK (talk) 04:12, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

So it doesn't matter that the last Austrian reference is 1959, 53 years ago? Austrian economics is getting bigger and bigger. For example a well known Austrian, James Grant, is on 60 Minutes frequently and also writes for the Wall St Journal. Would he be "due weight"? Or the economic editor of Barrons who is an Austrian? Or something from the Mises Institute? Wormbread (talk) 00:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

If nothing has been published in a respected academic journal since then, then yes, nothing should else be there. I suggest you look for good reliable sources outlining recent Austrian school critiques. Blogs and such are not reliable sources about an academic topic. LK (talk) 03:37, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The Austrian School gets talked about often enough in "respected" publications that are not 'blogs'--the Economist would be a good example. Does it get mentioned often? No. Every once in a while over the last half-century? Yes. Byelf2007 (talk) 18 September 2012

Since we are talking about the Austrian critique of Keynes, reference to a respected academic journal presumably means the leading Austrian economic journal run by Austrian economists. Is this a correct interpretation of what you have said? Wormbread (talk) 14:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

My own 2¢ (assuming my view is worth even that much): Wormbread, I fully agree with your argument that more recent Austrian analysis of Keynesianism is warranted, especially those that extend already-mentioned comments of Hayek and/ or Hazlitt. As for what would constitute "due weight," my suggestion would be to present some specific content here for discussion; that might help getting consensus on something that actually merits inclusion.

POV note: I consider myself highly sympathetic to the Austrian view and would likely have "joined" the movement had I found a career in the economics profession (I have an undergraduate degree in Economics and spent a year in graduate school with teaching and research assistantships in the field back in 1971-1977).   SteveT (talk) 07:04, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Austrian economics

Re: "Austrian economists are more closely aligned with monetarists in that they favour diminished government intervention in the economy." I find this a bit misleading because, while true that, per WP:Monetarism, "Monetarism today is mainly associated with the work of Milton Friedman" and Friedman tended to favor "diminished government intervention in the economy," the apparent alignment of monetarists with those favoring limited government intervention is essentially only because Friedman is both. In the broadest sense ("Monetarism is a tendency in economic thought that emphasizes the role of governments in controlling the amount of money in circulation."), a monetarist can just as much be in favor of further interventions as not. Comments?   SteveT (talk) 07:33, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Absent any objection being raised here, I removed the reference to monetarists from this section 02:34, 17 November 2012.   SteveT (talk) 02:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Postwar Keynesianism

Re: "In 1971, Republican US President Richard Nixon even proclaimed 'we are all Keynesians now'." According to WP:We are all Keynesians now, this is not accurate -- Nixon is reported there to have said, "I am now a Keynesian in economics," which became popularly associated with Milton Friedman's phrase, "We are all Keynesians now" in the December 31, 1965, edition of Time magazine. If no objection is raised here within about the next week, I shall edit this section of this article accordingly.   SteveT (talk) 02:46, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

There having been no objection raised, I have made the edit.   SteveT (talk) 22:53, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Wrong?

I added~to the chapter fiscal policy : "The instrument of reduced interest rates has become blunt in many struggling economies, especially the Japanese, when a succession of reductions of the interest rate has reduced this rate to almost zero or even a negative figure. " This observation was removed as part of a clean up of links. But was it wrong or irrelevant? Robert Prummel (talk) 16:43, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Phillips Curve

Original content: "[The Phillips Curve] indicated that increased employment, and decreased unemployment, implied increased inflation."

New content: "[The Phillips Curve] indicated that increased employment implied decreased inflation, and decreased unemployment implied increased inflation."

The new content seems incorrect to me -- isn't a Keynesian increase in employment effectively equivalent to a Keynesian decrease in unemployment? It seems to me that the original content is actually better than the new content.

Comments?   SteveT (talk) 07:37, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I see the section was removed by an IP and replaced, probably assuming that the section blanking was vandalism. But it should go because the Phillips curve is a discredited notion, long ago discarded because of emperical observations of its incorrect preditctions compared to the accuracy of velocity of money approaches to predicting inflation. I'm going to delete it again because it's outdated. It appears to work in the short term, but not as well as demand deposit and cash velocity, and it simply doesn't work in the long term at all, because employment always goes to equilibrium in proportion to business investment. EllenCT (talk) 08:39, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

For the record, while I agree with you (EllenCT) that the Phillips curve is outdated and incorrect in the long-run, I disagree with removing it because I believe the content you removed -- "The second main part of a Keynesian policy-maker's theoretical apparatus was the Phillips curve..." -- is factually correct as it was and there exists other content that explains the problems with the Keynesian analysis. I would favor having it put back into the article. SteveT (talk) 03:12, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Undid revision 532035545 by 130.126.241.243

No reason was given for adding the request for citation. I believe that such a request needs to be discussed in "Talk." Citation doesn't seem possible to me. If someone does feel the need and is able to add a citation to content "The bidding up of house prices due to the abundance of credit prior to the Global Financial Crisis add credibility to the Austrian perspective, but does not form part of the mainstream thought." at the end of section "Austrian School," by all means please go ahead and do so.   SteveT (talk) 23:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Revision 585418614

Doesn't the revision https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Keynesian_economics&diff=585418614&oldid=585418472 merit some discussion, first? It seems somewhat arbitrary to me -- what makes Hazlitt "not notable?" He's a relatively well-known figure among us students of economics. SteveT (talk) 04:18, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Hazlitt is not in any history of economic thought textbook that I know of. He is a journalist, and only relatively well-known among adherents of Austrian economists. I'll be happy to see any critiques sourced to a standard textbook of macroeconomics or economic history. LK (talk) 07:40, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Does the fact that he wrote one | Economics in one lesson - Henry Hazlitt - Google Books) that sold over a million copies count? SteveT (talk) 03:06, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

If it's Austrian School, it's still fringe and contradicted by reliable sources. EllenCT (talk) 04:35, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I might say that if it's Keynesian, it's fringe and contradicted by reliable sources, but that would be my opinion and, since I am not a "notable economist," everyone else would be justified in considering such a claim laughable.

My reply to Lawrencekhoo (and to which I'd like to hear others' replies, since I am not willing to accept only Lawrencekhoo's judgment) remains: [although Hazlitt may not be included "in any history of economic thought textbook that I know of"], does the fact the Hazlitt wrote a textbook that has sold over a million copies count? I would consider Paul Samuelson to be a "noted economist -- despite being a Keynesian <grin> on that basis, so I would hope the same principle would apply to Hazlitt, a student of the Austrian School. SteveT (talk) 03:48, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Samuelson was a Nobel laureate in economics. Hazlitt was a journalist and pundit, but not a scholar or a theoretician. SPECIFICO talk 04:43, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Are there any peer-reviewed secondary sources which take any of the Austrian School principles seriously, or have been able to confirm them with simulations or empirical studies? Supply-side trickle-down nonsense is thoroughly discredited in the reliable sources, no matter how many people in the armchair libertarian contingent wish it was respectable. EllenCT (talk) 04:54, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Your opinion of supply-side and Austrian (which have a few commonalities but are not the same thing) economics and of the value of peer review of economic philosophy is your opinion and you are welcome to it. It is of no more intrinsic value than that of anyone else. SteveT (talk) 01:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

My opinion is based on my study of the peer-reviewed literature, and the value of peer review is part of Wikipedia's WP:V policy ("peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources"). What is yours based on? Again, are there any peer-reviewed secondary sources which take any of the Austrian School principles seriously, or have been able to confirm them with simulations or empirical studies? EllenCT (talk) 05:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

IMHO, peer-reviews are of some value only when there is not an overwhelming consensus against a reasonable school of thought, as for example the consensus against freeing African-American slaves in pre-Civil war Southern US. Note the word "usually" in the WP policy. Empirical studies and results of simulations are not very useful when considering the work of a school of thought that eschews quantitative approaches and relies instead on reasoning that starts with a particular understanding of human nature and develops on through an expectation of outcomes. You don't accept their approach; fine, you are under no obligation to do so. But you have no authoritative standing to denigrate those of us who do (although you are more than welcome to do so). SteveT (talk) 00:46, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Are you saying that it is okay to accept a theory which does not make accurate predictions as long as a group of people are convinced that it follows from first principles? EllenCT (talk) 01:37, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is "nonnegotiable and all editors and articles must follow it". It is up to the reader, not the editor, to decide which theories to "accept". Censoring by arbitrarily labeling an opposing idea "fringe" is not NPOV. Otherwise, perhaps you could use "simulations or empirical studies" to explain how Keynesian economics has prevented the global depression we're in now. Mikiemike (talk) 02:19, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

No, I do not believe that "it is okay to accept a theory which does not make accurate predictions as long as a group of people are convinced that it follows from first principles" if you have a good reason to not accept it. I also do not believe that it is okay to reject a theory just because someone challenges it on what you believe to be inappropriate criteria. SteveT (talk) 03:05, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:V is also a pillar policy, and says that peer reviewed sources are more accurate. Again, are there any peer-reviewed secondary sources which take any of the Austrian School principles seriously, or have been able to confirm them with simulations or empirical studies? Also, how do you feel about [3]? EllenCT (talk) 12:43, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

But WP:V does not say that peer reviewed sources are the only acceptable sources. By the very definition, peer reviewed articles of the ideas of minority schools of thought antithetical to the consensus view are not likely to take the minority views seriously and Austrian school theory minimizes the importance of empirical studies. Milton Friedman, an economist that does emprical work who is one of the most symptathetic to Austrian views, is taken seriously (isn't he?). SteveT (talk) 03:05, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

I am not suggesting censoring Austrian school thought as undue weight, only merely pointing out that it does not comport with the peer reviewed literature which WP:V instructs is to be preferred in the mathematical sciences and historical and prescriptive arts, along with the fact that there are no Austrian School-based simulations which accurately predict historical outcomes from empirical data. EllenCT (talk) 03:16, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

That there are no Austrian School-based simulations which accurately predict historical outcomes from empirical data is true. But that isn't because Austrian simulations fail to accurately predict historical outcomes but rather because Austrians generally do not accept that empirical data is appropriate as a yardstick for economic philosophy and, thus, there are no Austrian simulations! SteveT (talk) 05:06, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Do you have a source for the statement that Austrians generally do not accept that empirical data is appropriate as a yardstick for economic philosophy? EllenCT (talk) 12:48, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Among others, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_school#Empirical_objections. SteveT (talk) 04:42, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Keynesian policy failures in real life is a valid criticism, even if academics don't like it

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To the user that keeps deleting any edit that mentions Keynesian policy failures in real life (outside the classroom / theory) -- you need to stop. If you disagree, and want to site real world success stories, please do so.

But your arrogant efforts to stop all debate by deleting other viewpoints suggests you don't have a counter example. The question is whether keynesian policy works outside of theory, and you haven't even bothered to respond.

As for the collapse of the British economy and IMF bailout, this is simply a a fact. You are wrong. Go look it up in as many places as you like. England needed a bailout. There is no debate about this. Ogreggy (talk) 01:31, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Read WP:NPV. We don't describe things as 'failures' unless there is consensus in the scientific community that it is so. Darx9url (talk) 10:13, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

And yet, Keynesians describe Austrian economics as "wrong" -- the austrian page is filled with quotes from known keynesians about how they (the Keynesians) think Austrian thinking is "wrong" (Krugman), lacks rigorous quantitative models (several). Why are keynesians given a huge section on the austrian page, and yet you arrogant "journalists" are so intolerant that you can't accept one criticism on the keynesian page? You are hypocrits at best, and arrogant biased arbiters in truth.

Wikipedia won't be trusted if only one viewpoint gets to talk. Ogreggy (talk) 12:43, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a standard of inclusion based on verifiability. Any information that is not directly attributed to a published reliable source can be challenged and removed. The "criticism" that you added to the article did not provide any substantial citations to back up the claims. Thus under the verifiability policy—and no original research policy as it contained an analyst of events—it was removed. If the section is going to be restored, it MUST have citations. Otherwise, no one can tell of you are simply "making shit up" in order to insert a particular point of view. —Farix (t | c) 13:28, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• RFC Not Worded Properly If you would, please rework your RFC so that it is worded properly. Please state what the contention is and what you wish responders would comment on. Damotclese (talk) 18:30, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

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This propaganda piece is just one example of why many colleges won't allow students to reference Wikipedia

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While many economics professors (who favor 8-10% tuition increases and endless student debt) also favor Keynesian economic policy (with no coincidence also involves crippling debt levels: see Japan, USA, EU members, Great Britain, etc) -- the fact remains that the economics profession is NOT in any way settled on Keynes theories. While many agree Keynes theories got some things right (and the fault lies in misapplication of those theories) -- many others favor monetarism, Austrian theory, or behavioral economics. Outside the G7 countries, there is lots of support for still other theories including socialism, communism, and other forms of state controlled economics (with no room for any private decisions). Wikipedia's article was written by Keynesians who falsely portray their own beliefs as settled theory. It is propaganda like this that causes many economics departments (even those led by pro-Keynesian professors) to prohibit students from citing this trash. Yes, I am calling it trash, and I am sure that offends some people. Someone has to tell it to you straight and get you out of your insulated thinking. Ogreggy (talk) 22:51, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

• Your argument is with 'academics', 'scholars' and 'historians'. Those are the sources we base our articles on. You do not get to rewrite an article based on your own POV based on Fringe sourcing. Please go back to the department head you were talking to and ask them for advice on how best to proceed. Dave Dial (talk) 23:19, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
• The department head (while a Keynesian supporter himself) thinks Wikipedia is a waste of time. The fact that you felt the need to attack me (with your conspiracy against academics nonsense) instead of addressing the bias in the article makes me think the dept head is right. Wikipedia cannot be trusted, because it is intolerant of other viewpoints.

PS -- in case you are not aware, Professor Naill Fergusson, is an academic, teaches at Harvard University in the USA, and has quite vocally dismissed Keynesian economics as nonsense. Why doesn't his view count? Why is it only supporters of Keynesian policy that are allowed to write economic articles? Why don't any of you Keynesian supporters address the crippling debt your policy errors are causing? Ogreggy (talk) 01:49, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps because the guy is a historian who economists regularly dismiss as a kook? Darx9url (talk) 06:07, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

User:Ogreggy, I follow this article to check on spelling and appearance glitches which come up from time to time. I don't know about the content nor point of view. What I do know is that the article contains a section discussing the relationship between this theory and other schools of economics. Perhaps what that section needs is to have an editor search through the literature on the subject of neutral comparisons and contrasts between all those other theories you named and write something to improve the article. It won't be your point of view nor that of the evil perfessers if you stick to good sources and don't over reach them. ;^) Trilobitealive (talk) 00:23, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I simply put the article up for discussion, and you arrogantly rolled back even that simple request. You are intolerant of all other points of view, which I think is the real reason this garbage is not accepted for scholarly use. Ogreggy (talk) 01:36, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

And a second time, SPECIFICO unilaterally decided that discussion would not be tolerated and rolled back my request for discussion. And once again, wikipedia administrators are not suspending him for an edit war... where is the neutrality here folks? Ogreggy (talk) 02:10, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I don't see anywhere where User:SPECIFICO "rolled back [your] request for discussion". If you mean this edit, that was reverting your tagging of the article as "essay like", not a removal of a request for discussion. The way to request a discussion is simply to start it here, on this talk page, as you have done, and then let it develop and reach a consensus. And I also don't see where SPECIFICO engaged in any edit warring, I see only one revert of your tagging of the article, which is within Wikipedia policy. EightTwoThreeFiveOneZeroSevenThreeOne (talk) 10:02, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

• To offer some thoughts on the changes you were making to the article before your first block (that is, these changes), I don't have sufficient understanding of economics to agree or disagree with you over Keynes, so I'll restrict my comments to the Wikipedia process itself.

  The first big problem is that your change is entirely unsourced, and as such appears to be purely personal assertion. That is very much a no-no on Wikipedia. Content like that must be supported by citations to reliable sources, and you must provide evidence to support any assertions you wish to add. (You say you're a lecturer yourself, so surely you insist that your students cite the sources of any factual claims they make in their work, don't you?)

  Further, you are asserting facts in Wikipedia's voice, like "It has not worked in practice", and presenting opinions in Wikipedia's voice, like "The temptation for politicians to spend in the name of economic stimulus has overwhelmed restraint". Again, that is not acceptable. Wikipedia should never make unsupported assertions or present opinions or analysis of its own, and must only present material cited to appropriate sources.

  So, for example, if there is an academic consensus that an aspect of Keynesian economics has failed in practice, you would need to say something like "There is a general acceptance among economists that it has not worked in practice.<ref>...</ref>", where the "..." is a citation to a reliable source that supports the claim.

  Similarly with the "The temptation for politicians..." bit, you'd need to find reliable sources offering that opinion, attribute the opinion to them, and provide a citation to the source.

  When your current block expires, I suggest you do not edit the article at all (not even to add tags), but instead suggest here on this talk page a specific change you wish to make (eg the paragraph containing "It has not worked in practice") and identify a source that supports the assertion. Just present the URL or the book/paper reference here on this page, and allow people the time to check it and comment. EightTwoThreeFiveOneZeroSevenThreeOne (talk) 10:25, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

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Separate opinions from the definition

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I deleted a silly reference in the lead section that referenced a 2009 Der Spiegel article. The article discussed a debate in Germany about WHETHER Germany should stay with existing policies or consider a return to Keynesian theory. As evidenced by the continued debate over EU monetary policy, it is fraudulent to claim this debate was resolved at the time of the Der Spiegel article, or even that the debate is resolved now (in 2015, years later).

I also added a criticism section, explaining that Keynesian policy may or may not work in theory -- but in practice, no one has made it work in the real world. Keynesian economic policy has resulted in crippling debts and bankruptcy, even in Keynes own country.Ogreggy (talk) 21:36, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Essay-like tag

I have restored the essay-like tag for obvious reasons.

The most obvious is at the beginning. In the Overview section, the first paragraph begins, "Prior to the publication of Keynes's General Theory, mainstream economic thought held that..." The second paragraph begins, "Keynes's theory overturned the mainstream thought of the time and brought about a greater awareness of..." This alone asserts Keynes' theory transformed mainstream economic though, yet it is entirely unsourced. In fact, this "overview" of Keynesian economics only has two sources (one on Say's Law and one on Ricardo) that actually have nothing to do with Keynes. I won't complain much more about lack of sources though since essentially the entire first half of the article (up to the Hisory section) is unsourced or sparsely sourced, so I don't want to beat a dead horse even though an editor that removed the tag justified doing so because the article is so well sourced (are we reading the same article??).

Here are a few more claims that are essay-like since they are unsourced:

"Keynes's ideas influenced Franklin D. Roosevelt's view that insufficient buying-power caused the Depression."

"But to many the true success of Keynesian policy can be seen at the onset of World War II, which provided a kick to the world economy, removed uncertainty, and forced the rebuilding of destroyed capital. Keynesian ideas became almost official in social-democratic Europe after the war and in the U.S. in the 1960s."

"Keynesian economists believe that adding to profits and incomes during boom cycles through tax cuts, and removing income and profits from the economy through cuts in spending during downturns, tends to exacerbate the negative effects of the business cycle. This effect is especially pronounced when the government controls a large fraction of the economy, as increased tax revenue may aid investment in state enterprises in downturns, and decreased state revenue and investment harm those enterprises." (This is an example of where the first sentence is fine, as it is properly attributed as the beliefs of Keynesian economists, but then the second sentence treats it as a fact that is "especially pronounced" in certain instances).

"Even if the liquidity trap does not exist, there is a fourth (perhaps most important) element to Keynes's critique. Saving involves not spending all of one's income. Thus, it means insufficient demand for business output, unless it is balanced by other sources of demand, such as fixed investment." (Since when does Wikipedia start deciding what are the most important elements of a given critique? This is just another example of why this article is essay-like).

"A central conclusion of Keynesian economics, in strong contrast to the previously dominant models of neoclassical synthesis..." (Again, this implies that Keynesian economics is now the dominant model of neoclassical synthesis without a source. Very essay-like.)

I'm sure there are several more examples of why this article has an issue of being essay-like, but I think you all get the point. The tag is justified. Abierma3 (talk) 16:18, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

• First, the Lede isn't supposed to have citations listed, it's a summary of the article. Secondly, there are 51 citations listed in this article, so the tag you've used is obviously not appropriate. Instead of tagging the article, find ways to improve it. Most of your concerns are sourced in the article(or adjoining articles like Great Depression, FDR, etc.), these can be resolved here on the Talk page. Dave Dial (talk) 18:49, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

The lead isn't the problem here; the problem is the first half of this fairly lengthy article, which treats essay-like opinion as fact and is largely unsourced. The fact that there even is a separate Overview section, which is supposed to be the job of the lead, seems to justify the essay-like tag also. Additionally, I added the refimprove tag. The number of references is irrelevant to the fact the first half of article is sparsely sourced and needs citations for verification. Abierma3 (talk) 07:35, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

You need to cite specific examples with reliably sourced content to replace any change. You can't just say that the article is unsourced, when that is obviously not true. As I showed above, there are 51 citations listed. State your objections specifically and also give reasons why(with reliable sourcing) they are incorrect. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 00:20, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

The numerous specific examples (direct quotes) in my original post would be a start. You can find them directly above. Per WP:Verifiability, "Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it." "Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed." The first half of the article is largely unsourced. This is evidenced by the fact that out of 51 total sources, the 15th citation is located well in the second half of the article. Just stating the number of total citations in the article is ignoring the disproportionality of the citations and that a large chunk of the article is unsourced. I have now specifically tagged the article according to its issues. Abierma3 (talk) 02:21, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree that this article is in poor shape. The way to fix it is not to argue about tags, but to actually fix it. I'll try to work on it over the next several weeks, and I'll like to invite others here to work on it as well. Let's see if we can take this to GA status. I'm also going to post to the Econ wikiproject to see if we can get any help. LK (talk) 15:37, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Grammar: verb tense

At the risk of sounding picky, the syntax in this article is occasionally confusing, particularly the verb tenses. There is a frequent use of past tense which appears inappropriate.

• In general,

1. present tense is used for a (living) person's currently held beliefs, because it describes factual information, what's happening now ("Adam thinks the euro was a mistake").
2. past tense is used for a (dead) person's beliefs, because it's all in the past now ("Keynes thought that in the long run, we are all dead.")
3. past tense is also used for a specific argument made or belief stated at some (specified) point, ("Adam argued, in 1996/on December 4th/in the August 1996 issue of Foreign Policy magazine, that the euro was a good idea.")
4. present perfect is used for a specific argument made or belief stated at some (unspecified) point in a (living) person's life ("Adam has argued that the ECB should have given more thought to the euro's launch date.")
5. past perfect is used for a specific argument made or belief stated at some (unspecified) point that has changed("Adam had thought the euro was a good idea, but has changed his mind.")

In other words, the verb tense indicates whether, for the individual, the belief is

• still current
• was stated in the past and which is probably current
• was stated in the past and is NOT current
• historical

As a layperson, there are points where I'm uncertain. Some are clearly wrong (use of present tense for economists who have died), but others I'd be guessing at. Saying that "Krugman argued [x]" as a general, undated statement seems almost obviously wrong, grammatically, but I'd prefer not to screw things up further if I'm missing something. --Calton | Talk 09:29, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Critique Section

I have one suggestion & one question. My suggestion is that the title of the section be changed to Criticism which is how it is for most of the other pages on schools of economic thought I have seen. My question is why aren't the Austrian school & New Classical school criticisms included in the critique sections? The Lucas critique should be there along with the critiques from Hayek. GRosado 00:49, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

"the title of the section be changed to Criticism" - No. There's nothing to criticize. Keynesianism is a shibboleth. Not an actual theory. Doubledork (talk) 19:28, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Prononuciation of "Keynes"

How to pronounce "Keynes"? Here's a .wav file: http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/k/k0046600.html Can someone edit it nicely into the page? I seem to have difficulties with it. (Anonymous 21th June 2006 at 6:10 AM)

The simplest way to answer is that it is pronounce like "canes". DaveApter (talk) 17:00, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Guerrazzi's comment on this article

Dr. Guerrazzi has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

Keynesian economics served as the standard economic model in the developed nations during the later part of the Great Depression, World War II, and the post-war economic expansion (1945–1973), though it lost some influence following the oil shock and resulting stagflation of the 1970s because it was not able to explain the occurrence of high inflation vis-à-vis high unemployment.

The advent of the financial crisis of 2007–08 caused a resurgence in Keynesian thought,[5] [in addition to [5] I will also quote Guerrazzi, M. (2015), Animal spirits, investment and unemployment: An old Keynesian view of the Great Recession, EconomiA, Vol. 16, No.3, pp. 343–358.]

As Irving Fisher argued in 1933, in his Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions, deflation (falling prices) can make a depression deeper as falling prices and wages made pre-existing nominal debts more valuable in real terms. Moreover, if the nominal interest rate has achieved a lower bound (liquidity trap) and prices are falling, the real interest rate tends to rise and this leads to postpone both consumption and investment by depressing aggregate demand.

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Guerrazzi has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:

• Reference : Paolo Gelain & Marco Guerrazzi, 2010. "A DSGE Model from the Old Keynesian Economics: An Empirical Investigation," CDMA Working Paper Series 201014, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 18:40, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Hughes Hallett's comment on this article

Dr. Hughes Hallett has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

Historical context, para 7: "For example, if a government continued to run a deficit of 10% both last year and this year, this would represent neutral fiscal policy (although it would not have been neutral when that deficits was set up)."

Historical context, para 8:"....bringing them back to equilibrium.The stickiness of prices and in particular wages in the short to medium term is a central concern of Keynesian thinking."

Wages and spending, para 1: "....because of laws and wage contracts.Evidence of the pervasive influence of wage contracting is given in papers by John Taylor Taylor, John B (1980). "Aggregate Dynamics and Staggered Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, 88,1-23.

Active fiscal policy, para 4: This para or a new para should mention the power of automatic stabilisers as automatic if incomplete countercyclical policies

Active fiscal policy, para 6: " Further, private investment can be "crowded in" in bad times."

Active fiscal policy, para 7: "government investment in public goods that will not be provided by profit-seekers will encourage the private sector's growth. In fact, the growth maximising level of debt depends on the (marginal) rate of return on public capital" Reference: Checherita, Cristina, Andrew Hughes Hallett and Philipp Rother (2013), “Fiscal sustainability using growth-maximising debt targets” Applied Economics, 46, 638-647.

Postwar Keynesianism, para 6: "rejecting the neutrality of money.Once neutrality of money is gone, it becomes important to learn how to coordinate fiscal and monetary policies" A reference for this point: Hughes Hallett, Andrew (1986) "Autonomy and the Choice of Policy in Asymmetrically Dependent Economies", Oxford Economic Papers, 38, 516-44.

Monetarism, para2: .....[31],[31], [32], where reference [32] is Crowley, Patrick , Andrew Hughes Hallett (2015) "Great Moderation or Will o' the Wisp? A time-frequency decomposition of GDP for the US and UK", Journal of Macroeconomics, 44, 82-97

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We believe Dr. Hughes Hallett has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:

• Reference : Acocella, Nicola & Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni & Hughes Hallett, Andrew, 2008. "When Can Central Banks Anchor Expectations? Policy communication and controllability," CEPR Discussion Papers 7078, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 19:48, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Pappa's comment on this article

Dr. Pappa has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

well drafted and accurate info

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We believe Dr. Pappa has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:

• Reference : Stefano Gnocchi & Daniela Hauser & Evi Pappa, 2014. "Housework and Fiscal Expansions," Working Papers 14-34, Bank of Canada.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 16:08, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Creel's comment on this article

Dr. Creel has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"The advent of the financial crisis of 2007–08 caused a resurgence in Keynesian thought,[5] which continues as new Keynesian economics." : the New Keynesian economics started before the crisis of 2007-2008 - it is already present in the 1990s. I would not say "continues with". The advent of the crisis certainly revived New Keynesian Economics with the introduction of nominal and financial frictions in dynamic-stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model.

Regarding the "historical context", I would also argue that Keynes assumed that prices could be sticky: an imbalance between supply and demand would be matched by a change in traded volumes, not a change in prices. Hence, under a depression, the lack of demand would translate in a decrease in supply (and an increase in inventories), at fixed prices. This point is mentioned in section "excessive savings", but it could also fit this historical context. Keynes gave birth to a new concept: unemployment equilibrium (all markets clear but some involuntary unemployment remains)

In this section "historical context", the notion of involuntary unemployment, key in the Keynesian analysis, should be mentioned. The same should occur to "effective demand" and the "paradox of thrift" which are key to understand Keynesian economics.

"Some (such as Paul Krugman) see this latter kind of liquidity trap as prevailing in Japan in the 1990s. Most economists agree that nominal interest rates cannot fall below zero. However, some economists (particularly those from the Chicago school) reject the existence of a liquidity trap.": this section could be updated, mentioning that non-standard monetary measures, like Quantitative easing, have been implemented to circumvent the liquidity trap (and the so-called zero-lower bound).

I am not sure that the use of "active fiscal policy" and "the (fiscal) multiplier effect" should be in separate sections. The use of active fiscal policy is explained by the fiscal multiplier effect.

The multiplier effect is not well described. It goes the following. Under low effective demand, e.g. a depression, the increase in government outlays increases effective demand and leads to an increase in output and income; the rise in income produces a subsequent increase in private outlays (consumption, investment) which makes the initial increase in government outlays produce a disproportionate increase in effective demand and supply, hence the "multiplier effect". The "multiplier effect' can be constrained if households are unwilling or unable to consume (high savings" propensity), if debt financing induces an increase in interest rates and a decrease in private investment (crowding-out effect), and/or if the degree of openness is high (the share of imports in consumption is high).

The IS-LM model has changed to the IS-MP (Monetary policy) and has been revived since the Global financial crisis by David Romer or Paul Krugman.

I was a bit puzzled when I read in section "public choice theory" references to Marxist economists and to Buchanan. The paragraph dedicated to the former should have its own title, like "Marxist theory and the Post-Keynesian school".

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We believe Dr. Creel has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:

• Reference : Aurelie Cassette & Jerome Creel & Etienne Farvaque & Sonia Paty, 2010. "Governments under influence: Country interactions in discretionary fiscal policy," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2010-25, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 16:13, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Holden's comment on this article

Dr. Holden has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

Some problems in this paragraph:

Two points are important to note at this point. First, deficits are not required for expansionary monetary policy, and second, it is only change in net spending that can stimulate or depress the economy. For example, if a government ran a deficit of 10% both last year and this year, this would represent neutral fiscal policy. In fact, if it ran a deficit of 10% last year and 5% this year, this would actually be contractionary. On the other hand, if the government ran a surplus of 10% of GDP last year and 5% this year, that would be expansionary fiscal policy, despite never running a deficit at all. This is clearly about fiscal policy and not monetary policy, as it says in the beginning. More importantly, whether fiscal policy is viewed as expansionary is usually based on the structural deficit, where one adjusts tax revenues and expenditure on unemployment benefits for the cyclical situation of the economy. Moreover, both the change in the deficit and the level of the deficit are relevant. The whole section about other schools of economics seems out of place, and in particular the text under the headline Public choice theory has little to do with public choice theory.

There should be a link to new Keynesian economics in the article.

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We believe Dr. Holden has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:

• Reference : Holden, Steinar & Sparrman, Victoria, 2011. "Do Government Purchases Affect Unemployment?," Memorandum 17/2011, Oslo University, Department of Economics.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 18:54, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Lord Neuberger

Lord Neuberger President of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury

Lord Neuberger was appointed President of the Supreme Court in 2012, the second person to hold that office since 2009 when the Court replaced the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. He previously held the post of Master of the Rolls from 1 October 2009.

Born on 10 January 1948, Lord Neuberger was educated at Westminster School, later studied Chemistry at Christ Church, Oxford. After graduating he worked at the merchant bank, N M Rothschild & Sons from 1970-1973 until he entered Lincoln's Inn and was called to the Bar in 1974.

Lord Neuberger was made a Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1987 and became a Bencher for Lincoln's Inn in 1993. His first judicial appointment was as a Recorder from 1990 until 1996 when he was appointed a High Court judge in the Chancery Division and was then the Supervisory Chancery Judge for the Midland, Wales and Chester and Western Circuits 2000 - 2004.

Since 1999 Lord Neuberger has been Chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Spoliation of Art (in the Holocaust). Between 2000 to 2011 he was governor of the University of Arts London and from 2013 to 2014 Chairman of the Schizophrenia Trust. In 2014 he became a patron of MHUK.

In January 2004 he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal. He also led an investigation for the Bar Council into widening access to the barrister profession. In 2007 he was made a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and created a life peer as Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury in the County of Dorset. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.81.88.191 (talk) 06:18, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Calitz's comment on this article

Dr. Calitz has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

No amendments to recommend

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We believe Dr. Calitz has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:

• Reference : Estian Calitz & Krige Siebrits & Ian Stuart, 2013. "The accuracy of fiscal projections in South Africa," Working Papers 24/2013, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 15:51, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Missing section: Criticisms

There is no Criticisms section on Keynesian economics at all, which is quite odd considering the increasing vocal global dissent to central bank policies such as the ECB or the Federal Reserve. The wiki page for "Austrian Economics" has a well rounded Criticisms section, and this page deserves one too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vinniefalco (talk • contribs) 13:08, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Then add one yourself — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.124.124.78 (talk) 16:21, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Taxes

Is it me or does this overview of Keynsianism completely omit the other main pillar of his advocacy, namely that there should be widespread and deep tax cuts in a down cycle, and that this was the singularly best way of returning money to people and stimulating demand? Seems rather a large omission if so. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.189.173.144 (talk) 06:51, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

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Keynesian theory

I have rewritten the theoretical sections. I am absolutely not the right person to do this, and I will not be at all surprised (or hurt) to be reverted out of existence.

I cannot claim to have adhered strictly to Wikipedia policies on avoiding ‘improper editorial synthesis’ (but I don’t think anyone else adheres to them in economics anyway). I hope I have been faithful to their spirit. I give page numbers and quotations to justify my attributions. You cannot write an article on economics by stringing quotations together; you need to make logical connections.

My interest has been in the logic of Keynes’s arguments (rather than in his policy recommendations which many people find more interesting). What I’ve written may dwell excessively on attempting to understand the logical structure of his book.

When I have thought I have seen gaps in Keynes’s logic I have had great difficulty in knowing what to say. I have not been wanting to write a critique of Keynes, but nor do I want to present an argument as sound when I see gaps in it. I try to be neutral, but it’s hard to be neutral about questions of logic. Mostly I play the issues down. I have been through several drafts, weakening any expressions of disbelief (I hope) to mere qualifications. I may have gone too far or (more probably) not far enough.

And my aim has been to write something that is clear and – above all – accurate, but also in which everything is rigorously justified.

To make clear what I have done, I have written an account of the doctrine of the General Theory and put it in place of Concept/Wages and spending/Excessive saving/“Multiplier effect” and interest rates/IS-LM model and Keynes and the classics.

Colin.champion (talk) 11:43, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

At a first reading, your edits look to me like a significant improvement. DaveApter (talk) 16:29, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

@Colin.champion and DaveApter:Rewrite has been reverted and some references removed, see diff. Jonpatterns (talk) 14:37, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

My edits were motivated by disbelief in the correctness of the article as it stood. Especially perverse is the statement that ‘saving involves not spending all one’s income’. Keynes says: “Amidst the welter of divergent usages of terms, it is agreeable to discover one fixed point. So far as I know, everyone is agreed that saving means the excess of income over expenditure on consumption”, i.e. not over expenditure tout court (p61). Even worse is the statement in the last para of the theoretical part: ‘unemployment in labour markets encourages excessive saving’. Not only is this the opposite of Keynes’s view, it’s the opposite of what the article told us 3 paras previously. There may have been much to criticise in my changes, but to reintroduce errors of this magnitude may be worse still,Colin.champion (talk) 15:54, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

@Colin.champion: Thanks for pointing out these errors. I'll compare the new anonymous IP user's changes with yours and try to take the best from both. Jonpatterns (talk) 19:30, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Jon - it’s not so easy. There’s very little that deserves credence in the original description of ‘Excessive sving’ – the points I made are simply the most striking. The two accounts of Keynes’s theories therefore have little in common, and it will not be easy to follow a middle way. By all means make whatever changes can be justified. I wrote with my nose in the General Theory and was surprised by the doctrines I found implicit there. I will try to make a few small corrections myself. Colin.champion (talk) 18:27, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Are citations still inadequate?

Do we still need the 'Refimprove' tag that was placed in October 2015? The case for it seems to me to have been pretty slender at the time - there were 51 refs even then. Now there are 74, and assertions in the article seem pretty well supported to me. DaveApter (talk) 14:00, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

@DaveApter: I don’t feel entitled to express an opinion, but some sections seem to me underreferenced – in particular the section ‘Active fiscal policy’ doesn’t really have citations for its main assertions. However this is part of a general problem with the article, which is that references to policies derived from Keynes’s theory are sprinkled around in several places, which also include the beginning of the Theory section and the section on Postwar Keynesianism. The latter credits Lerner with the view that fiscal and monetary policy were the twin Keynesian tools, which is much the view attributed to Keynes himself (without attribution) at the start of the theory section. However a Refimprove applied to the article as a whole isn’t very constructive, so I’d be happy to see it go. Colin.champion (talk) 16:28, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

NPOV

The article is written from the point of view of a Keynesian adherent. For example there is no reflection of the Friedman's criticism of the Keynesian multiplier. Friedman, among others, argued that the Keynesian multiplier was both incorrectly formulated and fundamentally flawed, but in the article his arguments are completely ignored. It's better explained here: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/keynesian-multiplier.asp Olaf (talk) 10:14, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@Olaf: I consider myself flattered. I recently rewrote the theoretical part of the article (which was an act of rashness rather than boldness), and do not consider myself a Keynesian adherent. I struggled to write in a neutral tone about something I considered as implausible as Kahn’s multiplier, and only found an escape when I realised that there was almost no sign of its presence in the General Theory. In Keynes’s most considered statement (in Chapter 18) the multiplier is merely an intermediate term in a complicated calculation (p248 of the RES edition). I appreciate that many people have given the multiplier a more prominent place in Keynes’s theory, but that’s a matter of interpretation rather than neutrality. Colin.champion (talk) 09:29, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

NPOV means to present things as is understood by mainstream textbooks. Just follow a standard upper level undergraduate text on Macroeconomics, and you won't go far wrong. If you can source your objections, please bring it here. I suggest Macroeconomics, by Abel, Bernanke, and Croushore, published by Pearson. LK (talk) 10:26, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

This is a small point which doesn’t address anyone’s concerns, but it seems to me that the first mention of Kahn’s multiplier should be a wikilink to fiscal multiplier which contains several criticisms (though not Friedman’s so far as I can see). Colin.champion (talk) 15:15, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks to Olaf for commenting. I’ve removed the ‘neutrality check’ flag because I believe such flags are there to give people a chance to comment in the talk page and aren’t meant to be permanent. But everyone is welcome to draw attention to whatever they think lacks neutrality, or just isn’t quite true. Colin.champion (talk) 14:51, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Proposed change to the summary of the General Theory

The description of the General Theory  in the article is about 21kB plus 5kB on the IS-LM model. I have written a slightly shorter and more discursive account (15+5kB) which is temporarily in the General Theory  page. If people don’t object too much, I would like it to exchange the two accounts, meanwhile removing IS-LM from the longer one and expanding it to cover dynamic aspects of Keynes’s system and to discuss liquidity preference in some detail. The reason is that I think the dynamics are important, and the account in Keynesian economics  is already uncomfortably long for its position. This will take the longer account to about 39kB: Italian Wikipedia has around 100kB on the Teoria generale. Colin.champion (talk) 14:54, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

I made this change. I also moved the 'No footnotes' template from the top of the article down into the section most clearly affected. Maybe it belongs in other sections too, but given the different character of different paragraphs, it really doesn’t help to apply it to the article as a whole. Colin.champion (talk) 12:29, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Keynesian thought prior to the General Theory

I’ve added a new section on this subject. It takes the place of the earlier overview to the theorectical section, which I thought was unfocussed and nothing to do with theory. Some of the old material has been merged into Active Fiscal Policy where it belonged, and some into Postwar Keynesianism; some has been lost. The merging may not have been very skilful.

The ‘essay-like’ flag has followed the material which moves to Active Fiscal Policy (which desperately needs rewriting) and is therefore no longer attached to the section on Theory. This is not because I can say with confidence that the Theory is no longer essay-like, but because it has been entirely rewritten since the flag was attached to it, so perhaps it can be innocent until someone says it’s guilty. Colin.champion (talk) 13:29, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

In the name of Honesty

The main definition in the article of what constitutes "Keynesian economics" comes from a currently distinctly non-, if not anti-, Keynesian organization, the International Monetary Fund, as sourced. It reads, "The central tenet of this school of thought [i.e. of Keynesian economics] is that government intervention can stabilize the economy." This is a generalization that loses more than it defines. Sometimes, one needs to avoid simplification in order to preserve meaning. (Einstein warned about that.)

We have an obligation to present the case for each set of ideas as the progenitors of those ideas defined them and with the meaning they gave them, before moving on, as the case might be, onto the objections and the criticism leveled against those ideas. This constitutes not just Wikipedia honesty but scientific honesty. -The Gnome (talk) 14:52, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Kahn’s multiplier

A little while ago @Olaf: objected that the article was too sympathetic to Keynes, giving the example of the lack of criticism of the spending multiplier. I evaded the objection by saying that this multiplier was absent from the General Theory and therefore from the article. But it struck me afterwards that this was a poor excuse: Kahn’s multiplier should be covered in the article because it is certainly part of Keynesian economics even if it isn’t part of the General Theory. This is a reason for my recent addition.

I still haven’t added any criticism of Kahn’s multiplier. If an article is about Keynesian economics I’m inclined to think that the main views of the Keynesian school deserve mention regardless of their merit (but should not be represented as correct except when they are generally felt to be so) whereas criticisms should be included only when they are useful or interesting, which I do not find the Friedman/Investopedia criticisms to be. Wikipedia would be unreadable if every piece of information needed to be accompanied by a criticism for the sake of balance.

If there are good criticisms which I have omitted, other hands will have to add them. They may be covered in literature I haven’t seen and possibly have no access to. Wikipedia does not encourage authors to mention criticisms for which they do not have good sources, and this limits authors’ scope to influence the balance of an article.

Probably Olaf wasn’t particularly interested in a single example, but believed there was a general tendency. I don’t agree, but can hardly claim a detached view. Bias may be in the eyes of the beholder. If fair-minded Keynesians think the article is too soft on Keynes, or fair-minded anti-Keynesians think it is too hostile, then there is probably something wrong. Colin.champion (talk) 13:32, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Greetings. Your thoughts are very interesting, and much appreciated. I should remark here that the text is full of qualifying phrasing, which, if unsupported by inline citations, reads like an editor's own judgement. As just one example, in the text, the word "opaque" is used to characterize the single page Keynes devoted in his General Theory to the issue of the fiscal multiplier. The word "opaque" would be acceptable only if it was created by someone else. From anyone of us, it's a personal judgement. The exact word does not matter; instead of opaque, it could have been "enlightening" or "brilliant". We need inline citations plus quotation marks. What do you think? -The Gnome (talk) 14:52, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

@The Gnome: I have some sympathy with what you say – the dividing line between an observable fact and a judgement is rather fine. On the other hand the statement that a paragraph is hard to understand is not usually controversial, whereas it is likely to be difficult or impossible to find a reliable reference to support it. And if one omits uncontroversial observations through lack of citations one ends up with a discussion which doesn’t make sense because crucial points have been omitted. “Brilliant” is a rather different kettle of fish: it may in some instances be uncontroversial but it’s usually used to convey approval. My reference to the opacity of Keynes’s paragraph was not intended as a comment on Keynes or his theory, favourable or hostile, but to explain why the secondary literature does not follow the General Theory more closely. I don’t know if this is enough to make it excusable. Colin.champion (talk) 15:06, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. All it comes down to is, we're not the first ones to observe something. (And if are, Wikipedia is not the place to publish it!) :-) Therefore, whatever qualitative observations we make, we should try and attribute them to an outside source. Is this opaque? Is that brilliant? Would that other thing be wrong? Nor for us to say - but if we find it necessary to point out something, we could present facts that provide information of equivalent worth. E.g. instead of "Keynes's point XYZ was opaque", one could say "Keynes did not clarify point XYZ." I find the text with many such instances; and this does not mean I personally do not agree with the meaning of what's is being written! -The Gnome (talk) 15:38, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@The Gnome: If you ask me you’ve fallen into weasel words. 'Did not clarify’ might mean ‘did not explain’ or ‘did not explain intelligibly’. The first wouldn’t be true, and the second is not very different from what you’re complaining about. But we’ll end up going round in circles... I think you and I personally will have to agree to differ, and let the matter be resolved as best it can. Colin.champion (talk) 17:35, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Colin.champion. Agreeing to disagree is quite acceptable, although I don't think we are that much apart. "Did not explain" or "did not clarify" have an exact meaning, if we want to be precise: He didn't do either at all. If Keynes did explain or clarify, and we find what he did to have been "unintelligible" or even "wrong", we are of course allowed to state that. And all I'm suggesting is we should do so by citing sources that state as much. We agree about disinfecting texts from weasel wording. We might have some difference in our approac but I just don't think we're after different things. Take care. -The Gnome (talk) 09:55, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@The Gnome: Thanks to you too. I’ll take your comments as a salutary reminder. Colin.champion (talk) 12:38, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Split article into Keynesian Economics, and History of Keynesian Economic Thought

It seems to me that this article suffers from too much emphasis on discussion of the history of economic thought surrounding Keynesian Economics. I suggest splitting off the history of economic thought topics into a daughter article, and keeping in this article only the various Keynesian models and theories; i.e. the topics that one would normally find in an "Introduction to Macroeconomics" text – business cycles, AS-AD, IS-LM, monetary policy, fiscal policy, multiplier, etc. Comments, objections? --LK (talk) 03:33, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

@LK: I have slightly different reservations about the ‘history of economic thought’ parts. It seems to me that the development and influence of Keynesian ideas belong in this article, which otherwise covers much the same ground as The General Theory – but I don’t really find them there. Instead there are brief notices of different schools of thought with a few salient ideas presented as bullet-points and no sense of evolution or theoretical debate. The interesting story of the Macarthyite opposition to Keynesianism in America isn’t mentioned. I’d be happy to see a daughter article, but ‘Keynesian economics’ is an umbrella for the whole field, so I’d favour maintaining a wide coverage. Colin.champion (talk) 14:30, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Origins of the multiplier

I rewrote this part making use of Kahn’s paper. I hope the result is more satisfactory, though I’m afraid it’s longer. The textbook treatment (e.g. in Samuelson) does almost as little justice to Kahn as it does to Keynes. Colin.champion (talk) 08:09, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

An Appeal from the Non-Economist World

I just wanted to make the case that this article jumps very quickly into complex and jargony economic terms without giving an encyclopedia-esque overview first. The detail isn't bad by any means; there just needs to be an introduction and political history section that are written for non-economists (i.e., the vast majority of readers). I have a graduate degree in a social science field, have taken several economics courses, and know what Keynesian economics is (generally), and yet I still have to read the first section of this article about as slowly as I would a picture book back in grade school. That's not a good introduction to the topic, or (perhaps equally importantly) to its historical significance. It's all fine and good to get into the particulars of Keynes' theories later on, with graphs and the rest, but that tells you nothing about what, say, the a reporter means when they refer to someone as believing in "Keynesian economics."

For a generally good outline of how to introduce the topic, I wanted to suggest looking to the Simple English side of Wikipedia. Here's the link. Sure, it's written in weirdly choppy sentences, but the structure is there: the basic economic idea, some basic history, and then its significance to modern politics and economics. You very quickly get the main idea: that it's about work, that the government should spend money to create work when needed, that its opponents are those on the right / something called Austrian economics, when it came into and out of vogue, how it's identified in the modern era, etc. All the stuff a general-interest reader would need to know.

And before someone says: well, then just read the Simple English Wikipedia if you want simplifications, I want to remind you that the regular English Wikipedia is the only one read by the vast, vast majority of the English-speaking world, and that it is an encyclopedia -- meant for a general audience. The Simple English Wikipedia is "simple" because it is meant for non-fluent English-speakers, not because it is meant for non-economists.

What's more, this is to take nothing away from the rest of the article. If it then goes on, in the sections below, into the harder-core economics, fine. In fact, that's great! It should! But it should start with the main points, written so everyone with general English fluency (but not necessarily any economic knowledge) can understand them clearly.

And to those who might say: well then you fix it, I would say: 1) I think the best person to simplify it would be someone who has a much more thorough knowledge of the subject but can still write for the lay person -- I might mess something up, and 2) I might even still give it a shot sometime; but it's a pretty big change, so I wouldn't attempt it without making a case for it here first.

Also, for what its worth, this is hardly an issue with this one article. Economics and the hard sciences, in particular, are littered with articles about household-name things written in such a way that you'd never know what on earth the general concept was before you're confronted with a graduate-level discussion of it. These articles provide a mass quantity of human knowledge, but it is inaccessible to all but the tiny percentage of people with some preexisting outside education in the topic. And that's not what an encyclopedia is for. Thfump (talk) 02:29, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

@Thfump: Thanks for your comments. I think everything you say is reasonable, and pointing to Simple English Wikipedia is no answer – simple English is one thing, prior knowledge of economics another. I’ll try to look over sections I contributed myself to see if I can make improvements. But I think a degree of mystification is inevitable. [Personal opinions follow.] Keynes wrote a theoretical book which is almost devoid of practical recommendations. It got seized on by people who found it politically sympathetic, who then read into it what they wanted to see. Hence the plethora of ‘Keynesian’ policies: higher government spending, deficit financing, countercyclical activity etc. Some of these had been promoted (without theoretical justification) by Keynes himself prior to the General Theory, but he seems not to have believed that he had provided theoretical backing for them. Ideally the article, if chronologically written, would outline Keynes’s theories and then show how they evolved in political and journalistic discourse; and the introduction would cover both aspects. But the second would be very difficult to document – it’s probably little more than Chinese whispers. So if the article leaves you wondering about the connection between the IS-LM model and what you read in the newspapers, then the article is probably right, because you should indeed wonder. Colin.champion (talk) 21:07, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

@Thfump: I made some changes to the technical parts, but they don’t really address your concerns. The technical sections should be accessible to any informed and intelligent reader, but it isn’t practical for a Wikipedia article to be written without assuming prior knowledge: what it should do is to point to the topics prior knowledge of which is needed. If there are places where you feel there are gaps, feel free to point them out. I’m afraid that unless someone knows where the ‘Keynesian economic policies’ of newspaper reporters (and economists, unfortunately) come from, it will be difficult to address the interests of the average reader at Wikipedia standards of rigour. Colin.champion (talk) 12:56, 2 August 2018 (UTC)