A History of Macroeconomics from Keynes to Lucas and Beyond

by Michel De Vroey

This book retraces the history of macroeconomics from Keynes's General Theory to the present. Central to it is the contrast between a Keynesian era and a Lucasian - or dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) - era, each ruled by distinct methodological standards. In the Keynesian era, the book studies the following theories: Keynesian macroeconomics, monetarism, disequilibrium macroeconomics (Patinkin, Leijongufvud and Clower), non-Walrasian equilibrium models, and first-generation new Keynesian models. Three stages are identified in the DSGE era: new classical macroeconomics (Lucas), RBC modelling, and second-generation new Keynesian modeling. The book also examines a few selected works aimed at presenting alternatives to Lucasian macroeconomics. While not eschewing analytical content, Michel De Vroey focuses on substantive assessments, and the models studied are presented in a pedagogical and vivid yet critical way.

Genres: Economics, Politics, Philosophy

422 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 30, 2015

About the author

Professor at the Economics School of Louvain, University of Louvain (Belgium).

Website

Reviews

[Ruben · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful work which should be a must-read for every master's student in the field of economics. The technicalities can be challenging and as stated in other reviews, I would only recommend it to someone with a formal macroeconomics background. In academia, too little attention is given to how models evolved over the last 80 years with a focus on loose models without any detailed explanation of how we got there in the first place. This book tells you the story of evolution, revolutions, and counter-revolutions in macroeconomics.

[Hunter Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intellectual history of macroeconomic theory, although more precisely it is a history of macroeconomic theories of the business cycle. Theories of economic growth are not discussed in much detail, and only incidentally. The book provides a very informative overview of major developments in macroeconomic thought since Keynes, and the author is even-handed in his analysis of the advantages and shortcomings of each school of thought. The book may be difficult to follow for readers without a formal economics education.

[Praveen Kishore · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intelligent and deep guide to development of Macroeconomics since the time of Keynes. It is an interesting read, though a certain level of familiarity with economics and macroeconomics would be required for taking it up. This book, perhaps is not for a general reader, but is certainly a must for any student of economics.

[Indradeep Ghosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice intellectual history that makes some very insightful points about the fundamental strands running through the course of the historical development of macroeconomic thought. However, I was very disappointed to find that despite being published by Cambridge University Press, the book is riddled with typos. About half the time these typos are substantive meaning that they misinform, which is tragic for a book of this heft. I hope it can be republished after being properly proof-read.