Biography:John Maynard Keynes
The Right Honourable The Lord Keynes | |
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.jpg) Keynes in 1929 | |
| Born | 5 June 1883 Cambridge, England |
| Died | 21 April 1946 (aged 62) Tilton, East Sussex, England |
| Spouse(s) | Lydia Lopokova (m. 1925) |
| Institution | King's College, Cambridge |
| Field | |
| School or tradition | Keynesian economics |
| Signature | |
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John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes[1] (5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in mathematics, he built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles.[2] One of the most influential economists of the 20th century,[3][4][5] he produced writings that are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots.[6] His ideas, reformulated as New Keynesianism, are fundamental to mainstream macroeconomics. He is known as the "father of macroeconomics".[7]
Keynes was educated at King's College at the University of Cambridge, where he graduated in 1904 with a B.A. in mathematics. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Keynes spearheaded a revolution in economic thinking, challenging the ideas of neoclassical economics that held that free markets would, in the short to medium term, automatically provide full employment, as long as workers were flexible in their wage demands. He argued that aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) determined the overall level of economic activity, and that inadequate aggregate demand could lead to prolonged periods of high unemployment, and since wages and labour costs are rigid downwards the economy will not automatically rebound to full employment.
Keynes advocated the use of fiscal and monetary policies to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions. After the 1929 crisis, Keynes also turned away from a fundamental pillar of neoclassical economics: free trade. He criticized Ricardian comparative advantage theory (the foundation of free trade), considering the theory's initial assumptions unrealistic, and became definitively protectionist.[8][9][10] He detailed these ideas in his magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published in early 1936. By the late 1930s, leading Western economies had begun adopting Keynes's policy recommendations. Almost all capitalist governments had done so by the end of the two decades following Keynes's death in 1946. As a leader of the British delegation, Keynes participated in the design of the international economic institutions established after the end of World War II but was overruled by the American delegation on several aspects.
His influence began to wane in the 1970s, partly as a result of the stagflation that plagued the British and American economies during that decade, and partly because of criticism of Keynesian policies by Milton Friedman and other monetarists,[11] who disputed the ability of government to favourably regulate the business cycle with fiscal policy.[12] The 2008 financial crisis sparked the 2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence. Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the 2008 financial crisis by President Barack Obama of the United States, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom, and other heads of governments.[13]
When Time magazine included Keynes among its Most Important People of the Century in 1999, it reported that "his radical idea that governments should spend money they don't have may have saved capitalism".[14] The Economist has described Keynes as "Britain's most famous 20th-century economist".[15] In addition to being an economist, Keynes was also a civil servant, a director of the Bank of England, and a part of the Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals.[16]
References
- ↑ Cairncross, Alec. "Keynes, John Maynard, Baron Keynes (1883–1946)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34310. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ↑ Yergin & Stanislaw 2002, pp. 39–42.
- ↑ Sloman, John (22 October 2008). "How to kick-start a faltering economy the Keynes way". BBC News magazine. https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7682887.stm. Retrieved 13 November 2008.
- ↑ Cohn, Steven Mark (2015). Reintroducing Macroeconomics: A Critical Approach. Taylor & Francis. p. 111. ISBN 978-1317461203. https://books.google.com/books?id=bZ5sBgAAQBAJ&pg=PP1. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
- ↑ Davis, William L.; Figgins, Bob; Hedengren, David; Klein, Daniel B. (May 2011). "Economic Professors' Favorite Economic Thinkers, Journals, and Blogs". Econ Journal Watch 8 (2): 126–146. https://econjwatch.org/file_download/487/DavisMay2011.pdf?mimetype=pdf. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
- ↑ Skidelsky, Robert (2010). Keynes: The Return of the Master. Cambridge: Public affairs. ISBN 978-1586488970.
- ↑ Wolf, Martin (23 December 2008). "Keynes offers us the best way to think about the financial crisis". Financial Times. (Columnist opinion)
- ↑ Maurin, Max (2011). "J.M. Keynes, le libre-échange et le protectionnisme" (in fr). L'Actualité Économique 86: 109–129. doi:10.7202/045556ar.
- ↑ Maurin, Max (2013). Les fondements non neoclassiques du protectionnisme (Thesis) (in français). Université Bordeaux-IV.
- ↑ Keynes, John Maynard (June 1933). "National Self-Sufficiency". The Yale Review 22 (4): 755–769. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/interwar/keynes.htm. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
- ↑ Krugman, Paul (1995). Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in the Age of Diminished Expectations. W.W. Norton. p. 43. ISBN 978-0393312928. https://books.google.com/books?id=GcmvijkDrEcC&pg=PA43. "In 1968 in one of the decisive intellectual achievements of postwar economics, Friedman not only showed why the apparent tradeoff embodied in the idea of the Phillips curve was wrong; he also predicted the emergence of combined inflation and high unemployment ... dubbed 'stagflation."
- ↑ "To Set the Economy Right". Time. 27 August 1979. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920558,00.html.
- ↑ Chris Giles; Ralph Atkins; Krishna Guha. "The undeniable shift to Keynes". Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/8a3d8122-d5da-11dd-a9cc-000077b07658.
- ↑ Reich, Robert (29 March 1999). "The Time 100: John Maynard Keynes". Time. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990614,00.html.
- ↑ "The IMF in Britain: Toothless truth tellers". The Economist. 11 May 2013. https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21577382-chancellor-likely-ignore-imfs-advice-toothless-truth-tellers.
- ↑ "Maynard Keynes". The Bloomsbury Group. 22 August 2007. http://therem.net/bloom-maynard.htm.
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