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Customer Reviews (3)

Great Introduction to the Economics of Keynes
This is a great book on Keynes, and the title is appropriate --- It is a book about Keynes' 1936 book The General Theory, and not about Keynesian (Hicks-Hansen) economics.

It is written in clear and engaging prose, and is remarkably novel considering its date of publication (1948).Dillard also anticipated the American Post Keynesian rendition of the Z-D model by several years.The outline of the book is really great.It covers the whole of Keynes' General Theory book.Dillard recognizes the importance of uncertainty in economic instability, and correctly attributes this state to the investment side of income and employment activity (and not the consumption side).

This is probably the first American Post Keynesian book to be written, and it is a shame mose Post Keynesian authors have ignored it.Several reasons can explain this.Dillard does not follow Davidson in attributing unemployment to liquidity preference and the essential properties of money(approximately zero elasticities of substitution and production), although he does mention them.But Dillard is on the right track by locating the soruce of instability in the rapid movements of the marginal efficiency of capital due to the insecure foundations of investor expectations.Also, Dillard accepted without question the argument that the money supply can be directly controlled, and used this to explain the interest rate (consisting of the strength of liquidity preference and the money supply).But Dillard is on the right track in attributing greater importance to liquidity preference rathern than money supply.My favorite part of the book was Dillard's discussion of Expectations (pp. 142-153).

Every person interested in what Keynes did in his General Theory book should read this book very carefully.Read chapters 1-3 twice, and then look at chapters 5, 7, 8 and 9 to see what Keynes accomplished in his revolution.

Confused about the aggregate supply function Z
Dillard is unable to deal with Keynes's General Theory(GT) because he writes under the misconception that Keynes's analysis of his aggregate supply function,Z,is contained in chapter 3 of the GT.Keynes made it perfectly clear that there was no analysis of any part of his theory of effective demand contained in chapter 3 of the GT.Keynes stated that there was an introductory outline in chapter 3 that might be unintelligible to the reader until it was filled in in later chapters.These later chapters are chapter 19(and its appendix),chapter 20,and chapter 21.This is obvious to anyone who is not mathematically illiterate.Keynes faced the same question from Dennis Robertson ,a self admitted mathematical illiterate ,in 1935.Keynes had sent Robertson the first 19 chapters of a draft copy of the GT.These 19 chapters are the same as the first 17 chapters of the GT.Robertson stated that he had no idea about what Keynes meant in chapter 3 of the GT about the functions D and Z and that he considered Keynes 's analysis to be hocus pocus and a lot of"...mumbo jumbo".Keynes told him that his analysis ofthe employment function, D ,and Z occurred in a later chapter that Keynes had not sent him.It is obvious from the title of chapter 20 of the GT,"The Employment Function",that it is chapter 20 and not chapter 3 that contains Keynes's worked out analysis.None of this is covered anywhere in Dillard's book or any other book written by a Post Keynesian economist(Paul Davidson,Douglas Vickers,Jan Kregel,Paul Wells,etc.) or any other kind of economist in the 20th century.

A nice book to read....
Dillard relly seems to have understood keynes.. I'd say he wrote the book with the situation that Keynes faced in kind.. The culmination of events..How must keynes have come to his conclusions in the GeneralTheory.

A Must Read!! ... Read more