In some respects this is a very controversial book. There are many passages in whieh I attack with vehemenee the views of others, and it is unlikely that I shall escape reprisals …. It is notorious that controversy in economies is peculiarly provocative of irritation …. It is, I think, of the essential nature of economic exposition that it gives, not a complete statement, which, even if it were possible would be prolix and complicated to the point of obscurity but a sample statement, so to speak, out of all the things which could be said, intended to suggest to the reader the whole bundle of associated ideas, so that, if he eatches the bundle, he will not in the least be eonfused or impeded by the teehnical incompleteness of the mere words which the author has written down, taken by themselves.
Contents:
- The Political Economy of Modem Theory – Keynes, Keynesians, and the Neoclassicists
- Uncertainty and the “Historical Model Approach
- An Overview of Pricing and Production
- The Demand and Supply of Capital Goods – the Building Blocks of a Theory of Accumulation
- Accumulation and Growth in Effective Demand
- Money and Uncertainty – an Introductory View
- The Demand for Money as a Medium of Exchange
- The Demand for Money as a Store of Value
- The Peculiarity of Money
- Financial Markets, Finance, and Investment
- Finance and Accumulation – a First Simplified View
- Savings, Income Distribution, Growth, and Finance
- Financial Intermediaries and the needs of the Financial and Industrial Circulations
- Inflation
- A Final Summing-up
- Why Money Matters: A Postscript
Money and the Real World By Paul Davidson pdf
Carmelo Jaramillo (verified owner) –
It’s not an easy read and to be honest I’m still really working out some of the deeper implications thirty years after picking it up. What I like most about this volume is its focus on the process of physical investment (the key to economic fluctuations) and understanding that the financial sector plays an absolutely essentially role (not a passive, accommodative one as in Neoclassicism).
Charles Richards (verified owner) –
Davidson is the founder of a school of economics called Post Keynesian.It is based on a synthesis of the work of Joan Robinson,GLS Shackle,Sidney Weintraub,and Dennis Robertson(with a mathematical assist from Harry Johnson coming in the form of an appendix published in 1955 in one of D. Robertson’s Economic Journal articles).It has practically nothing to do with the work of JM Keynes as contained in his A Treatise on Probability(1921)or his General Theory(1936).A potential problem for anyone considering reading this book is that D uses many of the same words and variables Keynes used but gives them different definitions.First,consider Keynes’s two basic mathematical models of the GT.The first model is that expected aggregate demand,D=f(N),CAN BE DEFINED AS D=D1+D2=pO,where p=the expected price and O=F(N)is real output,O is a function of total employment,N ,and Z=P+wN=g(N),where P equals expected future profit and w equals the current actual money wage being paid to the aggregate labor force N.Z obviously equals expected profits(P)plus total short run variable costs wN.Keynes called Z the expected aggregate supply function since it depends on future expected profit.Keynes called D the expected aggregate demand function because it depends on future expected prices.Keynes called the SET of all possible expected results the aggregate supply CURVE.It is the set of all possible D=Z INTERSECTIONS.Only one element of the set of all possible D=Z INTERSECTIONS can actually occur.Keynes called this the POINT of EFFECTIVE DEMAND.This outcome is specified by Keynes’s SECOND MODEL Y=C+I=PO,where P equals the ACTUAL current price of aggregate output O,C=actual aggregate consumption and I=actual aggregate investment.Y obviously equals actual aggregate demand.D MUST equal expected aggregate demand because D1 equals expected aggregate consumption and D2 equals expected aggregate investment.Davidson ,following the error filled model of Robertson and Johnson in 1955,redefines Z=pO and D=C+I,where D is redefined to equal actual aggregate demand and Z is redefined to equal the aggregate expected supply.Davidson’s D =Z model is incoherent as the left hand side of his equation is measured in actual values while the right hand side of his equation is measured in expected values.Davidson’s error filled model ,which is identical to the error filled mathematical model of Robertson-Johnson first published in the Economic Journal of 1955,has been THE major cause of confusion about Keynes’s actual model.There are many,many other parts of this book which are unclear.The potential reader is advised to work out Keynes’s modeling for himself in chapter 20 of the GT unless he is prepared to wade through a large number of logical confusions and mathematical inconsistencies.