The Nature of Macroeconomics is a short but adventurous book that punches well above its weight . . . As part of a growing literature that identifies methodological issues as central to any appreciation of macroeconomic debate, and which seeks to under-labor for a more relevant useful indeed, more scientific macroeconomics, Fitzgibbons book is to be warmly welcomed. Mark Setterfield, Review of Social Economy Fitzgibbons examines the foundations of macroeconomic theory and policy and develops an insightful discussion of important issues, especially the state of knowledge of both market participants and policymakers . . . The Nature of Macroeconomics is clearly a book that contributes to the growth of our own partial knowledge. David Dequech, Review of Political Economy Athol Fitzgibbons s book distils the main lesson of the debates on Keynes over the last 25 years: that macroeconomics has to be based on a theory of knowledge consistent with the way life is lived, where decisions are made in the face of imperfect knowledge. All existing theory (including, he argues, the General Theory) assumes either perfect knowledge or complete ignorance. He shows us why this has happened, and suggests a way out. It is a brave, knowledgeable and important book. Victoria Chick, University College London, UK A well-written, well-argued discussion of the foundations of macro. If you are unfamiliar with the arguments that macro is not, and cannot be, a traditional science, then this book is definitely worth reading. David Colander, Middlebury College, Vermont, US This book addresses the long absence of a satisfactory theory of macroeconomics. Keynesian theory is not consistent with rational self-interest, but neo-classical economics is unable to explain economic volatility and the trade cycle. Athol Fitzgibbons critiques the leading macroeconomic theories, which he believes are unduly mechanistic because they are incompatible with non-quantitative knowledge. The author sketches the intellectual history of partial knowledge and judgement so far as these relate to macroeconomics, and rejects the claims that Keynes recanted the analysis of practical reason in his Treatise on Probability. Fitzgibbons s theme is the possibility of a new synthesis of Keynes and the neoclassical system. This stresses financial rationality, but it also recognizes that there is an element of indeterminacy in both government policies and the movements of the market.

Macroeconomics: An Introduction, provides a lucid and novel introduction to macroeconomic issues. It introduces the reader to an alternative approach of understanding macroeconomics, which is inspired by the works of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and Piero Sraffa. It also presents the reader with a critical account of mainstream marginalist macroeconomics. The book begins with a brief history of economic theories and then takes the reader through three different ways of conceptualizing the macroeconomy. Subsequently, the theories of money and interest rates, output and employment levels, and economic growth are discussed. The book ends by providing a policy template for addressing the macroeconomic concerns of unemployment and inflation. The conceptual discussion in Macroeconomics is situated within the context of the Indian economy. Besides using publicly available data, the contextual description is instantiated using excerpts from works of fiction by Indian authors.

Contrary to common belief, macroeconomics is not merely a theory of aggregates, and cannot be constructed from individual behaviour. Both nationally and internationally, there are economic laws that are logically independent of economic agents’ behaviour. These are the macroeconomic foundations of macroeconomics. Presenting cutting-edge material, Alvaro Cencini explores these foundations, and shows that the introduction of money entails economics being interpreted conceptually not mathematically. His innovative book provides the elements for a new approach by applying the most recent results of monetary analysis to the study of national and international economics. It covers recent progress in monetary theory, provides the reader with a greater understanding of the subject, and will be essential reading for economic students as well as a valuable resource for economists.

This book collects selected articles addressing several currently debated issues in the field of international macroeconomics. They focus on the role of the central banks in the debate on how to come to terms with the long-term decline in productivity growth, insufficient aggregate demand, high economic uncertainty and growing inequalities following the global financial crisis. Central banks are of considerable importance in this debate since understanding the sluggishness of the recovery process as well as its implications for the natural interest rate are key to assessing output gaps and the monetary policy stance. The authors argue that a more dynamic domestic and external aggregate demand helps to raise the inflation rate, easing the constraint deriving from the zero lower bound and allowing monetary policy to depart from its current ultra-accommodative position. Beyond macroeconomic factors, the book also discusses a supportive financial environment as a precondition for the rebound of global economic activity, stressing that understanding capital flows is a prerequisite for economic-policy decisions.

Rpresentative agent models have become a predominant means of studying the macroeconomy in modern economics without there being much discussion in the literature about their propriety or usefulness. This volume evaluates the use of these models in macroeconomics, examining the justifications for their use and concluding that representative agent models are neither a proper nor a particularly useful means of studying aggregate behaviour.

This book describes the analysis of macroeconomic agent based models using the tools of statistical mechanics.

This book details an unprecedented finding in the history of economic thought: the true origin of macroeconomics. This occurred in Spain with the researcher Germán Bernácer (Alicante 1883-1965) and his first book: Sociedad y Felicidad. Un Ensayo de Mecánica Social (Society and Happiness. An Essay on Social Mechanics), published in 1916. Twenty years before the publication of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) by Keynes, Bernácer established the fundamental pillars of macroeconomics. Some of these works came to the attention of Professor Robertson in Cambridge where Keynes worked. Villacís demonstrates the invalidity of the fundamental equation of macroeconomics: savings equal to investment. This book discusses the epistolary relationship of the author, José Villacís, with Professor Robert M. Solow.

This introductory textbook provides a broad introduction to the field of macroeconomics and the alternative approaches to modeling an economic system. It ultimately demonstrates that economic modeling is always a matter of choice and compromise, and no one school of thought can accurately capture the full essence of a real evolving economic system under all circumstances, in all places, and at all times in history.

This book presents the stylized facts on the important variables (output, inflation, money supply and interest rates, etc.) of the macro economy and uses them to differentiate how well particular economic theories perform or fail to do so. On the determination of aggregate demand, this book presents two approaches: the traditional IS-LM analysis under the assumption that the money supply is exogenous because the central bank uses its monetary policy to control it, and the emerging IS-IRT analysis under the assumption that the interest rate is the exogenous monetary policy variable set by the central bank to manipulate aggregate demand in the economy. The IS-IRT analysis is important for the macro analyses of many economies, yet is totally neglected in most textbooks on macroeconomics. The chapter on Paradigms in Economics introduces students to the heritage of ideas in macroeconomics, and the evolution of ideas and approaches over the last two centuries. It also provides the justification for the simultaneous relevance of both Classical ideas and Keynesian ones. The two growth theory chapters go beyond the Solow growth model to cover the broad evolution of growth from Malthus's theory to the present endogenous approaches, and the link between money supply, inflation and growth over very long periods.

This book focuses on an integrated heterodox approach to the original contributions of Keynes, Marx and early institutionalists, featuring an international set of authors from the US, the UK, Japan and Korea.