The econometric challenge to Keynes : arguments and contradictions in the early debates about a late issue

• Autor(a) principal: Louçã, Francisco
• Data de Publicação: 1999
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/25984
• topic: Theory; Neoclassical Economics; Great Depression; Econometric Challenge

It has been thoroughly argued that one of the reasons for the impressive, general and initially unopposed acceptance of the ‘synthetic’ interpretations of the ‘General Theory’ was the strategic choice of the ‘reconcilers’, wishing for a theoretical truce with neoclassical economics in order to concentrate in the urgent policies against the Great Depression. Keynes did not campaign against those choices, although he resisted in some private letters and argued for a radical interpretation of his message, at least in the QJE piece in 1937. The current paper investigates new elements highlighting some features of those debates. Namely, it focuses on the attitude of the econometricians and, in particular, of Ragnar Frisch and his closest associates in the 1930s, those men engaged in the foundation of the Econometric Society and in the mathematical reconstruction of economics.