Joan Robinson and the Americans

Recent Books ports which examine both theoretical and empirical issues involved in housing market research. The report on theoretical issues focuses on conditions of housing supply, the appropriate price and income variables for housing demand analysis, the mortgage market, and analytical difficulties resulting from the durability and heterogeneity of the housing stock. The investigation of empirical issues covers the effects of transactions costs on the modeling of the behavior of housing market participants, the treatment of neighborhood effects within an urban housing model, and the implications of demographic variables in housing market analysis. International Differences in the Labor Market Performance of Immigrants. George J. Borjas. Kalamazoo, Michigan: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1988. 106 pp. NPA ISBN O88099-064-3. This book is an empirical analysis c p the labor market performance of immigrants in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Using two significant conceptual tools-the existence of an immigration market and the theory that individuals are wealth-maximizers-the volume investigates the impact of the endogenous migration decision on the quality of immigrant flows entering each of the three countries. The book also examines how changes in immigration policy help determine the national origin of immigrants and the skills they carry into their destination countries. Interpreting Mr. Keynes. Warren Young. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987. 218 pp. $45.00 ISBN 0-8133-0533-O. In this book, Young provides a history of the IS-LM approach to Keynes’s General Theory. Using information gathered from published and unpublished material and from economists who attended the 1936 European conference of the Econometric Society, “perhaps the most important meeting in the history of economics,” Young gives details on the preparation of the IS-LM papers and on early reactions to the approach. Young follows the evolution of the controversial model to the present and discusses the role it plays in the most recent debates in economics. Joan Robinson and the Americans. Marjorie S. Turner. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1989. 315 pp. $29.95 ISBN 0-87332533-8. This book not only provides a personal profile of Joan Rob-

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Recent Books inson, one of the most influential economic theorists of the postKeynesian period, but also traces her career as an economist through six decades, from the early 1920s when she was a student at Cambridge, to the 1930s when she published The Economics of Imperfect Competition, and on through the periods of Keynesianism, capital controversy, and post-Keynesianism. The book tells of the important role Robinson played in the development of economic thought and theory throughout the twentieth century, horn the time Britain’s Alfred Marshall’s work was the greatest influence upon economic thinking, to the 1980s when American economics became dominant. Keynes, Investment Theory and the Economic Slowdown: The Role Replacement Investment and q-Ratios. Michael Perelman. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. 298 pp. $55.00 ISBN 0-31202070-8. This book analyzes the successes and failures of Keynes’s theory of a monetary economy. It focuses on a theory of replacement investment, weaknesses in the q-theory, and the behavior of the U.S. stock market after World War II. Other topics discussed include the development of Keynes’s attempt to manage the capitalist system before the General Theory, economic management in the General Theory, and application of Keynes’s policies in the U.S. Keynes’s Monetary Theory: A Different Interpretation. Allan H. Meltzer. Port Chester, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 336 pp. NPA ISBN o-521-30615-9. In this book, Allen H. Meltzer concentrates on a Keynesian theme which he argues is central to Keynes’s policy and which has often been misinterpreted; that is, the theme which deals with the types of policy rules that increase stability by lowering variability and uncertainty. To support his unorthodox interpretation, Meltzer traces the development of Keynes’s theory from its beginning in the 1920s to the postwar era, during which Keynes disagreed with discretionary fiscal changes and promoted rules to reduce instability and increase the capital stock. Keynes’s Principle of Effective Demand. Edward J. Amadeo. Brookfield, VT: Gower Publishing Company, 1989. 189 pp. $42.75 ISBN 1-85278-148-3. This book provides an unconventional interpretation of Keynes’s

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