Keynesian economics: The search for first principles

Recent Books Global Monetary Anarchy: Perspectives on Restoring Stability. Randall Hinshaw, ed. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1981. 200 pp. $20.00 ($9.95 paperbound). Taped proceedings of a conference held in October 1978 at Claremont, California, under the auspices of the Clarement Graduate School, now published in book form. This conference was the seventh in a biennial series of dialogues on current international monetary issues held since 1969. The subject of this “dialogue” is “Future Policies for the International Monetary System.” Conference members include Nobel laureates, senior federal government officials, bankers, and economists from Japan, Europe, and the U.S. In the Name of Money: A Professional’s Guide to the Federal Reserve, Znterest Rates, and Money. Paul DeRosa and Gary H. Stem. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981. 172 pp. $16.95. The authors place the activities of the Federal Reserve into the context of working financial markets. Specifically, they focus on the precise methods used by the Federal Reserve to achieve its monetary, inflationary, and interest rate targets and show how these activities influence the trading environment of the money markets. For security analysts, financial executives, and other managers. Keynesian Economics: The Search for First Principles. Alan Coddington. Winchester, MA: Allen & Unwin, 1983. 129 pp. $18.50. Coddington’s book (published after his death in 1982) analyzes Keynesian economic principles in an effort to find the sorts of problems that Keynesian economics might be supposed to solve. He does not attempt to separate Keynesian economics from the economics of Keynes; rather he provides a wide-ranging critical examination of the broad varieties of approaches that fall under the mantle of Keynesian economics. Good reading especially for those interested in the recent history of ideas. Macro-Economics in Question: The Keynesian-Monetarist Orthodoxies and the Kaleckian Alternative. Malcolm C. Sawyer. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1982. 190 pp. $25.00 ($14.95 paperbound). This book has two central purposes. The first is to present a rather more critical view of the Keynesian and Monetarist approaches to macroeconomics than is usual in major textbooks. It argues that the Keynesian approach has failed to develop a coherent theory of inflation and that the monetarist approach cannot ade137