Wednesday, September 20, 2017

JKH — The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money – Chapters 11 and 17

In a recent post, David Glasner tackles an aspect of John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. In Chapter 11 of the GT (The Marginal Efficiency of Capital), Keynes questions the meaningfulness of the Fisher equation, suggesting that the decomposition of nominal return into its real and expected inflation components may have a (rough) connection to the marginal efficiency of capital but not to the interest rate. David claims this view is inconsistent with Keynes’ treatment of the interest rate elsewhere, including the analysis found in chapter 17 (The Essential Properties of Interest and Money). I found this most interesting. Keynes is always a challenge to understand, and the two chapters in question are very meaty indeed. His analysis in Chapter 17 of why money is the asset with the most ‘significant’ interest rate is a tour de force in brute logic. And Glasner’s ‘Uneasy Money’ is one of my favorite blogs, where his posts are unfailingly thoughtful, well written, and scholarly....
Here is David’s post
And here is a (final) comment I left at the post, offering an alternative interpretation of the connection between the two GT chapters:
This is a bit wonkish, but if you were following David Glasner's post and missed JKH's comment, as I did, it is of interest in the study of the General Theory.

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