by From Asad Zaman This post is Lecture 8B — from 17m to 37m of video lecture linked at bottom of post. It attempts to make sense of the Keynesian explanation of unemployment based on insufficient aggregate demand. It concludes that several elements missing from Keynes must be added to get to a satisfactory explanation. Friedman’s Methodology leads to crazy models: In previous post ( Lecture 8A – Microfoundations for Keynesian Economics ), we showed that even small differences in the micro-foundations could lead to very large differences in the macro outcomes. Depending on how we choose micro-foundations, we can get almost any result we like at the macro level. So the question arises: HOW should we construct our micro-foundations? How can we choose among the wide variety of possible
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from Asad Zaman
This post is Lecture 8B — from 17m to 37m of video lecture linked at bottom of post. It attempts to make sense of the Keynesian explanation of unemployment based on insufficient aggregate demand. It concludes that several elements missing from Keynes must be added to get to a satisfactory explanation.
Friedman’s Methodology leads to crazy models: In previous post ( Lecture 8A – Microfoundations for Keynesian Economics ), we showed that even small differences in the micro-foundations could lead to very large differences in the macro outcomes. Depending on how we choose micro-foundations, we can get almost any result we like at the macro level. So the question arises: HOW should we construct our micro-foundations? How can we choose among the wide variety of possible micro-structures. This leads to a very serious methodological issue of what models are and how they relate to reality. On this topic, see my detailed discussion in post on “Models and Reality“. Briefly, the standard POV adopted in neoclassical textbooks is that the only job of models is the provide a match to observations. The inner details of the models can be arbitrary. However neoclassical economists insist that a good model must have optimizing behavior by all agents, and the equilibrium outcome of the model should match observations. There is no requirement for models to be realistic. read more