Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- Dramatis Personae at the end of 1937
- Introduction and Summary
- Part I The roots
- Part II The approach of the Stockholm School
- 4 Expectation and plan: The microeconomics of the Stockholm School
- 5 Sequence analysis and optimization
- 6 There were two Stockholm Schools
- 7 On formal dynamics: From Lundberg to chaos analysis
- 8 Lundberg, Keynes, and the riddles of a general theory
- 9 Macrodynamics and the Stockholm School
- 10 Ohlin and the General Theory
- 11 The monetary economics of the Stockholm School
- 12 The Austrians and the Stockholm School: Two failures in the development of modern macroeconomics?
- 13 The political arithmetics of the Stockholm School
- 14 After the Stockholm School
- Part III The impact of the Stockholm School
- Part IV What remains of the Stockholm School?
- The Stockholm School: A non-Swedish bibliography
10 - Ohlin and the General Theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2013
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- Dramatis Personae at the end of 1937
- Introduction and Summary
- Part I The roots
- Part II The approach of the Stockholm School
- 4 Expectation and plan: The microeconomics of the Stockholm School
- 5 Sequence analysis and optimization
- 6 There were two Stockholm Schools
- 7 On formal dynamics: From Lundberg to chaos analysis
- 8 Lundberg, Keynes, and the riddles of a general theory
- 9 Macrodynamics and the Stockholm School
- 10 Ohlin and the General Theory
- 11 The monetary economics of the Stockholm School
- 12 The Austrians and the Stockholm School: Two failures in the development of modern macroeconomics?
- 13 The political arithmetics of the Stockholm School
- 14 After the Stockholm School
- Part III The impact of the Stockholm School
- Part IV What remains of the Stockholm School?
- The Stockholm School: A non-Swedish bibliography
Summary
“Tis a pitiful tale,” said the Bellman, whose face
Had grown longer at every word:
“But now that you've stated the whole of your case,
More debate would be simply absurd.”
Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the SnarkIn a 1972 volume of economic essays, Gunnar Myrdal describes the Keynesian Revolution as “mainly an Anglo-American occurrence. In Sweden, where we grew up in the tradition of Knut Wicksell, Keynes' works were read as interesting and important contributions along a familiar line of thought, but not in any sense as a revolutionary break-through” (Myrdal, 1972, pp. 4–5). This description applies with particular force to Bertil Ohlin, as indicated by the concluding paragraph of his 1937 “Notes on the Stockholm Theory of Savings and Investment”:
In his attempt to bring about a coordination of economic theory Keynes does not – at least from the Stockholm horizon – appear to have been radical or revolutionary enough. The equilibrium method instead of process analysis in which not more of the equilibrium idea is left than consideration of more or less stable positions, the insufficient distinction between “realisations” and “expectations,” the retaining of physical marginal productivity, the disutility analysis of labour supply, in a way also the aggregate supply function, are all evidence of an exaggerated conservatism in method which has hampered his work.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Stockholm School of Economics Revisited , pp. 245 - 262Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991
- 1
- Cited by