Animal spirits

As Animal Spirits (dt., Animal instincts', sometimes with, Earthliving [lat. Animal spirits ] reproduced) are irrational elements in the economic life , as unreflected instincts , emotions and herd behavior referred to which in the opinion of Keynesians to cyclical fluctuations and involuntary unemployment. The term was used by John Maynard Keynes in " General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money " from 1936.

In it he defines Animal Spirits as follows:

“Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits - a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities. "

“Aside from the instability that arises from speculation, instability also arises from human nature, because of which much of our positive activities, be they moral, hedonistic or economic, depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical calculations. Probably most decisions to do something positive, the full effects of which will extend for many days to come, can only be traced back to spirits - a sudden impulse to act, rather than inactivity, and not the weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities. "

- John Maynard Keynes

According to Robert Shiller and George Akerlof , the supporters of Keynesianism largely withheld the consideration of irrational psychological motives when interpreting General Theory , in order to adapt the theory more closely to the mainstream prevailing at the time, which assumed economic actors to behave rationally. The two authors come to a new interpretation of Keynesianism, with which current problems of globalization and financial market regulation are to be addressed. This makes them one of the prominent representatives of a revival of Keynesianism after the financial crisis from 2007 . When interpreting animal spirits, they tie in with new findings in behavioral economics and make them useful for macroeconomic analysis.

literature

• George A. Akerlof, Robert J. Shiller: Animal Spirits: How Economics Really Work. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-593-38937-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jürgen Kromphardt, Florian R. Simon: Vokabularium . In: General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money . 11th edition. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2009, p. 327 .
2. ^ Ingo Barens: "Animal Spirits" in John Maynard Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Some Short and Skeptical Remarks. In: Darmstadt Discussion Papers in ECONOMICS. No. 201 ( Memento of February 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 113 kB), ISSN  1438-2733 , p. 2 f.
3. ↑ Cf. in general on the history of ideas and etymology of the “spirits of life” Rudolf Eisler: Dictionary of philosophical terms . Volume 2, Berlin 1904, main entry “Lebensgeister”, as well as reference “Spiritus animales”.
4. ↑ See, describing this translation as “somewhat flat”, Thomas Straubhaar, Michael Wohlgemuth and Joachim Zweynert: Return of Keynesianism: Notes from a regulatory perspective . In: From Politics and Contemporary History . Issue 20, 2009, pp. 21 .
5. ↑ Keynes 1936, p. 136.
6. ↑ George Akerlof, Robert Shiller: Animal Spirits. How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism. Princeton 2009, p. X.