Paul Davidson (economist)

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Paul Davidson (born October 23, 1930 in New York City ) is an American economist . He is considered one of the leading exponents of post-Keynesianism in the United States .

Life

Davidson grew up in Brooklyn . He got into economics only after graduating from Brooklyn College in chemistry and biology. He was a biochemist at the University of Pennsylvania and planned to do a PhD in DNA . Then, however, he had radically changed course and received the MBA with a thesis entitled The Statistical Analysis of Economic Time Series . He then returned to the University of Pennsylvania to study under Sidney Weintraub . Hence his interest in macroeconomics in the light of JM Keynes and in issues of income distribution . With his dissertation Theories of Relative Shares he received the Ph.D. filed in economics.

In 1952 Davidson married. After a brief period of academic teaching, he was Assistant Director of the Economics Division at Standard Oil Company for a year , after which he returned to Pennsylvania University. In 1966 he moved to Rutgers University , where he taught for twenty years. In 1986 he took over the Holly Chair of Excellence in Political Economy at the University of Tennessee .

Together with Sidney Weintraub, he founded the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics (JPKE). He had been editor from the beginning in 1978 (co-editor until Weintraub's death in 1983).

Theoretical approach

What "Keynesianism" represents was mainly shaped in the United States by Paul A. Samuelson and John R. Hicks , who made the economist John Maynard Keynes academically acceptable by adapting to neoclassical theory . According to Davidson, however, the concern of the General Theory to develop a fundamental theoretical alternative to the “classical theory” was completely disregarded. Statements were attributed to Keynes that he had never made, such as that involuntary unemployment could be explained by the rigidities of the labor market or by a liquidity trap . Davidson explains this misunderstanding of the original Keynes from the history of science, namely that Samuelson had met Keynes through Robert Bryce, who had attended Keynes' lectures at Cambridge before he had even written his General Theory . Bryce then went to Harvard , and his image of Keynes became that of the economists there.

According to Keynes' peculiar monetary theory approach, an essential basic fact for the current economy is that contracts contain monetary claims, and that every economic subject must see that it always remains liquid in order to be able to survive, i.e. that it can meet the monetary claims that arise in time.

In his Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947), Samuelson took up two axioms of the classical theory, the neutrality of money and the substitution theorem (gross substitution axiom), according to which every real product that yields a positive return can replace money. In propagating his version of Keynesianism, Samuelson asserted these axioms as the basis of economic theory, although Keynes expressly rejected them in his writings.

In his critique of mainstream economics, Davidson identified three axioms against which he concentrated his theory critique .

  • Axiom of Substitutability : This axiom upholds Say's law and denies the possibility of involuntary unemployment.
  • Axiom of the real economy (axiom of reals): The neutrality of money is assumed; d. H. the “ veil of money ” has no meaning. Real economic decisions are based on relative prices, income effects are always eliminated by substitution effects.
  • Axiom of ergodicity : The future is seen under the assumption of statistical probability , but not under that of a fundamental uncertainty.

Publications

  • Theories of Aggregate Income Distribution. Rutgers University Press, 1960
  • with Eugene Smolensky: Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis. Harper & Row, 1964
  • Money and the Real World. Macmillan, 1972
  • International Money and the Real World. Macmillan, 1982
  • with Greg Davidson: Economics for a Civilized Society. Norton, 1988
  • The Collected Writings of Paul Davidson. Palgrave Macmillan
    • Volume 1: Money and Employment. 1990
    • Volume 2: Inflation, Open Economies, and Resources. 1991
    • Volume 3: Uncertainty, International Money, Employment and Theory. 1999
    • Volume 4: Interpreting Keynes for the 21st Century. 2007
  • Controversies in Post Keynesian Economics. Edward Elgar, 1991
  • (Ed.): Can the Free Market Pick Winners? What Determines Investment. ME Sharpe, 1993
  • with JA Kregel (Ed.): Employment, Growth And Finance: Economic Reality and Economic Growth. Edward Elgar, 1994
  • Post Keynesian Macroeconomic Theory: A Foundation for Successful Economic Policies for the Twenty-first Century. Edward Elgar, 1994
  • with Jan A. Kregel (Ed.): Improving the Global Economy: Keynesianism and the Growth in Output and Employment. Edward Elgar, 1997
  • with Jan Kregel (Ed.): Full Employment and Price Stability in a Global Economy. Edward Elgar, 1999
  • Financial Markets, Money and the Real World. Edward Elgar, 2002
  • (Ed.): A Post Keynesian Perspective On Twenty-First Century Economic Problems. Edward Elgar, 2002
  • John Maynard Keynes. Great Thinkers in Economics Series. Palgrave, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4039-9623-7
  • The Keynes Solution: The Path to Global Economic Prosperity. Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2009
  • Post Keynesian Macroeconomic Theory: A Foundation for Successful Economic Policies for the Twenty-first. Edward Elgar, 2011
  • with Heiner Flassbeck , James K. Galbraith , Richard Koo & Jayati Ghosh: Economic Reform Now: A Global Manifesto to Rescue our Sinking Economies. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, ISBN 978-1-137-36165-3

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Philip Arestis : Introduction. In: Philip Arestis (Ed.): Employment, Economic Growth and the Tyranny of the Market. Essays in Honor of Paul Davidson: Volume Two. Edgar Elgar, Cheltenham 1996, ISBN 1-85898-313-4 , p. Xivff.
  2. ^ David C. Colander & Harry Landreth: The Coming of Keynesianism to America. Elgar, Cheltenham 1996, ISBN 1858986028 , p. 23
  3. ^ A b Paul Davidson: Keynes' Serious Monetary Theory. 2008, p. 3 ( PDF; 166 kB )
  4. ^ Paul Davidson: Keynes' Serious Monetary Theory. 2008, p. 9ff. ( PDF; 166 kB )
  5. ^ Paul Davidson: Keynes' Serious Monetary Theory. 2008, p. 13f. ( PDF; 166 kB )
  6. ^ Philip Arestis: Introduction. In: Philip Arestis (Ed.): Employment, Economic Growth and the Tyranny of the Market. Essays in Honor of Paul Davidson: Volume Two. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 1996, ISBN 1-85898-313-4 , pp. Xvff.
personal data
SURNAME Davidson, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American economist
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City