Epstein Secrets

vailable for business to borrow and invest. But business lacked the “animal spirits” to take such a risk ina slump. We saw the same story after 2008. Keynes’ proposal was for government to do the borrowing and investing instead. That’s part of the “fiscal policy” I described in Chapter 1. Here we tend to

saving is invested, as I use the word, but finds different returns. Saving under the mattress is investment at zero return, and drops output just as Keynes said. Investment at the current average return keeps output unchanged. That’s what Keynes meant. But investment at lower returns lowers output, and c

Wealth of Nations published in 1776, proposed growth by belt tightening. Most tradition has agreed, with the proviso that new ideas must come first. Solow raised doubts about the role of consumption restraint, but stopped short of denying a need for it. Mill acknowledged both ways to grow. My charts and

twice. Chapter 4 will restate it in terms of total including human capital just to make sure. It is an unsettling argument either way. It unsettled Solow. Chapter 2 showed why. Weare probably more comfortable to think of income as something known which we can slice into consumption and saving slices a

d their market value in return, as if on the books of a firm. Chapter 6: Parallels with the Firm 2/4/16 21 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011055 Marshall’s pupil Keynes was thoroughly a marginalist, as are economists in general today and as am I. One of the features of his General Theory of 1936 was a kind of double-

t the human capital of children. But Farr deserves credit for pointing out that human capital in general capitalizes pay less invested consumption. Keynes’ teacher Alfred Marshall agreed with Farr in 1990’. As I read this passage, Marshall interpreted maintenance consumption as investment. So did B. F.

te for eight nations over four to fourteen decades. They will show the same for dividends when we come to that. Economists would be less surprised. Solow has prepared them for the news. In 1956 and 1957 he showed evidence that most growth is not explained by capital accumulation, or saving through cons

ht also be surprised at my choice of benchmarks in verse and economics. Masefield and Mill? A consensus might have picked T. S. Elliot, say, and Lord Keynes. Masefield and Mill are likelier to be remembered as old-fashioned fuddy-duddies already outmoded when they wrote. But that’s me. I am Don Quixote. N

b paragraph on growth. The candidates for third seem well behind. Maybe Jevons or John Rae or Leon Walras. Time has not been kind to the teachings of Keynes. I would now rank his teacher Alfred Marshall higher. I like Myrdal’s magnificent ex ante - ex post distinction. Boehm Bawerk and the Austrian school

Macroeconomics 2/8/16 23 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011112 I would tax capital gains as much as ordinary income for the same reason. Level the playing field. Solow saw most of the truth, but didn’t go far enough. Mill saw more. And even Mill stopped short. All we have to do is look at the charts and tables. Capi