1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2012
Summary
My present aim, then, is not to teach the method which everyone must follow in order to direct his reason correctly, but only to reveal how I have tried to direct my own. One who presumes to give precepts must think himself more skilful than those to whom he gives them; and if he makes the slightest mistake, he may be blamed. But I am presenting this work only as a history or, if you prefer, a fable in which, among certain examples worthy of imitation, you will perhaps also find many others that it would be right not to follow; and so I hope it will be useful for some without being harmful to any, and that everyone will be grateful to me for my frankness.
(Descartes, 1637, p. 21)The crisis of macroeconomics
For many years macroeconomics has been in a state of crisis. Since the end of the sixties Keynesian macroeconomics has been staggering under a series of attacks on many fronts: on the empirical side (instability of the Phillips curve, and generally of the parameters of Keynesian econometric models), on the theoretical side (absence or weakness of microeconomic foundations), and also in the area of economic policy (inadequacies of public intervention emphasized by the world economic crisis).
In the course of the seventies a new orthodoxy began to coalesce, particularly in the USA. This was called ‘new classical economics’ as it was inspired by the aim of giving rigorous foundations to macroeconomic propositions on the ‘classical’ principles of general equilibrium.
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- Methodological Foundations of MacroeconomicsKeynes and Lucas, pp. 1 - 8Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991