Macroeconomia e ciclos economicos

After a first introductory part, part two attempts to put together different ideas proposed by distinguished classical/monetarist economists and to build a puzzle which I call the "complete classical macro economic system". Chapters 4, 5 and 6 contain critical surveys of the classical conception of the working of goods, labour and credit markets (and of the role of money as well). Chapter 7 puts together the building blocks arrived at in chapters 4, 5 and 6 and presents the classical argument in favour of the self-adjusting nature of macro economic systems. Part three has two main goals. First, it argues it is possible to arrive at the classical macro economic system departing from the keynesian macro economic system. Chapter 8 shows that the consideration of the keynesian theory of interest instead of the classical theory of interest invalidates. Say's law and makes it possible to conceptualize the recurring crises of overproduction with which capitalistic market economies are confronted. The crucial role of the behaviour of the interest rate in both classical and keynesian theories of employment, which will emerge from chapter 8, explains the fact that we devote chapter 9 to an analysis of the debate about the theory of the interest rate which occupied economists in the aftermath of the publication of Keynes'General Theory. Chapters 10, 11 and 12 tackle the following questions: (i) how does keynesian economists explain the recurring crises of overproduction in capitalistic market economies? (ii) How is it that crises of overproduction usually lead economies to stabilize in positions below full employment? (iii) Does the price system have power to bring economies from under-employment back to full-employment positions? Part four begins with surveys of the main stylized facts of the business cycles (chap.13) and of the main theories of aggregate investment and consumption behaviour (chap.14). Finally, chapters 15 and 16 present both classical and keynesian explanations of the business cycleAvailable from Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, Servico de Informacao e Documentacao, Av. D. Carlos I, 126, 1200 Lisboa / FCT - Fundação para o Ciência e a TecnologiaSIGLEPTPortuga