The Macrodynamics of Advanced Market Economics

Book excerpt: This volume examines the macrodynamic behaviour of advanced economies with social institutions similar to those of the United States and other members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. It is a critique of, and provides alternative models to, conventional neoclassical theory. The principles developed are used to explain two major phenomena in economic life: the nation's secular growth rate and the cyclical deviations around that growth. These interdependent movements of trend and cycle constitute the economy's macrodynamic behaviour. Eichner uses a systems framework for integrating four distinct institutional dimensions in society - the normative, the political, the economic, and the anthropogenic. This book, by one of the leading proponents of Post-Keynesian economics, is the culmination of over 13 years of scholarly work. The author's untimely death in February 1988 prevented the final revisions of his manuscript. The book should prove an essential addition to the library of scholars and students of economics both within and outside the Post-Keynesian tradition.