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This book argues that the shift in general equilibrium theory, from its early long-period to the modern very-short-period versions, has had very important consequences which are insufficiently appreciated by large parts of the economics profession. This shift has produced new difficulties, and has undermined central tenets of neoclassical macroeconomic theory (such as the negative dependence of aggregate investment on the interest rate, or the existence of a downward-sloping demand curve for labour) which had their basis in the long-period versions where capital was treated as a single factor.
Ethics and Uncertainty explores how two economists, who both placed ‘uncertainty’ at the heart of their economic theories, come to drastically different and opposing policy recommendations. The volume illustrates that the important lesson to learn from both Knight and Keynes is that ethics and the desire to improve mankind should be the focus of economic enquiry.
