These essays are taken from a conference on the thoughts of Michail Kalecki, held at Perugia, Italy in April 1986. The purpose of the conference was to evaluate the relevance of his theory in relation to current economic debate and to examine its influence on contemporary thought.

Michael Kalecki was a Polish economist who independently discovered many of the key concepts of what is now identified as Keynesian theory. His contribution to macroeconomics was late in being acknowledged, but his work can be seen to have resounding influence on some of today's economic problems. The analyses presented in this book serve to scruti

This volume of intellectual biography takes the Polish economist Micha Kalecki (1899-1970) from the shattering of his prosperous childhood, in Tsarist Łódź in the 1905 Revolution, to Cambridge and the failure of his co-operative research with John Maynard Keynes's supporters in Cambridge.

Unemployment, Recession and Effective Demand is a fine example of how critical analysis and debate about fundamental issues should be carried on. Claudio Sardoni does not pull his punches, but he criticises with courtesy in a learned and fair-minded way. His writings are a role model of proper procedure allied with cumulative persuasion through weight of evidence, sound scholarship and argument.' - From the foreword by G.C. Harcourt In the midst of the current world economic crisis, many claim there is a necessity to return to the Marxian and Keynesian traditions in order to better understand the dynamics of market economies. This book is an important step in that direction. It presents a critical examination of the foundations of macroeconomics as developed in the traditions of Marx, Keynes and Kalecki, which are contrasted with the current mainstream. Particular attention is given to the problem of market forms and their relevance for macroeconomics. Professional economists and postgraduate students in economics, in particular those concerned with macroeconomics and the history of economic thought in the 20th century, will find this insightful resource invaluable. This book should be required reading for a large proportion of the economics profession who are dissatisfied with the mainstream.

Piero Sraffa and Joan Robinson, both iconic Cambridge economists, were highly influenced by the economic theory of Karl Marx, and integrated important elements of Marx’s economic system into their theories. This book argues, based on published and unpublished documents, that the work of Sraffa and Robinson can in fact be considered as essentially post-Keynesian neo-Marxist. The first part of the book reviews the intellectual development of several key thinkers to this neo-Marxist current in economic thought: Kalecki, Steindl, Baran and Sweezy. Part One and Part Two separately examine Robinson and Sraffa’s works and questions how they fit into this specific neo-Marxist current, either building on it (in Robinson’s case), or following another direction (in Sraffa’s case). Part Three observes Robinson’s theory of economic growth and its relationship to the views of Marx and Kalecki. Overall, Cuyvers demonstrates how their thought processes share characteristics with neo-Marxist key ideological ideas, such as stating or implying the labour theory of value as either redundant or wrong, emphasising the role of class struggle in the distribution of income and rejecting Marx’s falling rate of profits. Following on from ideas briefly introduced in Cuyvers’s Economic Ideas of Marx’s Capital (2017), this book will particularly appeal to readers interested in the history of economic thought, the work of Sraffa, Robinson and Marx, post-Keynesian economics and neo-Marxism.

This book shows how the realistic foundations and stylized facts of Post-Keynesian economics give rise to macroeconomic implications that are different from those of received wisdom with regards to employment, output growth, inflation and monetary theory, and offers an alternative to neoclassical economics and its free-market economic policies.