Old views and new perspectives: on reading Hick's ‘Mr. Keynes and the Classics’*

Abstract

This paper discusses the different macroeconomic models presented in Hicks's seminal 1937 article on the IS-LM (or SI-LL) approach. Hicks's treatment of the supply side Keynes's reaction to the different SI-LL models later developments of SI-LL by Hicks and his comments on the construction of SI-LL are discussed. It is argued that one of the different SI-LL models does indeed represent a faithful rendition of the analytical core of Keynes's General Theory and does belong more to the Marshall-Pigou-Keynes tradition than to a Walrasian tradition. Textbook IS-LM (and AS-AD) models are compared to the original SI-LL models. It is argued that textbook IS-LM is decisively different from the SI-LL approach this difference being the cause of presently discussed problems and obscurities of the textbook IS-LM/AS-AD approach.