The Propagation of Keynesian Thinking in Australia: E. R. Walker 1933‐36*

Abstract

Walker attended Cambridge in the early 1930s when Keynes was moving toward an expenditure‐oriented explanation of output and employment but had yet to break through to his theory of effective demand. In conveying this thinking to an Australian audience through 1933‐35, and in setting up as a Keynesian critic of depression policy, Walker raised the level of local discourse upon the unemployment problem. In 1936, too, he was quick to novelty in the General Theory; but now others were to carry forward the intellectual revolution that was consummated in war and post‐war planning.