Re: Richard Goodwin

[Steve.Keen@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Dear Ric,
This is a lonhg overdue reply to your eq query re Goodwin on the
irrelevance of monetary policy to trade cycles... to which I haven't
seen any previous replies. Perhaps t you have to assess Goodwin's
comments in the light of when he did his research into money and
trade cycles, and what the competing literature was at the time.

Hius PhD was into the impact of money between WWI and WWII in Britain,
and he reached the conclusion that it wasn't vital--i.e., I guess, that
the GD wasn't caused by "poor monetary poliy", which was a competing
explanation. Since then, to quote a note he sent me recently when he
was referee for a paper I submitted to the EJ on Harrod, "I turned
away from money (no doubt excessively so) to study production, real wages.,
etc. If you by any chance [sic! I of course did the following!] find
a copy of my last (and final!) book on chaotic dynamics, you will see
that banks and monety are more or less totally neglected..."

So his point would not be that influences of the in kind you suggest are
irrelevant, but that the unf (yuk) fundamental causes of such fluctuations
are "real", not "monetary". It's a point I would dispute in part--since
while I'm willing to see money as of minor relevance, I don't feel the
same way about debt--but that  nonetheless is his view.
Cheers,
Steve Keen
(hoping you haven;t in the meantime forgotten the original question!)