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Even if this «trap» does not exist, there is a fourth element to Keynes’s critique. Saving involves not spending all of one’s income. It means insufficient demand for business output, unless it is balanced by other sources of demand. Thus, excessive saving corresponds to an unwanted accumulation of inventories. This pile-up of unsold goods and materials encourages businesses to decrease both production and employment. This in turn lowers people’s incomes – and saving, causing a leftward shift in the S line in the diagram. For Keynes, the fall in income did most of the job ending excessive saving and allowing the loanable funds market to attain equilibrium. Instead of interest-rate adjustment solving the problem, a recession does so.

Whereas the classical economists assumed that the level of output and income was constant at any one time (except for short-lived deviations), Keynes saw this as the key variable that adjusted to equate saving and investment.

Finally, a recession undermines the business incentive to engage in fixed investment. With falling incomes and demand for products, the desired demand for factories and equipment (not to mention housing) will fall. This accelerator effect would shift the I line to the left again. This recreates the problem of excessive saving and encourages the recession to continue.

The classicals wanted to balance the government budget through slashing expenditures or raising taxes. To Keynes, this would exacerbate the underlying problem: following either policy would raise saving and thus lower the demand for products and labor. Keynes saw H. Hoover’s June 1932 tax hike as making the Great Depression worse.

Keynes’s ideas influenced Franklin D. Roosevelt’s view that insufficient buying power caused the Depression. Something similar to Keynesian expansionary policies had been applied earlier by both social-democratic Sweden and Nazi Germany. But to many the true success of Keynesian policy can be seen at the onset of World War II, which provided a kick to the world economy, removed uncertainty, and forced the rebuilding of destroyed capital. Keynesian ideas became almost official in social-democratic Europe after the war and in the U.S. in the 1960s.

Keynes’s theory suggested that active government policy could be effective in managing the economy. Keynes advocated counter-cyclical fiscal policies, that is policies which acted against the tide of the business cycle: deficit spending when a nation’s economy suffers from recession or when recovery is long-delayed and unemployment is persistently high – and the suppression of inflation in boom times by either increasing taxes or reducing government outlays. He argued that governments should solve short-term problems rather than waiting for market forces to do it.

This contrasted with the classical and neoclassical economic analysis of fiscal policy. Deficit spending could stimulate production. But to these schools, there was no reason to believe that this stimulation would outrun the side-effects that «crowd out» private investment: first, it would increase the demand for labor and raise wages, hurting profitability. Second, a government deficit increases the stock of government bonds, reducing their market price and encouraging high interest rates, making it more expensive for business to finance fixed investment. Thus, efforts to stimulate the economy would be self-defeating. Worse, it would be shifting resources away from productive use by the private sector to wasteful use by the government.

The Keynesian response is that such fiscal policy is only appropriate when unemployment is persistently high. In that case, crowding out is minimal. Further, private investment can be «crowded in»: fiscal stimulus raises the market for business output, raising cash flow and profitability, spurring business optimism. To Keynes, this accelerator effect meant that government and business could be complements rather than substitutes in this situation. Second, as the stimulus occurs, GDP rises, raising the amount of saving, helping to finance the increase in fixed investment. Finally, government outlays need not always be wasteful: government investment in public goods that will not be provided by profit-seekers will encourage the private sector’s growth. That is, government spending on basic research, public health, education, and infrastructure could help the long-term growth of potential output.

In Keynes’ theory, there must be significant slack in the labor market before fiscal expansion is justified. It is important to distinguish between mere deficit spending and Keynesianism. Governments had long used deficits to finance wars. But Keynesian policy is not merely spending: it is the proposition that sometimes the economy needs active fiscal policy. Keynesianism recommends counter-cyclical policies, for example raising taxes when there is abundant demand-side growth to cool the economy and to prevent inflation, even if there is a budget surplus. Classical economics argues that one should cut taxes when there are budget surpluses, to return money to private hands. Because deficits grow during recessions, classicals call for cuts in outlays. Keynes encourages increased deficits during downturns. In the Keynesian view, the classical policy exacerbates the business cycle. In the classical view, Keynesianism is almost literally fiscal madness.

The «Keynesian multiplier» has important implications for policy. The effect on demand of any exogenous increase in spending, such as an increase in government outlays is a multiple of that increase – until potential is reached. Thus, a government could stimulate a great deal of new production with a modest outlay: if the government spends, the people who receive this money then spend most on consumption goods and save the rest. This extra spending allows businesses to hire more people and pay them, which in turn allows a further increase in consumer spending. This process continues. At each step, the increase in spending is smaller than in the previous step, so that the multiplier process tapers off and allows the attainment of equilibrium.

Source: Wikepedia

1. macro-level – макроуровень

2. micro-level – микроуровень

3. aggregate demand – совокупный спрос

4. goods n – товар, изделие (в основном продукты производства)

5. deflation n – дефляция

6.supply-side economics – экономика предложения

7. gold standard – золотой стандарт

8. treaty n – договор

9. currency n – валюта

10. peg n – база, ориентир, точка отсчета

pegging n – привязка, индексация

peg v – привязывать, индексировать

11. centrally-planned economy – плановая экономика

12. effective demand – эффективный (фактический) спрос

13.interest rate – процентная ставка

14. real wage – реальный уровень зарплаты (зарплата с поправкой на инфляцию)

15. nominal wage – номинальная зарплата

16. barter n – бартер

barter v – осуществлять бартерный обмен

17. trade (labor) union – профсоюз

18. depression n – депрессия (период вялой деловой активности)

19. laissez faire – экономическая доктрина, проповедующая минимальное вмешательство государства в экономику

20. inelasticity n – неэластичность (спроса или предложения)

inelastic a – неэластичный

elasticity n – эластичность (спроса или предложения)

elastic a – эластичный

21. liquidity trap – «ликвидная ловушка»

22. floor n – пол (зд. торговый зал биржи, торговые площади магазина или самый низкий уровень цен либо процентной ставки)

23. bond holder – владелец облигаций

24. deviation n – отклонение

deviate v – отклоняться

25. accelerator effect – эффект акселератора (ускорителя) (взаимосвязь темпов экономического роста и уровня инвестиций)

26. tax (price) hike – повышение налогов (цен)

27. buying (purchasing) power – покупательная способность

28. expansionary policy – политика экономического роста

29. counter-cyclical – антициклический

30. deficit spending – дефицитное расходование

31. outlay n – расходы, ассигнования, затраты, издержки

32. crowding out n – вытеснение

crowd out v – вытеснять

33. government bond – правительственная облигация

34.public goods – товары и услуги, которые служат пользе всех и являются общедоступными

35. slack n – зазор, люфт, спад (деловой активности), простой; наличие избыточных производственных мощностей, резерв

slack a – застойный, вялый, бездействующий

36. demand-side – на стороне спроса

37. cooling n – сдерживание (экономики), замедление, охлаждение

38. multiplier n – мультипликатор

multiplier a – мультипликативный

39. exogenous a – экзогенный, внешний

Exercise 1. Answer the following questions.

1. What is the most famous book by John M.Keynes? 2. What is the driving factor of the economic process according to Keynes? 3. In what way did Keynes’ theory conflict with the supply-side economics? 4. How did Keynes explain the level of output and employment in the economy? 5. How did Keynes regard the determination of wages? 6. What was the problem with excessive savings in Keynes’ views? 7. What is the «liquidity trap»? 8. How did Keynes justify the active government policy? 9. Why did the classic economists regard Keynesianism as «fiscal madness»? 10. What is Keynesian multiplier?

Exercise 2*. Find terms in the text that match definitions given below and make sentences of your own with each term.

1. the theory that excessive central government borrowing on capital markets will consume funds otherwise available for private investment

2. notes and coins that are the current medium of exchange in a country

3. a form of international exchange practiced until the 1930s. Each country’s national currency was linked by a fixed rate to gold and varied in volume with the amount of gold held

4. a fall in the purchasing power of money, reflected in a persistent increase in the general level of prices as measured by the retail price index

5. the proportion of a sum of money that is paid over a specified period of time in payment for its loan

6. the act of placing monetary resources into the creation of assets in the manufacturing and service sectors of the economy

7. a monetary situation in which interest rates fall so low that only a rise can be anticipated. Since any rise would only depress the price of bonds, the compulsion to remain in cash persists. At this point, no increase in the money supply can increase people’s preference for cash or therefore have any effect on incomes.

8. the quantity of money in circulation in economy

9. to maintain a national currency at a fixed exchange value in terms of another

10. income not spent on consumption

Exercise 3. You are a journalist writing for Fortune and you are asked to interview John Kenneth Galbraith. Make a dialogue between these two individuals using the following briefing materials.

John K. Galbraith (born October 15, 1908) is a widely read 20th century economist, from the American Institutional Economics school. The Canadian-born author of four dozen books and over one thousand articles was on the faculty of Harvard University from 1934 to 1975. He served in the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1961, Kennedy appointed him ambassador to India, where he served until 1963.

Galbraith is considered something of an iconoclast by many economists because he uses non-technical political economy instead of mathematical modeling. Additionally certain economists have alleged that he does not base his conclusions on solid research. In some of his books on economic topics he describes ways in which economic theory does not always mesh with real life.

In American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power published in 1952, Galbraith outlined how the American economy would be managed by a triumvirate of big business, big labor, and an activist government. He contrasted this with the previous pre-depression era where big business had relatively free rein over the economy.