John Maynard Keynes was an influential economist born in Cambridge, England near the end of the 19th Century. He is responsible for the Keynesian School of economic thought and has rubbed shoulders with many other prominent economists throughout his career, including Alfred Marshall and Alfred Pigou. He was around for the Great Depression and both World Wars. Some of Keynes' most famous works include
A Treatise on Money and
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. In his obituary, he was described as a "civil servant, pamphleteer, don and college bursar, editor, company chairman, patron of the arts, government spokesman and adviser, and member of the Upper House".
Keynes' work is relevant to the topics that will be covered in this course as he revolutionized the way that we think of business cycles in a free market. While looking at the economics of organizations and the reasoning behind their decisions, it will be useful to keep in mind where in the business cycle a business is or thinks it is.
I am not sure whether business cycle issues will be directly relevant or not in what we do, but you might ask right now, six years after the fall of Lehman Brothers, whether we are in the new normal or if we're still coming out of a very long slump. Determining that would be helpful in considering the relevance of the economics we will study.
ReplyDelete