person1910s-1946

John Maynard Keynes

Disciplines:

Summary

British economist who revolutionized macroeconomics by arguing that aggregate demand drives output — and that government should use fiscal policy to stabilize economies in recessions.

Core Contribution

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money: wages and prices can be sticky — economies can remain at less than full employment equilibrium. Aggregate demand drives output in the short run — the paradox of thrift. Active fiscal policy: governments should spend in recessions, not cut (the fallacy of composition applies to nations). Animal spirits: investment is driven by confidence as much as rational calculation. Bretton Woods: designed the post-war international monetary system.

Key Spikes & Highlights

The Economic Consequences of the Peace predicted that the Versailles Treaty's reparations would destroy Germany's economy and generate European instability — published in 1919 and largely confirmed by subsequent history.
Was a member of the Bloomsbury Group — intimate with Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, E.M. Forster — and had relationships with men before his marriage to Lydia Lopokova. His intellectual life was as unconventional as his economics.

Notable Works & Achievements

A Tract on Monetary Reform

A Treatise on Money

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

The Economic Consequences of the Peace

Historical Influences

Alfred Marshall David Hume

Intellectual Lineage

Cambridge Economics British Liberal Tradition

Contemporaries & Peers

Friedrich Hayek Joseph Schumpeter

Minds Influenced

Paul Samuelson Hyman Minsky Macroeconomics

Intellectual Posterity

Keynesian Economics Macroeconomics Fiscal Policy

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