Distribution and Growth after Keynes: A Post-Keynesian Guide

'At a time when both the academic and the political establishment combine to convince us that there is no alternative to finance dominated capitalism, this lucidly argued book provides a refreshing intellectual challenge to conventional wisdom. Despite its relatively modest title in Distribution and Growth after Keynes: A Post-Keynesian Guide Professor Eckhard Hein achieves much more than just guiding the reader through the literature. With many original insights he discriminates with masterly skill among a wide range of theories about long term capitalistic growth, contrasting them against mainstream neoclassical growth models. He weaves his argument with stylized facts and statistical analyses to provide us with a coherent view of complex issues like class conflict and cooperation, the nature of the modern firm and its financial structure, technical progress, external trade and financial globalization, topics not dealt with in most over-simplified aggregate growth models. The book should be an essential reading not only for all researchers in the area but also for students who want to be equipped to imagine a feasible economic alternative in a rigorous way with the help of economic theory.'
- Amit Bhaduri, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, and Pavia University, Italy

This book offers an assessment of theories of distribution and growth after Keynes. It presents an overview of the main contributions with a particular focus on the development of post-Keynesian/Kaleckian models.

In the first part of the book, Eckhard Hein presents a comprehensive overview of the main approaches towards distribution and growth including the contributions of Harrod and Domar, old and new neoclassical theories including the fundamental capital controversy critique, the post-Keynesian contributions of Kaldor, Pasinetti, Thirlwall and Robinson, and finally the approaches by Kalecki and Steindl. In the second part of the book neo- and post-Kaleckian models are gradually developed, introducing saving from wages, international trade, technological progress, interest and credit. Issues of 'financialisation' are also explored and empirical results related to the different models are presented.

This unique book is designed for courses in distribution and growth in graduate programmes or at the advanced undergraduate level. It can also be used as supplementary reading for classes in macroeconomics. The book should also be of value for researchers interested in issues of distribution and growth.