skip to content

Faculty of Economics

Journal Cover

Hayes, M. G.

Effective demand: Securing the foundations

Review of Political Economy

Vol. 25(4) pp. 661-671 (2013)

Abstract: This paper is one of three contributions to a symposium commenting on papers previously published by the other authors. Allain (Allain, O. (2009) Effective demand and short-term adjustments in the General Theory, Review of Political Economy, 21, pp. 1–22) argues that Keynes elides a distinction between aggregate demand and global expenditure that is necessary to explain the formation of price expectations by individual entrepreneurs. Allain's conclusions depend upon redefinitions of aggregate and effective demand and the consumption function. Hartwig (Hartwig, J. (2007) Keynes vs. the Post Keynesians on the principle of effective demand, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 14, pp. 725–739) argues that entrepreneurs must take into account the state of the economy as a whole, in order to form price expectations independently and not as a market equilibrium determined by aggregate supply and demand. This leaves demand price expectations to be determined outside the principle of effective demand. Neither author does full justice to Keynes's own treatment. We still need to agree by what mechanism individual entrepreneurs form a collective and mutually consistent state of expectation in The General Theory.

Author links:

Publisher's Link: 10.1080/09538259.2013.837329



Papers and Publications



Recent Publications


Merrick Li, Z. and Linton, O. A ReMeDI for Microstructure Noise Econometrica [2022]

Onatski, A. and Wang, C. Spurious Factor Analysis Econometrica [2021]

Corsetti, G., Crowley, M. A. and Han, L. Invoicing and the Dynamics of Pricing-to-Market: Evidence from UK Export Prices around the Brexit Referendum Journal of International Economics [2022]

Carneiro, P., Liu, K. and Salvanes, K. G. The Supply of Skill and Endogenous Technical Change: Evidence from a College Expansion Reform Journal of the European Economic Association [2023]