United States Business Cycles from 1971 through 2010: A Post Keynesian Explanation

Abstract

Curiously and in spite of its name, very few business cycle theories actually treat it as a cycle. Mainstream economists, for example, model all macroeconomic fluctuations as a function of exogenous forces. In their view, the economy remains at full employment indefinitely unless impacted by some external event. Post Keynesian economists disagree strongly with this characterization, arguing instead that business-cycle fluctuations are endogenously generated. The goal of this paper is to compare the explanatory power of four business cycle models - three mainstream and one Post Keynesian - for the U.S. economy since 1971. While the test employed is a simple one, the results are very clear: no model's performance comes even close to that of the one based on Keynes's seventy-year old analysis.

Keywords:

• business cycle
• Keynes
• Post Keynesian