Keynesian Macroeconomics Beyond the IS-LM Model

This book makes an original and significant contribution to Keynesian macroeconomics. The IS-LM model is a basic workhorse of Keynesian macroeconomics. However, its financial aspects are extremely rudimentary and the link between the real and the financial sector is extremely tenuous. Hence, neither the IS-LM model nor IS-LM-based models can be applied to the major economic issues facing today’s world. This book develops alternative models in the Keynesian tradition that incorporate financial institutions and make explicit the intimate link between the processes of generation of income, saving, credit and expenditure. It subsequently uses these models to address the major current macroeconomic issues that India and the rest of the world are confronted with.

In the Indian context, it focuses on the issues of unemployment, growth, recession, bank performance, banking sector reforms and corruption. It also seeks to identify the causes of economic crises in Greece and the US. The analysis reveals a common trend in the economies considered here: the policy framework within which they function is recessionary, exploitative and fosters unemployment, inequality and poverty. Further, this framework is leading these economies farther away from the goal that every civilized society should strive to achieve, namely, providing all citizens with suitably gainful jobs and adequate access to quality food, clothing, shelter, education and health care. The book seeks to identify the cause of this malady, and puts forward policies to remedy it. It thus contains takeaways for academia, think tanks as well as policy makers.