The spread of Keynesian economics: a comparison of the Belgian and Italian experiences

Keynesian economics dominated economic thought and macroeconomic policy-making in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the diffusion of Keynesian economics has been uneven. In this paper, we compare the spread of Keynesian economics in two continental European countries: Belgium and Italy. We focus on the post-World War II period, taking as the main message of Keynesian economics that the market is inherently unstable and that the government has a key role in economic life in steering effective demand. We further follow Coddington's distinction between "hydraulic", "disequilibrium" and "fundamentalis... Mehr ...