Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Classical economics, also known as the classical school of economics, [1] or classical political economy, is a school of thought in political economy that flourished, primarily in Britain, in the late 18th and early-to-mid 19th century. It includes both the Smithian and Ricardian schools. [2]
In classical economics, Say's law, or the law of markets, is the claim that the production of a product creates demand for another product by providing something of value which can be exchanged for that other product. So, production is the source of demand.
Moreover, these statements are always undermined by the fact that new classical assumptions are too far from life-world conditions to plausibly underlie the theorems. [4] So, it has to be realized that the precise design of the assumptions underlying the policy-ineffectiveness proposition makes the most influential, though highly ignored and ...
New classical economics is based on Walrasian assumptions. All agents are assumed to maximize utility on the basis of rational expectations. At any one time, the economy is assumed to have a unique equilibrium at full employment or potential output achieved through price and wage adjustment. In other words, the market clears at all times.
Classical economics focuses on the tendency of markets to move to equilibrium and on objective theories of value. Neo-classical economics differs from classical economics primarily in being utilitarian in its value theory and using marginal theory as the basis of its models and equations. Marxian economics also descends from classical theory.
The 'first postulate' of classical economics was also accepted as valid by Keynes, though not used in the first four books of the General Theory. The Keynesian system can thus be represented by three equations in three variables as shown below, roughly following Hicks. Three analogous equations can be given for classical economics.
The model is based on the assumption that the production function does not exhibit diminishing returns to scale. Various rationales for this assumption have been given, such as positive spillovers from capital investment to the economy as a whole or improvements in technology leading to further improvements.
He argued that this invalidated the assumptions of classical economists who thought that markets always clear, leaving no surplus of goods and no willing labor left idle. [3] The generation of economists that followed Keynes synthesized his theory with neoclassical microeconomics to form the neoclassical synthesis.