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The classical economists took the theory of the determinants of the level and growth of population as part of Political Economy. Since then, the theory of population has been seen as part of Demography. In contrast to the Classical theory, the following determinants of the neoclassical theory value are seen as exogenous to neoclassical economics:
Following the tradition of classical economics, Pigou favoured the idea of "natural rates" to which the economy would return in most cases, although he acknowledged that sticky prices might still prevent reversion to natural output levels after a demand shock. Pigou saw the "Real Balance" effect as a mechanism to fuse Keynesian and classical ...
Keynes believed the classical theory was a "special case" that applied only to the particular conditions present in the 19th century, his theory being the general one. Classical economists had believed in Say's law, which, simply put, states that "supply creates its demand", and that in a free-market workers would always be willing to lower ...
Keynes's interpretation is rejected by many economists as a misinterpretation or caricature of Say's law — see Say's law: Keynes vs. Say — and the advocacy of the phrase "supply creates its own demand" is today most associated with supply-side economics, which retorts that "Keynes turned Say on his head and instead stated that 'demand ...
In The Nature of Rent (1815), Malthus had dealt with economic rent, a major concept in classical economics. Ricardo defined a theory of rent in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817): he regarded rent as value in excess of real production—something caused by ownership rather than by free trade.
Keynesian economists argue that the failure of Say's law, through an increased demand for monetary holdings, can result in a general glut due to falling demand for goods and services. Many economists today maintain that supply does not create its own demand, but instead, especially during recessions, demand creates its own supply. Krugman writes:
The revolution was primarily a change in mainstream economic views and in providing a unified framework – many of the ideas and policy prescriptions advocated by Keynes had ad hoc precursors in the underconsumptionist school of 19th-century economics, and some forms of government stimulus were practiced in 1930s United States without the intellectual framework of Keynesianism.
A notable current within classical economics was underconsumption theory, as advanced by the Birmingham School and Thomas Robert Malthus in the early 19th century. These argued for government action to mitigate unemployment and economic downturns, and were an intellectual predecessor of what later became Keynesian economics in the 1930s.