Mr. Keynes and the Rate of Investment

Abstract

FOR more than a century the problem of unused resources has occupied a conspicuous place in economic investigation, yet much remains to be done in a field of great intellectual difficulty. A large part of Mr. Keynes's own previous work, not least his important two-volume “Treatise on Money” published in 1930, has been occupied with this and allied topics. His present rather startling volume tears to pieces some portions (not always the weakest) of his earlier work, amends other portions and supplies much new analysis. In dealing with short run changes in the level of activity, the most important factors to consider are, of course, those which determine the rate of new investment factors already analysed at some length in the author's “Treatise”. He now believes, however, that the main weakness of his earlier Analysis was that it relegated changes in aggregate output and employment to a secondary position, and involved a definition of income which was not the most convenient one. These defects it is the purpose of the present book to remedy.

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

By John Maynard Keynes. Pp. xii + 403. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1936.) 5s. net.