Getting rid of Keynes? A reflection on the recent history of macroeconomics

The aim of this paper is to give an account of the unfolding of macroeconomics from Keynes to the present day. To this end, I use a grid of analysis resulting from the combination of two distinctions. The first is the Marshall-Walras divide, the second is the distinction between the Keynesian conceptual apparatus and the Keynesian policy cause. On the basis of these distinctions, I construct two box diagrams, which will serve as my reference for considering the following episodes: the IS-LM model, monetarism, disequilibrium theory, new classical macroeconomics, the real business cycle approach, new Keynesian models, and the new neoclassical synthesis. The rise of new classical macroeconomics is encapsulated as the replacement of Marshallian by Walrasian macroeconomics and as the emergence of models that are anti-Keynesian on the score of both their analytical apparatus and their view of policy. New neoclassical synthesis models are characterised as marking a tilting away from the Walrasian towards the Marshallian approach. JEL code: E 12, E 13, E 32