IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-0-230-23285-3_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The Propensity to Consume and the Multiplier

In: Understanding Keynes’ General Theory

Author

Listed:
  • Brendan Sheehan

    (Leeds Metropolitan University)

Abstract

From the time of Smith and Ricardo the classical school tends to view consumption in a negative light, even though it is by far the largest aggregate in total economic activity. From the classical perspective consumption spending is unproductive, acting as a fetter on the amount a community saves and invests, thereby retarding long-term economic growth. Having rejected Say’s law Keynes is able to properly appreciate the central role of aggregate consumption expenditure in determining aggregate effective demand and employment. Keynes is the first mainstream economist to treat consumption spending as an ultimate independent variable. For Keynes this represents a pivotal break with the classical frame of reference.

Suggested Citation

  • Brendan Sheehan, 2009. "The Propensity to Consume and the Multiplier," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Understanding Keynes’ General Theory, chapter 4, pages 66-91, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-23285-3_4
    DOI: 10.1057/9780230232853_4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-23285-3_4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.