Day 1: My Favorite Economist

If I were to proclaim that Keynes was undoubtedly my favorite economist, I would be deemed as quite unoriginal and simply following the crowd. Why would I choose someone who is known widely by every single person on the planet (and their parents and their grand-parents and probably their children too, you get the point)? Well, it's because I thoroughly believe that Keynes is worth the hype. He is worth every piece of recognition he got and his brilliancy deserves to be cemented and immortalized in the decades to come as well.

Keynes's practicality is his forte and is the reason why I hold him in such high regard. He saw a real crisis in the form of the Great Depression, and instead of resorting to pessimism and age-old, ineffective economic theories like many of his counterparts did, he offered revolutionary ideas that broke out of the confines of classical orthodoxy. His intellectual flexibility was miles ahead of his time.

In a bid to reflect upon my favorite economist and his contributions to the field of Economics, I decided to embark on a 15-day journey which I will spend exploring his novel ideas. Welcome to 15 days of Keynes!

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Day 10: The Interventionist

Out of all the contributions Keynes has made in the field of Economics, his interventionist approach is probably the one I most agree with. According to Keynes, economies don't stabilize themselves very quickly and require active state intervention to boost short-term demand. Wages and employment too, are slow in their response to the needs of the market, requiring government intervention to keep them on track. I firmly believe that interventionist policies are a massive improvement from the classical inclination to a laissez-faire stance. Such a "leave-it-alone" mentality can be downright harmful for the economy, as absolute autonomy can lead to chaos and mayhem, with private interests taking precedence over overall societal welfare. It also invariably widens the chasms of income inequality. Without government intervention, monopoly power would freely reign and such intervention can regulate markets to function more effectively, as well as cater to public and economic...

Day 9: The Bible of Macroeconomics— The General Theory

Reading Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money is a life-changing experience even in the 21st century. This means it was practically explosive during his times. A time dominated by the reigning classicists and their accepted axioms and ideologies, Keynes challenged all these existing theories and his book was a radical reconsideration of some of these founding principles of Economics, provoking a widespread revolution in economic thought. Keynes's affinity and prowess for problem-solving shines throughout this masterpiece of a book. The heart of The General Theory lies in its analysis of poverty and unemployment, which Keynes saw as having permanent and tragic political and economic consequences. According to Keynes, unemployment is not caused by rigidity of wages or prices, but by lack of incentives to increase production, due to lack of effective demand in the short run and lack of knowledge of the future in the long run. Keynes also addressed the ...

Day 5: Fiscal Policy

If Keynes were to take a peek at the economic scenario of the recent past, what would he see? Most households reduced spending in a bid to repay mortgages which were larger than the values of their houses. Though businesses acquired large amounts, they were hesitant to invest owing to decline in the value of assets. Student debt increased, while consumption decreased. Most importantly, governments reduced their spending in light of austerity policies that aimed to reduce public debt. As a result of an overall decrease in spending, national income decreased and so did jobs, which adversely affected global incomes and employment as well. Central banks increased money supply to stimulate spending, but reluctance to spend was at an all-time high. We were experiencing a Keynesian liquidity trap. This situation calls for a fiscal policy rather than a monetary policy. The government's bid to increase money supply rendered ineffective as the policymaker's ...

15 Days of Keynes.

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