Recent Research on Keynes:

After the Financial Crisis of 2007/8

Abstract

A brief yet hopefully exhaustive sketch of recent studies on Keynes brings us four concluding remarks. First, thanks to professionalisation of the history of economic thought, the 14 academic journals （their abbreviations are shown be-low）, at least, are ready to accept articles on historical and theoretical perspec-tives of Keynesʼs ideas. This directly leads to an increase in academic papers （in English） in quantity, and consequently, to better understandings of Keynes in quality. However, confining to narrow academic circles could also bring a fall of influential powers in the history of economic thought, despite of its role to bridge both among other disciplines one another and academia with ordinary people. 　　Second, one of the most conspicuous characteristics of the research trends is to emphasise Keynesʼs multiple phases of international relations in practice and in theory. These cover not only the international monetary system but also corporative designs to balance both among national and international interests and among just, fair world and economic efficiency towards a peaceful world. Third, Keynesʼs ideas provoke current economists to study on recent fashionable themes such as on happiness, behavioural economics, neuroscience, and psycho-logical economics. Among them, the relation between agents on a micro level and economic phenomena on a macro level is the most difficult theme to solve. Nevertheless, Keynesʼs insight into the organic whole in macroeconomics can serve as a clue. Fourth, strict interpretations of original texts are necessary, sometimes by way of unpublished primary sources, to extract the relevant usage of economics. The history of economic thought serves this end. In the near fu-ture, historians of economics can even apply a new method, such as text-mining and handling big data, to this academic area. 　　Judging from both the numerous articles mentioned above, and the Keynes Societies of Germany and Japan that were established in 2003 and in 2011 re-spectively, studies on Keynes seem to be more active than before. It is, neverthe-less, questionable whether the mere efforts by historians of economics could reach economic theorists along with general readers. 　　I would like to end this review article by citing OʼDonnell （2011）, which raises three fundamental questions: （i）Why is Keynes so different from ortho-dox economists?; （ii）Why is Keynes more difficult to understand than ortho-dox economists?; and （iii）Why is Keynes more appealing than orthodox econ-omists? Although OʼDonnell （2011, 10-11） answers these questions, it is now important to tackle the three knots, regardless of historians of economics, theo-retical economists, or even general readers. If I were asked to choose just two words to characterize Keynesʼs thought as a whole, they would be reason and humanity. （OʼDonnell 2011, 11）