Knowra Michał Kalecki Michał Kalecki Michał Kalecki (1899–1970) was a Polish economist whose work developed theories of effective demand, business cycles, and income distribution, often independently of John Maynard Keynes.
Effective demand : The level of aggregate spending that determines realized output and employment in a demand-constrained economy. Kalecki made spending, especially investment, central to explaining output and employment.
Kalecki's profit equation : An accounting identity linking aggregate profits to investment, capitalist consumption, and workers’ saving in a closed economy. It captures Kalecki’s claim that capitalist spending helps determine aggregate profits.
Institute of Research on Business Cycles and Prices : A Warsaw research institute where Kalecki worked on business cycles and economic statistics in the 1930s. Its empirical research formed part of the setting for Kalecki’s early cycle theories.
Full employment : A condition in which people seeking work can find jobs, apart from brief or frictional unemployment. Kalecki analyzed why political and business interests might resist sustained full employment.
Post-Keynesian economics : A school of economics emphasizing effective demand, uncertainty, institutions, and monetary production. Kalecki is a foundational influence on its theories of demand, investment, and distribution.
Investment : Expenditure on capital goods intended to support future production. In Kalecki’s account, investment drives current demand and helps determine future productive capacity.
Investment cycle : A pattern of investment expansion and contraction that contributes to fluctuations in economic activity. Kalecki explained cycles through the delayed effects of investment on profits and productive capacity.
Marxian economics : An economic tradition analyzing production, class relations, accumulation, and crisis through Marx’s work. Kalecki adapted Marxian concerns with class and profits into formal macroeconomic analysis.
Fiscal policy : Government decisions about taxation and spending used to influence economic activity. Kalecki’s demand analysis supports using public spending to sustain employment and output.
Joan Robinson : A British economist whose work developed theories of imperfect competition, growth, and Keynesian economics. Robinson helped bring Kalecki’s ideas into English-language debates and post-Keynesian economics.
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