Athanasios Asimakopulos

Athanasios Asimakopulos (1930-1990) was the "William Dow Professor of Political Economy" in the Department of Economics, McGill University (Montreal) and became an important American Post Keynesian economist. His monograph, Keynes's General Theory and Accumulation , reviews important areas of Keynes's General Theory and the theories of accumulation of two of his most distinguished followers, Roy Harrod and Joan Robinson . This book makes Keynes's writing on his General Theory accessible to any student by presenting this theory in a careful, consistent manner that is faithful to the original.

Biography

Asimakopulos was born in Montreal in 1930. He was educated at McGill University earning a B.A. in 1951 and an M.A. in 1953, and in Cambridge obtaining his Ph.D. in 1959. Athanasios Asimakopulos was a Lecturer in Economics and Political Science from 1956 to 1957 at McGill. From 1957 to 1959 he worked as an Assistant Professor at the Royal Military College. In 1959 he returned to McGill and became an assistant professor. Promoted to the position of associate professor in 1963, he became a full professor in 1966. In 1988 he was appointed "William Dow Professor of Political Economy". He served as Chairman of the Department of Economics from 1974 to 1978. He wrote extensively on the work of such economic theorists as J.M. Keynes, Joan Robinson , and Michal Kalecki . He was active in many professional associations and organizations. He held numerous fellowships and was a Visiting Professor and a Fellow at universities in the United States, England and Australia. From 1976 to 1990 he was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Athanasios Asimakopulos died in 1990.

Contributions to Economic Theory

Asimakopulos was a Post Keynesian "Kaleckian" scholar, who elaborated upon Michal Kalecki theories . Kalecki stresses on determinants of income distribution, determinants of economic activity, determinants of profits, long-run growth, prospects of economy, or impact of imperfect competition on growth of income has been an important inspiration to many economists we call Post Keynesians . An advantage of theories that originate from Kalecki is that they are closer to what can be called "normal" theories. Kalecki's papers are acceptably formalized, not extensively open to various interpretations as the Keynes' General theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Keynes (1936)).

When Post Keynesians treat production side of the economy in their models, they usually inhabit their models with firms, which operate within neither perfectly competitive environment, nor within perfect monopoly setting. Post Keynesian firms usually set their prices as mark-ups above their prime costs. Profits of those firms usually, along with "animal spirits and expectations", have pronounced impact on investment decisions and therefore determine profits in the future. This double-sided relationship between profits and investment is clearly in spirit of Asimakopulos (1971)

Tom Asimakopulos was a great Kaleckian scholar. His knowledge of the nuances and innuendos of Kalecki's approach to macroeconomics had no equal. Paul Davidson, Journal of Economic Issues.

This book (Keynes's General Theory and Accumulation) is the legacy of a dedicated and tough-minded scholar who did his heroes the compliment of taking their work seriously, rather than just praising it. Robert W. Dimand, History of Political Economy.

Post-keynesianism

In his General Theory , John Maynard Keynes (1936: Ch.11) proposed an investment function of the sort < I = I0 + I(r) > where the relationship between investment and interest rate was of a rather naive form. Firms were presumed to "rank" various investment projects depending on their "internal rate of return" (or "marginal efficiency of investment") and thereafter, faced with a given rate of interest, chose those projects whose internal rate of return exceeded the rate of interest. With an infinite number of projects available, this amounted to arguing that firms would invest until their marginal efficiency of investment was equal to the rate of interest, i.e. < MEI = r >.

Asimakopulos (1971, 1991), Piero Garegnani (1978) and several Post Keynesians offered a troublesome critique to Keyne's original formulation. Asimakopulos et al. questioned the very possibility of a downward-sloping Marginal Efficiency of Investment (MEI) function in the presence of unemployment. In particular, we can note that Keynes's multiplier story implies that if investment is undertaken then, by the multiplier, aggregate demand and output rises. But if the marginal efficiency of investment function is dependent on expected future returns, then should not the increased income and thus aggregate demand from the multiplier imply higher future returns? If so, then the MEI function ought to shift outwards to the right. This, in turn, implies that investment ought to increase - which leads to another increase in aggregate demand and thus the MEI curve shifts out again, raising investment, etc.

As a result, it is easy to conceive that, in situations of unemployment where the multiplier works its magic, investment is actually indeterminate - or rather, an ever-shifting MEI curve could imply that all investment projects will be eventually undertaken and not merely those that are profitable at the given rate of interest since the profitability of projects is itself a function of aggregate demand and thus endogenous to the problem.

Major works published

Major works by Athanasios Asimakopulos:

• Keynes's General Theory and Accumulation (Modern Cambridge Economics Series) (Print on Demand). Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 0521368154

• Economic Theory, Welfare, and the State: Essays in Honour of John C. Weldon, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991. ISBN 0773508538

• Investment, Employment, and Income Distribution (Aspects of Political Economy). Westview Pr (Short Disc), 1988. ISBN 0813307899

• A Synoptic View of Some Simple Models of Growth, with J.C. Weldon, 1965, Canadian JE and PS

• A Robinsonian Growth Model in One-Sector Notation, 1969, Australian EP

• The Determination of Investment in Keynes's Model, 1971, Canadian JE

• A Kaleckian Theory of Income Distribution, 1975, Canadian JE

• An Introduction to Economic Theory: Microeconomics, Oxford University Press, 1978. ISBN 0195402812

• Keynes's Theory of Effective Demand Revisited, 1982, Australian EP

• Kalecki and Keynes on Finance, Investment and Saving, 1983, Cambridge JE

• Finance, Saving and Investment, 1986, JPKE

• La Signification theorique de la Theorie generale de Keynes, 1987, in Boismenu and Dostaler, La Theorie generale et le keynesianisme

• Investment, Employment and Income Distribution, 1988

Bibliography

• ASIMAKOPULOS, A. Richardson on Asimakopulos on finance: a reply. Cambridge Journal of Economics, June 1986; 10: 199 - 201.

• ASIMAKOPULOS, A. Finance, investment and saving: a reply to Terzi. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1986; 10: 81-82.

• ASIMAKOPULOS, A. Finance, saving and investment in Keynes's economics: a comment. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1985; 9: 405-407.

• KALECKI, Michal. Collected Works of Michal Kalecki Vol. I : Capitalism: Business Cycles and Full Employment. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198286678

• KALECKI, Michal. Collected Works of Michal Kalecki Vol. III: Socialism, - Functioning and Long-Run Planning. Edited by Jerzy Osiatynski. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Oxford, 1992

• KALECKI, Michal. Collected Works of Michal Kalecki Vol. V : Developing Economies. Editor: Osiatynski, Jerzy. Translator: Kisiel, Chester A. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Oxford, 1993. ISBN 0198286678

• KALECKI, Michal. Collected Works of Michal Kalecki Volume VI. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198286686

• KALECKI, Michal. Collected Works of Michal Kalecki. Volume VII: Studies in Applied Economics, 1940-1967; Miscellanea. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Oxford, 1997. ISBN: 0198289898

• KALECKI, Michal. Theory of Economic Dynamics: An Essay on Cyclical and Long-Run Changes in Capitalist Economy. New York, NY: Augustus M. Kelley, Publishers, 1969.

• KALECKI, Michal. The Last Phase in the Transformation of Capitalism. New York. 1972. Introduction by George R. Feiwel. Reprint. ISBN: 0853452113

• KALECKI, Michal. Studies in the theory of business cycles, 1933-1939 . Translated by Ada Kalecka. Oxford: Basil Blackwell/ Warszawa: Polish Scientific Publishers, 1966. First Edition in English (1st Polish ed., 1962).

• KALECKI, Michal, Zofia DOBRSKA, Ignacy SACHS & Jerzy TEPICHT. Essays on Planning and Economic Development. Center of Research on Underdeveloped Economies Research Papers. Vol.1; Warsaw 1963.

• KALECKI, Michal. Selected Essays on the Dynmaics of the Capitalist Economy 1933-1970. Cambridge University Press, 1971.

• KALECKI, Michal. Introduction to the Theory of Growth in a Socialist Economy. Blackwell Publishers; 1970. ISBN 0631123105.

• KALECKI, Michal. Essays in the Theory of Economic Fluctuations. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1939. ISBN 0415313724

• KALECKI, Michal. Selected Essays on the Economic Growth of the Socialist and the Mixed Economy'. Cambridge: University Press, 1972. ISBN 0521084474

• KALECKI, Michal. Essays on Developing Economics. Humanities/Harvester Press, Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey/Hassocks, Sussex, 1979. ISBN 085527134