Friday, July 16, 2010

Hayek as a proto-RBC theorist (amv)

Hayek discusses the evolution from static general equilibrium to dynamic analysis. He abandons the ABCT. He wants to remain within the general equilibrium approach, improving it by some dynamics based on expectations (he's so state of the art):

"What we all seek is [...] not to jump into something entirely new and different but a development of our fundamental theoretical apparatus which will enable us to explain dynamic phenomena. Not very long ago I myself still believed that the best way to express this was to say that the theory of the trade cycle at which we were aiming ought to be organically superimposed upon the existing theory of equilibrium [using monetary theory as the single approach to economic dynamics; amv]. I am now more inclined to say that general theory itself ought to be developed so as to enable us to use it directly in the explanation of particular industrial fluctuations. As has recently been shown very convincingly by Dr. Lutz [who - together with Slutzky - was the first to define business cycles as a stochastic process; amv], our task is not to construct a separate theory of the trade cycle, that is of a construction of a detailed scheme which fit all actual trade cycles, but rather a development of those sections of general theory which we need in the analysis of particular cycles - which often differ from one another very considerably."
 Price Expectations, Monetary Disturbances and Malinvestments (1933), in: Profits, Interest and Investment (1939): 137-8