Keynes´s Approach to Macroeconomic Modelling:a Popperian Reconstruction

Abstract

We review Keynes´s attempt to deal with the `problem of induction´ since his Treatise on Probability and then argue that Popper´s `solution´ to the former, known as Popper´s evolutionary of knowledge and learning, is compatible with Keynes´s adoption of a conventional theory of knowledge in his later economic writings. We also argue that Keynes´s macro-theory as it appears in both his General Theory and his 1937 QJE paper can be (re)interpreted as an instance of a reformulated version of the `subjectivist´ version of Popper´s `Rationality Principle´ (RPs) according to which agents´ behaviour is appropriate or adequate to the problem-situation as the theorist believes that agents believe the former is. A number of further results follow from the previous arguments.