Conclusions and reflections

Introduction
In this book we have sought to shed light on the origins, development and
current state of modern macroeconomics. In doing so our chosen approach
has been to discuss in Chapters 3–9 the central tenets underlying, and the
policy implications of, seven main competing schools of thought in macroeconomics
as they evolved in historical perspective. In addition, in Chapters
10–11 we have discussed important developments associated with the ‘new
political macroeconomics’ and the renaissance of research into the area of
‘economic growth’. From the discussion of the preceding chapters we hope
to have conveyed to the reader that modern macroeconomics is both an
exciting and controversial subject. This is most forcefully demonstrated by
the contrasting answers given in the interviews with leading economists who
have made such a profound contribution to the ever-changing and ongoing
debates witnessed in the field of macroeconomic theory and policy, and the
history and methodology of macroeconomics research. The purpose of this
concluding chapter is to briefly reflect on the broad sweep of those twentiethcentury
developments in macroeconomics, which we have surveyed in more
detail in individual chapters in this book.
Before engaging on this task it is interesting to consider the approach taken
by two eminent macroeconomists – Olivier Blanchard, Professor of Economics
at MIT, and Michael Woodford, Professor of Economics at Columbia
University – who have both produced reflective surveys of the development
of short-run macroeconomics (excluding discussion of the new political macroeconomics
and economic growth) during the twentieth century.