The new issue of ROKE (Review of Keynesian Economics) is online with a few articles available free for some time. Marc Lavoie, Thomas Palley and Brett Fiebiger comment on Keen’s notion of aggregate demand.

Marc Lavoie’s article A comment on ‘Endogenous money and effective demand’: a revolution or a step backwards? is available here.

Steve Keen’s own paper Endogenous money and effective demand is available here.

From Marc Lavoie’s introduction and the ending:

Steve Keen argues that post-Keynesians have not sufficiently emphasized the revolutionary character of endogenous money for macroeconomic theory, and that this should be done by recognizing that aggregate demand is equal to current or past income plus the change in debt. This equation, attributed in particular to Hyman Minsky, is discussed and questioned, and it is recalled that a similar equation had been proposed by Alfred Eichner. The consequences of bank credit for firms or households are further analysed within the context of the national accounts, and it is shown that one does not need a redefinition of aggregate demand and aggregate supply, in contrast to what is proposed by Keen…

…

All post-Keynesians certainly concur with the idea that banks have the capacity to alter the level of aggregate demand, and hence that it would be desirable for banks, debt, and money to be included in models of macroeconomics… There are several examples of post-Keynesian macroeconomic models that incorporate banks, debt, and money – for instance, Godley and Cripps (1983) and Godley and Lavoie (2007), just to mention those that I am most familiar with… But this does not imply, as Keen claims, that we need a redefinition of aggregate demand such that the starting point of macroeconomics is that ‘effective demand is equal to income plus the turnover of new debt’ (Keen 2014a, p. 286). Nor does it mean that aggregate supply needs to be redefined ‘to incorporate the financial markets’ (ibid., p. 290). To provide new definitions of existing terms will only lead to a maze of confusions.

Keen makes the grandiose claim that his approach leads to a ‘new, monetary macroeconomics’ (Keen 2014a, p. 286). While statements of this kind may appeal to an internet audience, I doubt they will convince readers of this journal.

Marc also quotes my blog post Income ≠ Expenditure? which critiqued Keen. (Thanks!).

Tom Palley and Brett Fiebiger’s papers are not available for download by the journal. I will update the post in case ROKE decides to make it available. The permanent links are available in the left column of the papers linked in the post. Palley’s draft version is available here

Also don’t miss the paper by Anthony Thirlwall in the current issue.