Alfred Eichner
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Alfred S. Eichner (March 23, 1937February 10, 1988) was an American
post-Keynesian Post-Keynesian economics is a school of economic thought with its origins in '' The General Theory'' of John Maynard Keynes, with subsequent development influenced to a large degree by Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Sidney ...
economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...
who challenged the neoclassical
price mechanism In economics, a price mechanism is the manner in which the profits of goods or services affects the supply and demand of goods and services, principally by the price elasticity of demand. A price mechanism affects both buyer and seller who n ...
and asserted that prices are not set through
supply and demand In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a Market (economics), market. It postulates that, Ceteris paribus, holding all else equal, in a perfect competition, competitive market, the unit price for a ...
but rather through mark-up pricing. Eichner is one of the founders of the post-Keynesian school of economics and was a professor at Rutgers University at the time of his death. Eichner's writings and advocacy of thought, differed with the theories of
John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...
, who was an advocate of government intervention in the
free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
and proponent of public spending to increase employment. Eichner argued that investment was the key to economic expansion. He was considered an advocate of the concept that government
incomes policy Incomes policies in economics are economy-wide wage and price controls, most commonly instituted as a response to inflation, and usually seeking to establish wages and prices below free market level. Incomes policies have often been resorted to ...
should prevent inflationary wage and price settlements in connection to the customary fiscal and monetary means of regulating the economy. He is noted for his book ''The Megacorp and Oligopoly'' (1976), ''Toward a new economics: essays in post-Keynesian and institutionalist theory'' (1985). His ''Macrodynamics of Advanced Market Economies'' (1987) contains chapters on dynamics and growth, investment, finance and income distribution.


Life and work

Eichner was born in Washington, D.C., in the United States. He received his doctorate in economics from
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. He taught at Columbia from 1962 until 1971. Later he taught at SUNY Purchase (1971–1980), and then joined the
Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...
faculty. Some books edited by Eichner include ''A Guide to Post-Keynesian Economics'', ''Why Economics Is Not Yet a Science'', and ''The Macrodynamics of Advanced Market Economies''. Eichner testified before Congressional and other legislative committees


Historian of culture and of economics

Together with
Eli Ginzberg Eli Ginzberg (April 30, 1911 – December 14, 2002) was born in New York City and earned an A.B., an A.M., and a Ph.D. from Columbia University between 1931 and 1934. He was son of the famous Louis Ginzberg, Professor of Talmud, at the Jewis ...
, a professor of economics at Columbia, Eichner authored an economic history of
African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, ''The Troublesome Presence: The American Democracy and the Negro,'' published in 1964. These co-authors wrote that... “of the several million persons who reached Great Britain’s North American colonies before 1776, it is conservatively estimated that close to 80 percent arrived under some form of servitude.”


The science of economics?

Some mainstream economists have argued that assumptions about the character of economic reality in the neoclassical economic paradigm are fundamentally flawed. Points arguably making a convincing case that the mathematical theories used by
neoclassical economists Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
cannot be viewed as
scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
have consistently been made by trained economists. Alfred Eichner in ''Why Economics Is Not Yet a Science'' offers the following commentary on the discipline of economics as a
social system In sociology, a social system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions. It is the formal structure of role and status that can form in a small, stable group. A ...
: ....'The refusal to abandon the myth of the market as a self-regulating system is not the result of a conspiracy on the part of the “establishment” in economics. It is not even a choice that any individual economist is necessarily aware of making. Rather it is the way economics operates as a social system—including the way new members of the establishment are selected—retaining its place within the larger society by perpetuating a set of ideas which have been found useful by that society, however dysfunctional the same set of ideas may be from a scientific understanding of how the economic system works. In other words, economics is unwilling to adhere to the epistemological principles which distinguish scientific from other types of intellectual activity because this might jeopardize the position of economists within the larger society as the defender of the dominant faith. This situation in which economists find themselves is therefore not unlike that of many natural scientists who, when faced with mounting evidence in support of first, the Copernican theory of the universe and then, later, the Darwinian theory of evolution, had to decide whether undermining the revelatory basis of Judeo-Christian ethics was not too great a price to pay for being able to reveal the truth.'http://www.eoearth.org/article/Environmental_and_ecological_economics Retrieved Aug-25-09 Lead Author: Robert Nadeau. Article Topics: Ecological economics and Environmental economics This article has been reviewed and approved by the following Topic Editor: Cutler J. Cleveland. Last Updated: August 26, 2008


Books and articles

* Eichner, A. S. (1988), 'Full employment and the human element', ''Challenge'' 31(3), 4–8. * Eichner, A. S. (1987), "The Macrodynamics of Advanced Market Economies", M.E. Sharpe, New York. * Eichner, A. S. (1986), 'Can Economics Become a Science?', ''Challenge'' 29(5), 4–12. * Eichner, A. S. (1985), ''Toward a New Economics: Essays in Post-Keynesian and Institutionalist Theory'', M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY. * Eichner, A. S. (1985), 'Towards an Empirically Valid Economics', ''Eastern Economic Journal'' 11(4), 437–449. * Eichner, A. S. (1984), 'Budgeting for Peace and Growth', ''Challenge'' 26(6), 9–20. * Eichner, A. S. (1984), 'Joan Robinson's Legacy', ''Challenge'' 27(2), 42–46. * Eichner, A. S. ed. (1983), ''Why Economics is not Yet a Science'', M.E. Sharpe, New York. * Eichner, A. S. (1983), 'The micro foundations of the corporate economy', ''Managerial and Decision Economics'' 4(3), 136–152. * Eichner, A. S. ed. (1978), ''A Guide to Post-Keynesian Economics'', M.E, Sharpe. * Eichner, A. S. (1978), 'Post-Keynesian Theory: An Introduction', ''Challenge'' 21(2), 4–17. * Eichner, A. S. (1976), ''The Megacorp and Oligopoly: Micro Foundations of Macro Dynamics'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. * Eichner, A. S. (1975), 'A Theory of the Determination of the Mark-Up Under Oligopoly: A Further Reply', ''Economic Journal'' 85, 149–150. * Eichner, A. S. & Kregel, J. A. (1975), 'An Essay on Post-Keynesian Theory: A New Paradigm in Economics', ''Journal of Economic Literature'' 13(4), 1293–1314. * Eichner, A. S. (1974), 'Determination of the Mark-Up Under Oligopoly: A Reply', ''Economic Journal'' 84, 974–980. * Eichner, A. S. (1973), 'Theory of the Determination of the Mark-Up Under Oligopoly', ''Economic Journal'' 83, 1184–1200. * Eichner, A. S. (1969), ''The Emergence of Oligopoly: Sugar Refining as a Case Study'', The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore and London. * Eli Ginzberg and Eichner, A. S. (1964), ''The Troublesome Presence: American Democracy and the Negro''. Free Press of Glencoe.


See also

*
Heterodox economics Heterodox economics is any economic thought or theory that contrasts with orthodox schools of economic thought, or that may be beyond neoclassical economics.Frederic S. Lee, 2008. "heterodox economics," '' The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economic ...
*
Post-Keynesian Post-Keynesian economics is a school of economic thought with its origins in '' The General Theory'' of John Maynard Keynes, with subsequent development influenced to a large degree by Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Sidney ...


Further reading

* M. Lavoie, L.-P. Rochon, and M. Seccareccia, eds. (2010), ''Money and Macrodynamics: Alfred Eichner and Post-Keynesian Economics'', M.E. Sharpe. * W. Milberg. ed. (1992), ''The Megacorp & Macrodynamics: Essays in Memory of Alfred Eichner'', M.E. Sharpe


References


External links


Alfred Eichner CV
(January 1988)
Alfred Eichner Papers
Frederic S. Lee's personal collection {{DEFAULTSORT:Eichner, Alfred 1938 births 1988 deaths People from Washington, D.C. Post-Keynesian economists 20th-century American economists Historians of economic thought