"Mr Keynes and the 'Classics'" Again: A Methodological Enquiry‪.‬

It [Hicks, "Mr. Keynes and the 'Classics,'"1967a] was written to be given at a meeting of the Econometric Society, held in Oxford in September 1936 and was published in Econometrica in April 1937. It bears the stamp of its origin. It was seeking to explain the Keynes theory to econometrists (and mathematical economists). In that attempt it succeeded, perhaps only too well. For it is no more than a part of what Keynes was saying, or implying, that can be represented in that manner, and it was easy to take it as the whole [Hicks, 1982, p. 100]. I have attempted, on two previous occasions (Hicks, "Mr. Keynes and the 'Classics,'" 1967a and "The 'Classics again,'" 1967b), to elucidate the relation between Keynes and those whom he called 'classics.' The method that was employed in those papers was analytical; analysis was one of the things that needed to be done; I believe that the analytical method, up to a point, did justify itself. It has nevertheless left me in some ways dissatisfied. The question is not merely analytical, it is also historical. What did the pre-Keynesian writers say, and why did they say it? [Hicks, 1967a, b, c, p. 155].