KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS: A school of thought developed by John Maynard Keynes built on the proposition that aggregate demand is the primary source of business cycle instability, especially recessions. The basic structure of Keynesian economics was initially presented in Keynes' book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, published in 1936. For the next forty years, the Keynesian school dominated the economics discipline and reached a pinnacle as a guide for federal government policy in the 1960s. It fell out of favor in the 1970s and 1980s, as monetarism, neoclassical economics, supply-side economics, and rational expectations became more widely accepted, but it still has a strong following in the academic and policy-making arenas.

     See also | Keynesian theory | macroeconomics | Great Depression | aggregate demand | business cycle | recession | depression | classical economics | monetarism | cross elasticity of demand | supply-side economics | full employment | Keynesian cross | unemployment rate | gross domestic product | full employment | equilibrium | investment expenditures | consumption function | marginal propensity to consume | multiplier | fiscal policy | monetary policy | inflation | stagflation | aggregate supply | aggregate market |