A Study On Keynes Economic Thoughts Based On The Perspective Of Biography

Biography is extraordinary important for the history of economic thought,it plays a necessary role in interpreting the evolution of thoughts and the gradual understanding of new thoughts 。 Recently, with the unpreventable return of biographies, making an intensive study of the great economists’ biographies is becoming an important method of researching the formation 、 development and evolution of their economic thoughts.John Maynard Keynes, the pioneer of macroeconomics, has been making an profound and lasting affects and still being the research hotpot so far. After the death of Keynes,several scholars wrote and published the biographies of Keynes, among which, there are three represent scholars. They studied how people understood Keynes and his economic thoughts in different historical background. By coincidence, Keynes was keen on writing the biographies of economists, politicians and so on, at last he published the“Essays in Biography”. By researching the biographies of the economists and integrating their economic thoughts, it is not difficult to find the resource and development of Keynes’ s economic thoughts.This passage chooses three great economists in the “Essays in Biography”–Thomas Malthus, Alfred Marshall and William Stanley Jevons– to make an intensive study of biographies in the history of economic thoughts and analyze the description and interpretation from Keynes’ s opinion, so that we could explore if Keynes inherited their economic thoughts. Thomas Malthus was recognized as the first economist in Cambridge, and his “effective demand theory” was considered as the resource of Keynes’ s theory. Alfred Marshall, Keynes’ s mentor, published the “Principle of Economic” in 1890,which created a new era of the modern economic. While Keynes learned lots of knowledge from his mentor, he also had some division with the greateconomist. William Stanley Jevons published the first book of modern economic, and he was called “the founder of modern economic” by Keynes. Though Keynes did not learn from Jevons directly, he treated himself as Jevons in the biography he wrote for Jevons to reveal his inner thoughts.For researching the history of economic thoughts in biographies, this passage chooses three “Biography of Keynes” written by Austin Robinson, Roy Harold and Robert Skidelsky. Robinson, Keynes’ s student, wrote the biography for describing Keynes’ s life and economic works; Harold also learned economic from Keynes and helped him revise the “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”, his biography was to reveal the differences between himself and Keynes; Skidelsky spent30 years to present Keynes’ s life and economic thoughts at length, but as he is an historian, his interpretation of Keynes’ s economic thoughts may have some deflections.The three authors have different identity and background, so their biographies must have some divisions. After analyzing these biographies,the development and evolution of Keynes’ s economic thoughts became obvious.So far, China is at the critical stage of reform, making the right policies for economic development is the key of succeeding in the reform. Interpreting Keynes’ s economic thoughts exactly could make some suggestions for our country’s economic regulation and control policies.