The Friedman-Lucas Transition in Macroeconomics: A Structuralist Approach

The Friedman-Lucas Transition in Macroeconomics: A Structuralist Approach considers how and to what extent monetarist and new classical theories of the business-cycle can be regarded as approximately true descriptions of a cycle's causal structure or whether they can be no more than useful predictive instruments. This book will be of interest to upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers and professionals concerned with practical, theoretical and historical aspects of macroeconomics and business-cycle modeling.

Review: "Peter Galbacs has spent almost a year reading and analyzing my work on economics, partly in Chicago where we talked frequently. He also spent time at Duke University, where my manuscripts are archived. Peter has thoroughly diagnosed my work and my relationship to a wide range of other writers. An interesting and unusual book indeed!" --Robert E. Lucas, Jr., The John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Economics and the College, The University of Chicago "In this provocative work, Galbacs presents the history of macroeconomics as featuring a profound transition from instrumentalism, in Friedman, to a form of realism, in Lucas. Unflinchingly, he confronts deep questions of how models represent the world. Employing the notion of 'semirealism', he offers a stirring account of macro-phenomena in terms of their causal foundations." --Anjan Chakravartty, Appignani Foundation Professor, University of Miami

Author Biography: Peter Galbacs is professor of economics at the Institute of Economics and Methodology, Budapest Business School. His principal research interests cover the history and the methodology of modern business-cycle theories with a special emphasis on new classical macroeconomics and Robert E. Lucas's oeuvre. Recently he has published a monograph on the theory of new classical macroeconomics in which he made efforts to find the adequate scope of highly formalized and isolative new classical macro-models in practical-operative economic policy contexts.

1. Methodology...?! Why? 2. Standing on the edge: Lucas in the Chicago tradition 3. Agents and structures 4. Realism and instrumentalism along the Friedman-Lucas transition 5. The end of economics?