Macroeconomics in Retrospect

David Laidler is one of the leading scholars in the history of economic thought and macroeconomics. This important collection brings together nineteen of his essays on topics in the history of macroeconomics. It begins with a paper on Adam Smith and ends with a discussion of the implications of Newclassical economists' ideas on the role of economic ideas in conditioning agents' activities. Other chapters deal with the major themes developed by monetary economists in the intervening years. Two of the essays appear in their current form for the first time, and several others are reprinted from difficult-to-obtain sources. They should be of interest not just to historians of economic thought, but also to economists more generally.