Abstract
James Tobin was a brilliant economist and the leading proponent of Keynesian economics in the second half of the 20th century. He greatly advanced understanding of financial institutions and monetary theory and policy. He stressed the importance of asset holdings and wealth on consumer spending. He also argued that ‘q’, the ratio of a firm’s market value to the replacement value of its assets, was an important determinant of its investment decisions. He made major contributions to econometric methods, international economics, the theory of growth and business cycles, and policies designed to improve the welfare of minorities and the poor.
Keywords
- Absolute income hypothesis
- Allais, M.
- American Economic Association
- Animal spirits
- Banking industry
- Baumol, W.
- Bonds
- Economic growth
- Financial intermediation
- Fiscal policy
- Fleming, J.
- Floating exchange rate
- Friedman, M.
- Government debt
- Household portfolios
- Income elasticity of demand
- Income velocity of money
- Interest rate elasticity
- Investment decisions
- IS–LM model
- Keynes, J. M.
- Keynesianism
- Leisure
- Liquidity preference
- Lucas, R.
- Maximum likelihood
- Measure of economic welfare (MEW)
- Monetarism
- Monetary policy
- Monetary theory
- Monetary transmission mechanism
- Multicollinearity
- Mundell, R.
- National income accounts
- Negative income tax
- Non-accelerating inflationary rate of unemployment (NAIRU)
- Permanent-income hypothesis
- Phillips curve
- Pollution
- Portfolio balance
- Portfolio demand for money
- Rational expectations hypothesis
- Rationing
- Relative income hypothesis
- Ricardian equivalence theorem
- Solow, R.
- Stocks and flows
- Swan, T.
- Technology
- Traditional vs modern
- Tobin tax
- Tobin, J.
- Tobin’s q
- Tobit model
- Transactions demand for money
- Wage rigidity
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Hester, D.D. (2018). Tobin, James (1918–2002). In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2435
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2435
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