Sobre la influencia de Karl Polanyi en Arthur Okun y otros economistas keynesianos

SAÚL N. KEIFMAN

Revista de Economía Política de Buenos Aires

Facultad de Ciencias Económicas de la Universidad de Buenos Aires

Lugar: Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires; Año: 2021 vol. 15 p. 9 - 29

1850-6933

This article examines the influence of the author of The Great Transformation (1944) onArthur Okun. Polanyi’s explicit influence on Okun is reflected in his discussion on thedesirability of limiting the role of the market in a democratic society and guaranteeinga minimum level of welfare for the entire population in Equality and Efficiency: the BigTradeoff. It is also argued that Okun’s distinction in Prices and Quantities: A MacroeconomicAnalysis, between auction markets and customer markets, is strongly reminiscentof Polanyi’s similar classification in Trade and Market, and The Livelihood of Man, becauseof the importance Okun assigns to fairness as an explanatory factor of price rigidity,which refers to the embedded character of exchanges as proposed by Polanyi. The importanceof fairness in the explanation of price (and wage) rigidity is later taken up by otherKeynesian and behavioral economists such as George Akerlof, and Daniel Kahneman,Jack Knetsch and Richard Thaler, largely under the influence of Okun.