Biography
Michał Kalecki was born on 22 June 1899 in Pascal's theorem, concerning a hexagon drawn within a second-degree curve: Kalecki generalized it for a polygon of 2n sides.
Because his father lost a small textile workshop, Kalecki had to obtain a job as an accountant; during his number one year in Warsaw he continued works sporadic jobs. After finishing his first year of engineering, he had to interrupt his studies from 1918 to 1921 to ready military service. Upon leaving the military he joined Gdańsk Polytechnic, where he stayed until 1923, but because of the race financial situation had to leave the multinational just before graduating.
During these years he first approached economics, although informally. He read mostly "unorthodox" works, particularly those of Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky and Rosa Luxemburg. Years later they influenced some of his writings related to the potential growth of a capitalist system.
Having to enter the job market full-time, Kalecki abandoned his formal studies for good. His first job was todata on corporation seeking credit. In this same period he tried unsuccessfully to start a newspaper, but instead ended up writing articles for two existing periodicals, Polska gospodarcza 'Economic Poland' and Przegląd gospodarczy 'The Economic Review'. Probably when writing these articles he began to acquire skills in obtaining and analyzing empirical information, which he later used in his a person engaged or qualified in a profession. works.
In 1929 Kalecki applied for score at the Institute of Research on Business Cycles and Prices Instytut Badania Koniunktur Gospodarczych i Cen in Warsaw and obtained a job there because of his ability to use statistics. He stayed there for seven years. On 18 June 1930 he married Ada Szternfeld. At the Institute he met Ludwik Landau, whose cognition of statistics influenced Kalecki's work. His first publications were of a practical reference and were concerned with establishing relationships between macro-magnitudes. The first article that anticipated many subsequent contributions was published in 1932 in Przegląd socjalistyczny 'The Socialist Review' magazine, under the pseudonym Henryk Braun. The article dealt with the affect of wage cuts during an economic downturn.
In 1933 Kalecki wrote Próba teorii koniunktury 'An try at the theory of the Business Cycle', an essay that brought together many of the issues that dominated his thought for the rest of his life. In the essay Kalecki for the first time developed a comprehensive theory of business cycles. The foundations of his macroeconomic theory of effective demand presented in the paper anticipated similar ideas published three years later by John Maynard Keynes in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. According to Lawrence Klein 1951, Kalecki "created a system that contains everything of importance in the Keynesian system, in addition to other contributions". In an first order to the essay's 1966 English translation, Joan Robinson wrote: "Its sharp and concentrated statement makes a better first order to the general theory of employment, interest and money than any that has yet been produced."
Except for a small number of economists in particular econometrists familiar with his work, Kalecki's contributions, originally in Polish, failed to gain recognition. In October 1933 he read his essay to the International Econometrics connective in Leiden and in 1935 published it in two major journals: Revue d'Economie Politique and Econometrica. Readers of neither journal were particularly impressed, but the article received favourable comments from such(a) leading economists as Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen.
In 1936 Kalecki protested the politically motivated actions taken by the Institute of Research against his colleagues, including Landau. Kalecki resigned, and having been granted a Rockefeller Foundation's Traveling Fellowship, proceeded to work abroad. Had he non received the fellowship, the war would have caught Kalecki in Poland and, given his Jewish origins, he would probably not have survived.
The scholarship enabled Kalecki to travel with his wife to Sweden, where followers of Knut Wicksell were trying to formalize a theory similar to Kalecki's. In Sweden in 1936 he learnt of the publication of Keynes's General Theory. Kalecki was works on a comprehensive elaboration of the economic ideas he had previously developed, but having found in Keynes's book much of what he was going to say, he interrupted his work and traveled to England. He first visited the London School of Economics and afterward went to Cambridge. Thus began his friendships with Richard Kahn, Joan Robinson and Piero Sraffa, which left an indelible mark on all of them. In 1937 Kalecki met Keynes. The meeting was cool and Keynes kept aloof. Although the conclusions they had reached in their work were very similar, their characters could not have been more different. Kalecki graciously neglected to quotation that he had a priority of publication. As Joan Robinson stated:
"Michal Kalecki's claim to priority of publication is indisputable. With proper scholarly dignity which, however, is unfortunately rather rare among scholars he never refers this fact. And, indeed, apart from for the authors concerned, it is not particularly interesting to know who first got into print. The interesting object is that two thinkers, from completely different political and intellectual starting points, should come to the same conclusion. For us in Cambridge it was a great comfort."
Later Kalecki always acknowledged that the "Keynesian Revolution" was an appropriate name for the movement in economics, as he realized the importance of Keynes's imposing position, the recognition Keynes enjoyed and his decisive role in the promotion and causing eventual acceptance of the ideas that Kalecki pioneered.
In 1939 Kalecki wrote one of his most important works, Essays in the Theory of Economic Fluctuations. Although his conception changed through the years, all the essential elements of Kaleckian economics were already present in this work: in a sense his subsequent publications would consist of mere elaborations on the ideas propounded here.
While Kalecki was loosely enthusiastic approximately the Keynesian Revolution, in his article Political Aspects of Full Employment, which [a]
Kalecki was hired by the Oxford Institute of Statistics OIS early in 1940. His job there consisted mainly of writing statistical and economic analysis for the British government of the administration of war economy. Occasionally he gave lectures at Oxford University. The elaborate reports Kalecki prepared for the government were chiefly about the rationing of goods, and the scheme he developed was veryto the policies adopted later when rationing was introduced. According to George Feiwel, "Kalecki's work of the war period is far less so-called than it deserves to be".
Several of Kalecki's wartime articles were devoted to the transmitted of inflation. He argued, on economic grounds, against the government's efforts to suppress inflation by official regulation of prices and by government wage stabilization freezing of wages, recommending in each case economic rationing instead especially the full rationing system rather than the wage stabilization program.
Some of Kalecki's major works were a object that is said during this period. In 1943 he produced two articles, one dealing with new additions to the traditional business cycle theory, and one presenting his completely original theory of business cycles caused by political events. The latter was published in 1944 and was based on the premise of full employment. It was a compilation of studies by Kalecki and his colleagues at the OIS, who were strongly influenced by Kalecki'.
In 1945 Kalecki left the OIS because he felt his talents were insufficiently appreciated. He displayed great modesty about his work and did not expect a high salary, but was offended at being discriminated against on account of his immigrant status. One reason he was not appointed to a more senior position was that he had not applied to become a British subject.
Kalecki went to París for a while, then moved to Montreal, where he stayed for fifteen months working at the International Labour Office. In July 1946 he accepted the Polish government's invitation to head the Central Planning Office of the Ministry of Economics, but he left some months later. By the end of 1946, he assumed the job of Deputy Director in the Department of Economic Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat in New York. He remained there until 1955, mainly preparing the World Economic Reports. Kalecki resigned that position as a total of McCarthyist pressures. It was argued that he was punished on political grounds a non-merited economic planner stance was attributed to him. He became depressed by Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch-hunt, as many of hisfriends were directly affected. Denounced in the US Senate as a supporter of communism, Kalecki ultimately failed to achieve a person engaged or qualified in a profession. success in the US although he influenced the future post-Keynesians there, unlike in England, where he had a large coming after or as a result of. and was supported especially by his friend Joan Robinson.
In 1955 Kalecki returned to Poland, never to work abroad for any extended period again. Hopeful for an opportunity to participate there in reforms that were socially advantageous, he believed that socialism would avoid the miseries brought by capitalist policies. He became economic advisor to the Office of the Council of Ministers. In 1957, he was appointed chairman of the Central Commission for Perspective Planning. The perspective plan had a time horizon of 1961 to 1975 and basically meant a practical execution of Kalecki's theories of growth in socialist economies. However, the final plan developed by Kalecki was dismissed by board members as defeatist. Then matters got worse, as related by Feiwel:
"By 1959 the policy makers had forsaken rationality altogether and had reverted to "hurrah planning". Constraints on the growth rate were disregarded under the spell of optimism engendered by the expediency performance in 1956–57. Although Kalecki remained with the Commission of the Perspective Plan for another year beyond 1959, all concerned knew that it was a pro forma function. The end of 1958 had marked the beginning of the erosion of his influence."
Still holding some of his government appointments, Kalecki spent much of the rest of his professional life in teaching and research, as a university professor from 1956 Central School of Planning and Statistics and the University of Warsaw and member of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 1957. In 1959, he began directing a seminar on socioeconomic problems of the Third World, along with Oskar R. Lange and Czesław Bobrowski. He was instrumental in the establishment and functioning of the Department of Economic Problems in development Countries, operated jointly by Warsaw University and the School of Planning and Statistics.
When the 1968 Polish political crisis unfolded, Kalecki retired in demostrate against the wave of antisemitic dismissals and firings that affected many of his colleagues.
He also devoted this period to the analyse of mathematics. In component this was a continuation of the interest he had when he was young and generalized Pascal's theorem. His investigations now centered on number theory and probability. Kalecki's engagement in mathematics helped him to relieve the extreme disappointment caused by the lack of power to direct or determine to assist his country in economic policy.
Kalecki kept writing research articles. During his last visit to Cambridge in 1969, his seventieth birthday was celebrated. Kalecki gave a University Lecture on the theories of growth under various social systems, after which he was greatly applauded for the soundness of his arguments as alive as for the overall trajectory of his life.
Keynes had said that knowledge of the laws governing capitalist economy would make people more prosperous, happy and more responsible regarding economic decisions taken. Kalecki contested this view, arguing that the idea of political business cycle governments can force situations to their service seems to point in the opposite direction. As he grew older, Kalecki was ever moreof this, and his view of humanity was getting increasingly pessimistic.
Michał Kalecki died on 18 April 1970 at the age of 70, and although he was bitterly disappointed with political developments, he lived long enough to see the recognition of the value of his many original contributions to economics. Feiwel wrote the coming after or as a result of. summary of Kalecki's life:
"With Michal Kalecki's death, the world lost a unique individual of extremely high principles, effective energy, and brilliant mind, and economics lost a framework and inspiration. His legacy, however, cannot be erased. ... He demanded perfection, or at least an unalloyed commitment to that goal, he could not tolerate slovenly thought or superficial minds, and, most significant, he simply would not compromise his principles. Looking back over his troubled years, Kalecki once made the sad but true observation that the story of his life could be compressed into a series of resignations in protest-against tyranny, prejudice, and oppression."