Alfred S. Eichner | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 23, 1937 |
| Died | February 10, 1988 (aged 50) |
| Nationality | American |
| Academic career | |
| School or tradition | Post Keynesian economics |
| Influences | J. M. Keynes, Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson |
| Contributions | Post Keynesian Economics, Theory of the Megacorp, theory of investment and pricing, macrodynamics, Post Keynesian Microfoundations of Macroeconomics |
Alfred S. Eichner (March 23, 1937 – February 10, 1988) was an American post-Keynesian economist who challenged the neoclassical price mechanism and asserted that prices are not set through supply and demand but rather through mark-up pricing.
Eichner is one of the founders of the post-Keynesian school of economics and was a professor at Rutgers University at the time of his death. Eichner's writings and advocacy of thought, differed with the theories of John Maynard Keynes, who was an advocate of government intervention in the free market and proponent of public spending to increase employment. Eichner argued that investment was the key to economic expansion. He was considered an advocate of the concept that government incomes policy should prevent inflationary wage and price settlements in connection to the customary fiscal and monetary means of regulating the economy.
He is noted for his book The Megacorp and Oligopoly (1976),[1] Toward a new economics: essays in post-Keynesian and institutionalist theory (1985).[2] His Macrodynamics of Advanced Market Economies (1987) contains chapters on dynamics and growth, investment, finance and income distribution.[3]