>From Scott Newton:
> Writing as a historian of economic policy I wonder about Pat Gunning's comment 
> here. In particular the following: 
> 
> 1. ' I would speculate that few noted economists today see public spending, by 
> itself, as a means of avoiding recession;' 
> 
> 
> How many economists ever believed this, even in the heyday of the Keynesian era? 


Hansen for one.  Actually he favored public investment as a means of avoiding stagnation, and he thought of spending merely for cyclical stabilization as a second best.  This is arguably the (an) origin of American Keynesianism, not Keynes.  From this point of view the postwar spat between Keynesians and monetarists looks like an intramural affair between the descendents of American institutionalism.

Perry Mehrling