I'd wager the formalization of the distinction was a 'symptom' rather than a cause. Nothing in the Marshallian toolbox was up to the task of explaining the Great Depression. Routine fluctuations in aggregate employment did not raise the spectre of a contradiction or serious tension between the until-then traditional distinction between "the theory of value and distribution" and "the theory of money and the trade cycle". But the crisis of the 1930s certainly posed a challenge to the idea that wages & employment are regulated by the interaction of price-elastic labor demand & supply functions.

The tension could be camouflaged, at least in the classroom, by making a sharp distinction between "microeconomics" (which tells the Marshallian story without having to confront the troublesome counterevidence of persistent unemployment) and "macroeconomics" (which in its Keynesian cross manifestations discretely kept the Marshallian story off center stage). This is not to deny that economists worked hard to reconcile the two branches via the neoclassical synthesis, the microfoundations of macroeconomics project, New Keynesian economics and so forth. The upshot of those efforts was, as Robin Neill suggests, to leave macroeconomics somewhat marginalized, as somehow less rigorous or less robust than microeconomics.

Gary

Gary Mongiovi, Co-Editor
Review of Political Economy
Economics & Finance Department
St John's University
Jamaica, NEW YORK 11439 (USA)

Tel: +1 (718) 990-7380
Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robin Neill [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 9:25 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] is macro prior to micro?

Colleagues:

     It has puzzled me that  one should think that the distinction
between micro and macro should begin with Keynes.  Surely,
given the definitions of micro and macro, one can look back
into the history of Economics and find examples of both, as
well as examples of when the two were discussed at the same
time -- a very reasonable thing.  What happens "after" Keynes
is a formalization of the distinction, a bringing of the distinction
into prominence in the information environment of those
interested in Economics.

     I leave with the question,  did the formalization of the
distinction lead to an unfortunate separation of the two
branches of the discipline, and a consequent attempt on
the part of some to have the one branch reduce the other
to non existence.?