I studied economics and made it my career for two reasons. The subject was and is intellectually fascinating and challenging, particularly to someone… - James Tobin

I probably always say the same things; I hope people don't remember. One of the same things I say is that Japanese macroeconomic policy is perversely and inexcusably incompetent, and I surely would say that again. It's true-as Paul Krugman, a fellow participant in this program, has been saying and as I have said here in previous years-that Japan has reinvented the Keynesian liquidity trap. It can now reappear in classrooms where it had been long ignored or at best barely mentioned as a curiosum of the Great Depression.

The historic terrain of macro-economic theory is the explanation of the levels and fluctuations of overall economic activity. Macro-economists have been especially interested in the effects of alternative fiscal, financial, and monetary policies.

The rate of investment – the speed at which investors wish to increase the capital stock – should be related, if to anything, to <math>q</math>, the value of capital relative to its replacement cost.