Axel Leijonhufvud

Axel Leijonhufvud (6 September 1933 – 2 May 2022) was a Swedish economist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and professor at the University of Trento, Italy. Leijonhufvud focused his studies on macroeconomic monetary theory. In his defining book On Keynesian Economics and the Economics of Keynes he focuses on a critique of the interpretation of Keynesian economic theory by Keynesian economists. He goes on to call the standard neoclassical synthesis interpretation of the Keynes' General Theory as having misunderstood and misinterpreted Keynes. In one of his papers, "Life Among the Econ" (1973), he takes a comical yet critical look at the inherent clannish nature of economists; the paper was considered a devastating takedown of economics and economists.

Early life Axel was born to the noble family LeijonhufvudEfn|"Leijonhufvud" is an obsolete spelling of "lejonhuvud", the Swedish language word for "lion's head", originating as a verbal description of the family's coat of arms, three yellow/gold heraldic lion heads on a blue background. In 1991, he started the Center for Computable Economics at UCLA and remained its director until 1997. He retired from UCLA in 1994, and served as a professor emeritus. He joined the University of Trento, Italy, in 1995, as a professor of monetary theory and policy.

Economic theory Leijonhufvud's monetary economics built on the work of the American economist Robert W. Clower. In 1968, at the age of 35, he published a famous scholarly book entitled On Keynesian Economics and the Economics of Keynes. While the "cybernetic" approach may have failed to gain traction in mainstream economics, it presaged the rational expectations revolution that would ultimately supplant the IS/LM model as the dominant paradigm in academic macroeconomics. where he presented the Z-Theory. In another article called "Effective Demand Failures", he presents the Corridor Hypothesis.

Life Among the Econ Published in the Western Economic Journal in 1973, Leijonhufvud's "Life Among the Econ" is a comical article outlining the discipline of economics, and the scholars that practice it, from the perspective of an anthropologist. Professional economists are treated as a tribe known as "the Econ" and ensuing tribal analogues are produced throughout the piece to characterize the group's unusual behavior. The paper takes a comical yet critical look at the inherent clannish and xenophobic nature of economists and was considered a devastating takedown of economics and economists.

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