Approaches to Consumption Before Keynes

Stavros A. Drakopoulos ()
Additional contact information
Stavros A. Drakopoulos: National and Kapodistrian University, Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Chapter Chapter 2 in The Consumption Function in Economics, 2026, pp 11-23 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter discusses the origins and the main approaches to aggregate consumption before the seminal contribution of John Maynard Keynes. It starts with Thorstein Veblen’s critique of Marginalism and of Neoclassical economics and proceeds with his analysis of the notion of conspicuous consumption. Veblen’s ideas on consumption were furthered developed by economists belonging to the American Institutionalist tradition. Hazel Kyrk was a key figure of this tradition when it comes to the theory of consumption. It also briefly presents the views on consumption of women economists in the US also belonging to the institutionalist tradition. The chapter argues that the common thread of all these works was the concept of the social relevance of consumption, and the analysis of consumption patterns as a social phenomenon.

Keywords: Thorstein Veblen’s theory of consumption; Conspicuous consumption; Hazel Kyrk’s theory of consumption; Consumption and American institutionalism; The social relevance of consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-032-15958-8_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783032159588

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-15958-8_2

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().