From Stagnation in the 30s to Slow Growth in the 70s.
Personal Reminiscences
I should have preferred to become a biologist but that would
have taken too much time. So I went to Business School
( to-day called Economic University ) in Vienna.
I was interested in the economics taught by Strigl^a pupil
of Bdhm-Bawerk who showed me how the discussion of economic
policies depended on an understanding of how the economy
worked. He was a liberal and I accepted his views, preferring
them to the anti-rationalist, romantic-nationalistic
trends which were then prominent in the university.
I hated that and I hated the various fascist movements
of the time, mainly for their militarism. I felt no
particular social engagement, my upbringing had been
a-political and I had no links to left wing movements.
But I could not fail to be impressed by the surrounding
unemployment and misery, the more since it affected also
my own position. The concern with unemployment has
remained with me.v.very important. I became soon disaffected
with the Austrian school and came under the influence of
Keynes. After the German occupation I lost my job on account
of my hostility to the regime, and I had no chance of
pr^usuing a carreer as an economist . By great luck and with
the help of the emigre-economists(Mises, Hayek, Haberler )
I got a stipend as a research lecturer at Balliol College.
I soon came to the Oxford Institute of Statistics where
I was near to Kalecki, whose teaching has dominated me ever
since. As an economist I am the product of England and
Kalecki.