Classicals versus Keynesians: A Comprehensive Table to Teach 50 Distinctions between Two Major Schools of Economic Thought

Abstract

Macroeconomics essentially discusses macroeconomic phenomena from the perspectives of various schools of economic thought, each of which takes different views on how macroeconomic agents make decisions and how the corresponding markets operate. Therefore, developing a clear, comprehensive understanding of how and in what ways these schools of economic thought differ is a key and a prerequisite for economics students to prosper academically and professionally in the discipline. This becomes even more crucial as economics students pursue their studies toward higher levels of education and graduate school, during which students are expected to attain higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, including analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creation. Teaching the distinctions and similarities of these two schools has never been an easy task to undertake in the classroom. Although the reason for such a hardship can be multi-fold, one reason has undoubtedly been students’ lack of a holistic view on how the two mainstream economic schools of thought differ. There is strong evidence that students make smoother transition to higher levels of education after building up such groundwork, on which they can build further later on (e.g. Didia and Hasnat, 1998; Marcal and Roberts, 2001; Islam, et al., 2008; Green, et al., 2009; White, 2016). The paper starts with a visual spectrum of various schools of economic thought, and then narrows down the scope to the classical and Keynesian schools, i.e. the backbone of modern macroeconomics. Afterwards, a holistic table contrasts the two schools in terms of 50 aspects. Not only does this table help economics students enhance their comprehension, retention, and critical-thinking capability, it also benefits macroeconomic instructors to gain a holistic view and deliver such a view more easily in their classrooms. The pedagogical aspects of this approach are discussed throughout the paper with reference to the economics education literature.