ABSTRACT
The distinction between short period and long period is a time-honoured tradition in economics. However, different justifications have been given to the common-sense perception that certain effects persist for longer than others and, accordingly, different authors have ascribed different weight to short-period analysis. For instance, in classical political economy its importance was underrated, in Keynesian economics it was stressed; later, in the neoclassical synthesis, its role increasingly shrank and eventually faded with the advent of the New Classical and neo-Keynesian macroeconomics.
