The Immediate Response to The General Theory

We now examine the initial reaction of the members of the Stockholm School to the publication of the General ~·heory; that is to say, their reactions before they had been influenced by the debate which came to rage later. Only Ohlin and Lundberg gave an explicit and immediate riposte to Keynes' General Theory. Svennilson also mentions Keynes in his dissertation of 1938 but mainly in a comparison between the income concepts used by the Stockholm School and Keynes respectively. Only in 1953 did Lindahl write a long article on Keynes' economic system for Ekonomisk Tidskrift, while neither Myrdal and Hammarskj~ld offered any direct interpretation of the General Theory. Of the older generation both Davidson and Cassel gave vent to their misgivings about Keynes' message; the former wrote four articles in Ekonomisk Tidskr ift (1936-1937) while the latter reviewed the General Theory for International Labour Review (1937). Hence, our concern is only with Ohlin's and Lundberg's contributions.