Comments on: Hydraulic Keynesianism

By: Antoin O Lachtnain

Antoin O Lachtnain — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:31:00 +0000

Does anybody have the equations and diagrams for one of these machines? It should be handy enough to run up a flash animation that would allow budding economists to try their hand at running a country without having to get their feet wet.

By: Brian J Goggin (bjg)

Brian J Goggin (bjg) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:11:23 +0000

@Matt: “What happens when it runs out of water?”

The Central Tank supplies increased liquidity.

bjg

By: Stephen Kinsella

Stephen Kinsella — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:31:25 +0000

@ Matt, they were built as closed systems, so they weren’t supposed to run out of water! But, there were loads of problems with ‘leakages’ with these machines, they required a lot of maintenance and they broke down all the time, maybe they were more realistic descriptions of the economy than we give them credit for!

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:34:36 +0000

Uh, oh.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/business/04bank.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON — The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation indefinitely postponed a central element of the Obama administration’s bank rescue plan on Wednesday, acknowledging that it could not persuade enough banks to sell off their bad assets.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:45:02 +0000

What happens when it runs out of water?

By: Paul Kavanagh

Paul Kavanagh — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:21:50 +0000

I can happily report that as a recent graduate of Prof. Murphy’s class, the Phillips machine is still being discussed!

By: Stephen Kinsella

Stephen Kinsella — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:29:52 +0000

There’s a special issue of Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology and Life Sciences (http://www.societyforchaostheory.org/ndpls/) coming out celebrating the Phillips machines and their history, in particular their connections with a branch of analogue, nonlinear macrodynamic modeling associated with Dr Richard Goodwin of Cambridge and Siena.

In studying an example of Leontief’s famous claim that ‘capitalism is an example of a dynamical system that is unstable everywhere’ (apparently Leontief made this claim during a discussion of Richard Goodwin’s paper, in Driebergen, in 1951, during the First Input-Output conference organised by Tinbergen - Goodwin had just discovered, with Goran Ohlin’s help, the Frobenius generalization of the Perron theorem, and was trying to impose the ’stability dogma’ on a linear multisectoral model). Goodwin, together with Phillips, had coupled two Phillips National Income machines to investigate nonlinearly coupled national economies. Goodwin was also the custodian of the MONIAC at Cambridge.

By: Cormac O'Dea

Cormac O'Dea — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:31:42 +0000

If anyone is ever killing time in London, the Science Museum has a Phillips machine on display. Though, as the article points out, it no longer works.

By: Brendan Walsh

Brendan Walsh — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:55:48 +0000

Kevin
In Leddin & Walsh (The Macroeconomy of the Eurozone - Gill & Macmillam 2003) we included a photograph showing Phillips contemplating his machine (while smoking a cigarette!) and another of James Meade lecturing at LSE using two Phillips machines to represent two different economies.