Elements of a Post Keynesian Alternative to “Household Production”

Recently a prominent Keynesian economist pointed out that, with a few exceptions, Post Keynesians have been relatively silent about the microeconomics of (Lavoie, 1994, p. 539). Important contributions have been made by, for instance, Earl (1986) and Drakopoulos (1992) in the goods and brand choice-making behavior of individuals, but Keynesian economists have certainly been silent in projecting and subsequently modeling a vision of activity. By this, we mean a vision of the social context and the institutional structure within which time use and expenditure decisions are made by well-defined groupings of individuals (as opposed to the more specific analyses of an individual's goods-brand choice by Earl and Drakopoulos).' The dominant economic vision of consumption activity is Gary Becker's neoclassical household approach. Of course, Keynesians have offered important direct and implicit critisisms of production theory. In this paper a number of these critisisms are considered for their usefulness in the development of a Keynesian