Lerner never stayed at one institution long, serving on the faculties of nearly a dozen universities and accepting over 20 visiting appointments.[7] Lerner was 62 when he was given a professorship at the
University of California, Berkeley in 1965 and left after reaching mandatory retirement age six years later.[7] During his time there, Lerner criticized the unrest caused by the student protests as a threat to
academic freedom.[7]
Abba Lerner taught in the Economics Department at Florida State University, for several years. He stopped teaching after he suffered a stroke while visiting Israel.
Lerner contributed to the idea of a
social dividend by incorporating it into
Oskar R. Lange's original model of socialism, where the social dividend would be distributed to each citizen as a lump-sum payment.[13]
Lerner developed the concept of
distributive efficiency, which argued that economic equality will produce the greatest probable total
utility with a given amount of wealth.[19]
Based on
effective demand and
chartalism, Lerner developed
functional finance, a theory of purposeful financing (and funding) to meet explicit goals, including
full employment. This is in contrast to “sound finance” principles where taxation is designed solely to fund expenditure or finance investment and low inflation.[20]
^Odekon, Mehmet (2011). Booms and Busts: An Encyclopedia of Economic History from the First Stock Market Crash of 1792 to the Current Global Economic Crisis. Armonk, NY: Sharpe.
ISBN9780765682246.
^Colander, David (December 1984), "Was Keynes a Keynesian or a Lernerian?", Journal of Economic Literature, 22: 1571–79, argues for the influence of Lerner's interpretation Keynes in "textbook" Keynesianism.{{
citation}}: CS1 maint: postscript (
link)
^Scitovsky, Tibor (1984). "Lerner's Contribution to Economics". Journal of Economic Literature. 22 (4): 1547–1571.
JSTOR2725381.
^Abba P. Lerner, 1938. "Theory and Practice in Socialist Economics". Review of Economic Studies, 6(1), pp.
71–75. • _____, 1934. "Economic Theory and Socialist Economy," Review of Economic Studies, 2(1), pp.
51–61. • _____, 1936. "A Note on Socialist Economics", Review of Economic Studies, 4(1), pp.
72–76. • _____, 1937. "Statics and Dynamics in Socialist Economics," Economic Journal, 47(186), pp.
253–270. • _____, 1944, The Economics of Control, Macmillan. (
J.E. Meade article book-review
extract.)
^Tadeusz Kowalik (2008), "Lange, Oskar Ryszard (1904–1965)," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition.
Abstract.
^Who framed 'social dividend'?, by Van Tier, Walter. March 2002. USBIG Conference, CUNY.
^"What eventually became known as textbook Keynesian policies were in many ways Lerner's interpretations of Keynes's policies, especially those expounded in The Economics of Control (1944) and later in The Economics of Employment (1951)...Textbook expositions of Keynesian policy naturally gravitated to the black and white 'Lernerian' policy of
Functional Finance rather than the grayer Keynesian policies. Thus, the vision that monetary and fiscal policy should be used as a balance wheel, which forms a key element in the textbook policy revolution, deserves to be called Lernerian rather than Keynesian." (
Colander 1984, p. 1573)
^Abba P. Lerner, 1936. "The Symmetry Between Import and Export Taxes", Economica, N.S., 3(11), pp.
306–313.
^Abba P. Lerner, 1934. "The Concept of Monopoly and the Measurement of Monopoly Power," Review of Economic Studies,
1(3), pp.
157–175.
^• Abba P. Lerner, 1944, The Economics of Control, Macmillan. • _____, 1952. "Factor Prices and International Trade," Economica, N.S., 19(73), pp.
1–15.
^• Abba P. Lerner, 1944, The Economics of Control, Macmillan, ch. 3. • _____, 1978. "Utilitarian Marginalism (Nozick, Rawls, Justice, and Welfare)," Eastern Economic Journal, 4(1), pp.
51–65.
^Abba P. Lerner, 1943. "Functional Finance and the Federal Debt," Social Research, 10(1), pp.
38–51.
^Abba P. Lerner, 1952. "Factor Prices and International Trade," Economica, N.S., 19(73), pp.
1–15.
^Murray C. Kemp, 2008. International Trade Theory: A Critical Review, Routledge, pp.
xiv–xvii.Description.