Paul Samuelson was both a mathematical micro-economist, working from theorem to proof in the neoclassical tradition, and a committed Keynesian macroeconomist, convinced of the necessity of policy intervention to improve the performance of market economies. How did he square these two sides of himself? Wade Hands goes into the archives to find out, as a step toward understanding how the neoclassical synthesis was first made. Understanding the past in order to understand the present -- this is new economic thinking.
