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Concept
Microfoundations
Summary
Microfoundations are an effort to understand macroeconomic phenomena in terms of economic agents' behaviors and their interactions. Research in microfoundations explores the link between macroeconomic and microeconomic principles in order to explore the aggregate relationships in macroeconomic models.
During recent decades, macroeconomists have attempted to combine microeconomic models of individual behaviour to derive the relationships between macroeconomic variables. Presently, many macroeconomic models, representing different theories, are derived by aggregating microeconomic models, allowing economists to test them with both macroeconomic and microeconomic data. However, microfoundations research is still heavily debated with management, strategy and organization scholars having varying views on the "micro-macro" link. The study of microfoundations is gaining popularity even outside the field of economics, recent development includes operation management and project studies.
The microfoundations project originated in the post-Second World War neoclassical synthesis where it is generally believed that neoclassical microeconomics fused with Keynesian macroeconomics. The ‘neoclassical microeconomics’ in mention is the Marshallian partial-equilibrium approach, which emerged from the Walrasian general equilibrium theory. However, the Walrasian general equilibrium theory presents another trend to the synthesis as it attempts to theorise the economy as a whole and is viewed as an alternative to macroeconomics. This approach is considered to be the trigger for exploring microfoundations, however, the notion of a gap in the “micro-macro” link has been and continues to be explored in various theories and models.
Critics of the Keynesian theory of macroeconomics argued that some of Keynes' assumptions were inconsistent with standard microeconomics. For example, Milton Friedman's microeconomic theory of consumption over time (the 'permanent income hypothesis') suggested that the marginal propensity to consume (the increase of consumer spending with increased income) due to temporary income, which is crucial for the Keynesian multiplier, was likely to be much smaller than Keynesians assumed.
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