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In economics, the freshwater school (or sometimes sweetwater school) comprises macroeconomists who, in the early 1970s, challenged the prevailing consensus in macroeconomics research. A key element of their approach was that macroeconomics had to be dynamic, quantitative, and based on how individuals and institutions interact in markets and on how they make decisions under uncertainty. This new approach to macroeconomics was centered in the faculties of Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Chicago, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Rochester. They were called "freshwater school" because Pittsburgh, Chicago, Rochester, and Minneapolis are located nearer to the Great Lakes.〔 The established methodological approach to macroeconomic research was primarily defended by economists at the universities and other institutions located near the east and west coast of the United States. These universities included University of California, Berkeley, Brown University, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Columbia University, and Yale University. They were therefore often referred to as the saltwater schools. Each school influenced the other, and many central tenets of the freshwater school were integrated into mainstream economics.〔 The terms 'freshwater' and 'saltwater' were first used in reference to economists by Robert E. Hall in 1976, to contrast the views of these two groups on macroeconomic research.〔 More than anything else it was a methodological disagreement about to what extent researchers should employ the theory of economic decision making and how individuals and firms interact in markets when striving to account for aggregate ("macroeconomic") phenomena. In many respects, the saltwater-freshwater dichotomy no longer holds true. In his overview article from 2006, Greg Mankiw writes: == Differences == According to saltwater economic theory, the government has an important 'discretionary' role to play in order to actively stabilize the economy over the business cycle. Researchers associated with "the freshwater school" found that government economic policies are of utmost importance for both the economy's abilities to respond to shocks and for its long-term potential to provide welfare to its citizens. These economic policies are the rules and structure of the economy. They might be how markets are regulated, what government insurance programs are provided, the tax system, and the degree of redistribution, etc. Most researchers that have been associated with "the freshwater school" have, however, found it hard to identify mechanisms through which it is possible for governments to actively stabilize the economy through discretionary changes in aggregate public spending.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Saltwater and freshwater economics」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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