Solow's Struggle with Medium-Run Macroeconomics, 1956–95

Robert Solow has called repeatedly for the development of models that combine equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium outcomes, or what he calls medium-run macroeconomics. This essay recounts the history of his various attempts to address that issue. It starts in the early 1950s, when Solow developed his long-run growth model, and ends in the mid-1990s with the publication of A Critical Essay on Modern Macroeconomic Theory written with Frank Hahn. This narrative involves different economists associated with various research traditions, from the neoclassical synthesis in the 1960s, via the new classical economics in the 1970s, to the new neoclassical synthesis in the 1990s.