Current debate on monetary and fiscal policies is much concerned with the effects of such policies, and of changes in the budget and money supply. I propose here to discuss some taxonomic problems related to the concept of policy effects. Their resolution bears directly upon the controversy between Keynesians and Monetarists. I shall show that it is largely a sham-dispute, and it will appear that the empirical findings of the Monetarists have little relation to the Keynesian creed. Even negative effects of the budget with strong positive effects of money supply are fully consistent with strong positive effects of fiscal action and weak or strong effects of monetary action. The examination of the concept of effects of economic policy will be undertaken in relation to a model that is specified so as to include both the conventional Keynesian set-up for determining effective demand, and a credit mechanism that links effective demand to the banking system in the spirit of the Monetarists

asks it in a new context. The old question is a paraphrase of the title of Herbert Spencer's famous essay What Knowledge is of Most Worth? The new context is to pose the question for undergraduate students majoring in economics. My intent is to engage you in reflecting about what kinds of knowledge and skills our economics majors should master-what proficiencies they should be able to demonstrate-by the time they graduate from college. My focus is on not the select few who plan to enter graduate economics programs, but rather the vast majority who go out into the world and will become the next generation of leaders. I propose a list of knowledge and skills, perhaps a better word is proficiencies, that we might reasonably expect our majors to demonstrate upon graduation. This is by no means a final or definitive list; rather it is offered to stimulate discussion about the meaning of the economics major and how to give it more meaning.