Short period and long period in macroeconomics: an awkward distinction

The aim of this paper is to show that the meaning of the well-known concepts of short period and long period is often unclear and may be seriously misleading when applied to macroeconomic analysis. Having explored some possible explanations for the difficulties in defining and applying these methodological tools at a 'macro' level, the conclusion is drawn that it would be preferable to abandon this terminology in classifying different aggregate models and simply to make explicit the given factors and the independent and dependent variables in each model, exaclty as Keynes did in Chapter 18 of his major work.