The problem of what are the features of the “classical” macroeconomic theory before Keynes has been hotly debated. Indeed Keynes selected The Theory of Unemployment by Pigou as “the” example of such a theory. The question arises: can we be satisfied, following Keynes, with the identification of “the” classical macro theory with Pigou’s book? It could well be that this work made explicit what, although in the minds of the Marshallian economist,  had not been put forward in a systematic way previously. This is not however the position Hicks took in his celebrated Econometrica paper, written when he was in Cambridge. As it is well known there Hicks put forward a typical “classical” theory to compare with the model of The General Theory.

In the present paper I  investigate Hicks’s model of the classical school in some detail and compare it with the theory that can be extracted from Pigou’s Theory of Unemployment. The aim is to pin down precisely what are the differences as well as the similarities between the two  “classical” models proposed respectively by Hicks and Pigou.

The plan of the paper is as follows. After  an exposition of Hicks’s classical model both in analytical and diagrammatic terms I will propose a verbal as well as diagrammatic synthesis of Pigou’s model recast in money terms so that it can properly be compared  with Hicks’s. Once this has been accomplished I will proceed to examine the equilibrium features of the two models to mark their different structure. Finally I will perform a few exercises of comparative statics (change in money wages, changes in money supply, etc.) to elucidate the different effects that as a consequence appear in the two models. The conclusion is that the two models, although share a common vision, appear to be rather different in several respects.