Bücher der Reihe Anthem Other Canon Economics

Written by one of Italys leading historians, this book analyses the context and legacy of Gaetano Filangieris seven-volume Science of Legislation. The study engages with the unique history of Enlightenment Naples, the intellectual traditions upon which Filangieri drew, and the powerful repercussions of the American Revolution in eighteenth-century Italy to re-draw the map of Enlightenment republicanism and the early history of human rights and their political economy.Particularly, the book elucidates Montesquieus polyvalent influence on the development of Enlightenment political philosophy, the intricate relationship between natural law and natural rights (later human rights), the emergence of an idiom and a theory of constitutionalism as the only safeguard against absolutist abuses and democratic excesses (whether due to communitarian zeal or the influence of charismatic leaders), and the importance of Freemasonry as a school of political theory and a locus of political action and re-action at the time. This brings the book to a lengthy discussion of the tensions between liberalism and poverty as well as patriotism and cosmopolitanism in the Italian republican tradition themes all too relevant in todays historiographical landscape and Filangieris eventual contribution to these debates and to the institutionalization of the rights of man as a political category and an influence on political economy in Enlightenment Europe.The second part of the book deals with Filangieris legacy, engaging both with his immediate acolytes, such as Francesco Mario Pagano, drafter of the Neapolitan constitution of 1799, and his detractors, such as the conservative Vincenzo Cuoco. The book ends with groundbreaking chapters on Filangieris reception in France and in Europe at large, focusing on Benjamin Constants little-understood critique of Filangieri and the tensions between the constitutional republicanism of the late Italian Enlightenment on the one hand and the nascent tradition of liberalism on the other. In doing so, this book not only explains the common roots of these two traditions, but also why they diverged and what consequences this had for Italian and European history.

This book has a double agenda. First, it is a series of free-standing essays dealing with the fraught question of regulation in its multiples guises: economic, social, political, cultural and psychological. At the same time, it serves as a companion volume to the re-edition of Kaplan's landmark 'Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Reign of Louis XV', which first appeared in 1976. The chapters that unfold reveal how Kaplan's thinking has evolved in reaction both to the changing intellectual, epistemological, historiographical and sociopolitical environment, and to some of the significant scholarship that has been accomplished during the past forty years. This study is conceived as a commentary on and a dialogue with 'Bread, Politics' and with researchers who have written in and around the concerns of that book.Kaplan treats themes with which readers of his first book are conversant: the matrix motif of regulation; agriculture; markets; collective action and the moral economy; the people; order and disorder; the parlements in the age of the Economic Enlightenment; the king and kingship; the monarch and his ministers in the elaboration and execution of public policy; the new historiography of political economy; and the old, persistent tragedy of famine, understood as the problem of food insecurity in its less virulent incarnations.Kaplan engages them all with keen interest, and his discussion is "e;problem"e;-oriented. The author focuses largely on the questions that he considered, or failed to raise or resolve, in his inaugural work. The unity of outlook derives from the triangulation between the 'Bread, Politics' of 1976, a dense selection of the scholarship of the past four decades, and the critical gaze that Kaplan directs toward both. Kaplan remains faithful to the premise of 'Bread, Politics': that the subsistence question, broadly construed, is at the core of eighteenth-century history, and that the issues joined by the struggle over liberalization have marked French (and European/Atlantic) history ever since. These issues continue to shape our destiny today through the bristling tension between liberty and equality, and the debate over the necessity, legitimacy and character of regulation.

Jan A. Kregel is considered to be "e;the best all-round general economist alive"e; (G. C. Harcourt). This is the first collection of his essays dealing with a wide range of topics reflecting the incredible depth and breadth of Kregel's work. These essays focus on the role of finance in development and growth. Kregel has expanded Minsky's original postulate that in capitalist economies stability engenders instability in international economy, and this volume collect's Kregel's key works devoted to financial instability, its causes and effects. The volume also contains Kregel's most recent discussions of the Great Recession beginning in 2008.

The book presents state-of-the-art scholarship on Thorstein Veblen, one of the world's most influential social scientists. It explores hitherto neglected aspects of his life, works and historical relevance.

The mid-eighteenth century witnessed what might be dubbed an 'economic turn' that resolutely changed the trajectory of world history. From the birth of new agricultural practices and the foundation of private societies to the sustained and popular theorization of social and material phenomena, the period experienced an unprecedented interest in 'economic' concerns across a wide spectrum of human activities and social strata alike.The discipline of economics itself emerged amidst this turn, and it is frequently traced back to the work of François Quesnay and his school of Physiocracy (literally the 'Rule of Nature'). The school or, as it was called at the time, sect of économistes spearheaded a theoretically sophisticated form of economic analysis that postulated the virtues of laissez-faire and the unique ability of agriculture to generate wealth. Though lionized by the subsequent historiography of economics, the theoretical postulates and policy consequences of Physiocracy were disastrous at the time, resulting in veritable subsistence trauma in France. This galvanized relentless and diverse critiques of the doctrine not only in France but also throughout the European world that have, hitherto, been largely neglected by scholars.Though Physiocracy was an integral part of the economic turn, it was rapidly overcome both theoretically and practically, with durable and important consequences for the history of political economy. 'The Economic Turn' brings together some of the leading historians of that moment to fundamentally recast our understanding of the origins and diverse natures of political economy in the Enlightenment.

Between its first date of publication in 1684 and 1784 classic 'Oesterreich über Alles Wann es Nur Will' went through more than twenty known editions which makes it, arguably, Europe's most successful 'economics textbook' prior to Adam Smith's 'Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' (1776). Philipp Wilhelm von Hörnigk laid in this book the foundations of what has become known as the 'mercantilist' political economy - a strategy for achieving national wealth and political strength simultaneously by building up a competitive domestic manufacturing industry with the help of the state. Hörnigk advocated standard recipes known from modern development economics, such as import substitution, protective tariffs on select goods as well as bounties and other financial as also logistic support by a proactive interventionist state in order to safeguard and nurture domestic industries that were in a state of infancy but which would be promising candidates for future growth and economies of scale. As new work by Erik Reinert and Lars Magnusson has shown, contrary to a sort of mainstream view in modern economics and economic history, it was such policies that tended to make European countries rich in the pre-industrial age, also laying the basic foundations for subsequent industrialization - even the 'Great Divergence' between Europe and Asia post 1800. Most European states were interventionist during the nineteenth century. They obviously drew upon a menu of recipes and political economy schedules that had circulated widely in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and which would subsequently also influence the major works by Friedrich List, Daniel Raymond and other nineteenth-century development theorists.Based on Hörnigk's popularity and the publication pattern for the book, the 'Hörnigk' strategy stood at the core of many a treatise and book written on economic matters in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe; in fact Hörnigk may be called the forefather of modern development economics. He certainly was a towering figure in the 'Germanic' economic discourses of the early modern period. 'Austria Supreme, if It So Wishes (1684)' will be the first-ever English translation of a work the importance of which for European economic development and the 'European Miracle' cannot be overestimated.

Western industrialism has achieved miracles, promoting unprecedented levels of prosperity and raising millions around the world out of poverty. Industrial capitalism is now diffusing throughout the East. Japan, the four Tigers (Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong) and China are all incorporating themselves into the global industrial world. India, Brazil and many others are expected to follow the same course. But as China, India and other industrializing giants grow, they confront an inconvenient truth: they cannot rely on the Western industrial development model of fossil-fueled energy systems (resource throughput rather than circularity and generic finance) because these methods cause extreme spoliation of the environment and raise energy security, resource security and global warming concerns.By necessity, a new approach to environmentally conscious development is already emerging in the East, with China leading the way in building a green industry at scale. As opposed to Western zero-growth advocates and free-market environmentalists, it can be argued that a more sustainable capitalism is being developed in China - to counter black developmental model based on coal. This new 'green growth' model of development, being perfected in China and now being emulated in India, Brazil, South Africa (and eventually by industrializing countries elsewhere), as well as by advanced industrial countries such as Germany, looks to become the new norm in the twenty-first century. Its core advantages are the energy security and resource security that are generated.The British scientist James Lovelock has done the world an enormous service by formulating the theory of a 'living earth' named Gaia, where life self-regulates itself and the planet by keeping the atmospheric environment more or less constant, and likewise the environment of the oceans. In China's Green Shift, Global Green Shift, Mathews proposes a way in which Gaia (a product of the processes of the earth) can be complemented by Ceres (our own creation of a renewable energy and circular economy system). Can these two concepts of how the earth works, represented by two powerful deities, be reconciled? While Lovelock is pessimistic, asserting that Gaia will look after herself and that if we survive at all it is likely to be as a greatly diminished industrial civilization, numbering no more than one billion people, Mathews argues in this book why he believes this prognosis to be mistaken. Mathews maintains that the changes that 'we' are driving, as a species, represent a viable way forward. They give us a chance of reconciling economy with ecology - or Ceres with Gaia.

The book is a collection of nine quantitative studies - each probing one aspect of Renaissance Florentine economy and society. These are organized into three parts by topic, source material and analysis methods. Part one, on risk and return, contains two chapters. Chapter 1 studies Florentine plague outbreaks. Recent work has highlighted the incompatibility of evidence from written records with medical evidence. The chapter reconciles these approaches by using financial market evidence to interpret the written records. The next chapter examines a commonly used interest rate time series for Renaissance Florence. Significant literature has evolved during the past quarter century that measures interest rates to assess state formation trends in late medieval and early modern Europe. This chapter links financial theory and medieval law to better measure the Florentine interest rate, showing that the interest rate evidence used to date must be reconsidered.The second part examines Florentine society. This part shows how Florentine occupations can be separated into two categories by comparing wealth levels and distributions; demonstrates that the architectural and artistic explosion during the mid-fifteenth century was the result of a subsidy - a tax loophole that exempted the home and its furnishings from an significant new tax, leading to a transfer of assets into art and architecture; finds that Florentine neighbourhoods remained integrated between the mid-fourteenth and late fifteenth centuries; and provides evidence that the modern life-cycle curve of wealth accumulation might not have held true in Renaissance Florence.The final part looks at work - focusing specifically on the wool industry. It examines the historical structure of Florentine firms and offers a wide range of evidence to demonstrate that the industry's firms were small and perfectly competitive with little monopoly power. It also demonstrates the value of dynamic data in understanding women's work during the late medieval and early modern periods. Finally, it shows that the foundation of the Florentine cloth industry reduced the risk facing the individual company by relying on a combination of a guild organization and the putting-out production system - both systems that are rejected by economic theory as hopelessly inefficient.

Combining commercial success with philanthropy and social activism, Quakernomics offers a compelling model for corporate social responsibility in the modern world. Mike King explores the ethical capitalism of Quaker enterprises from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, testing this theory against those of prominent economists. With a foreword by Sir Adrian Cadbury, this book proves that the Quaker practice of total capitalism is not a historically remote nicety but an immediately relevant guide for todays global economy.

This book is a collection of articles focusing on comparative analysis of the development trajectories in the semi-periphery countries of South America and Central and Eastern Europe.

The historical schools of economics have been neglected within the arena of economic theory since the Second World War in favour of the now-dominant classical and neoclassical schools of economic thought. Torkel Aschehoug and Norwegian Economic Thought offers a revaluation of the historical-empirical approach to economics that the Norwegian legal theorist and politician Aschehoug became renowned for during the last decades of the nineteenth century up to his death in 1909. Fasting approaches Aschehougs economic thought in relation to his Norwegian colleagues, as well as the dominant international economists of the time. This comparison shows a theoretical affiliation with Gustav von Schmoller, in particular, through Aschehougs major work Socialkonomik, as well as British economist Alfred Marshalls marginal theory. Fasting blends a historical account of the dominant economic models of the late 1800s with a review of contemporary theory through recent economic crises. This work argues that Aschehougs Socialkonomik is strikingly relevant to a present-day readership, revealing itself as a work which offers real insight into the reasons for economic collapse.

Almost all industrial countries have undergone strategies to maintain, or improve, competitiveness in order to improve the standard of living of their population, particularly during the last quarter-century or so. But how have they treated developing countries? Competitiveness and Development explains how developing countries can attain competitiveness at a high level of development, examines the possibilities and constraints in achieving it, and proposes remedial measures at the national and international levels. The author Mehdi Shafaeddin illustrates how developed countries impose restrictive policies on developing countries through international financial institutions and the WTO, as well as regional and bilateral agreements, thereby limiting their policy space for promoting dynamic comparative advantage in order to achieve competitiveness at a high level of development. Such policies, the author argues, lock developing countries that are at the early stages of development in specialization in primary commodities, or at best simple processing and assembly operations in accordance with their static comparative advantage.To support this argument, the author critically examines the neoclassical theory of economics, which is the philosophy behind the principle of static comparative advantage as well as the policy stances of international financial institutions and the WTO. The author also reviews the historical experience of developed countries through industrialization, development and achieving competitiveness based on the principle of dynamic comparative advantage. In this context, he explains the importance of trade and industrial policies and the role of government in human resource development, innovation and technological development. To illustrate his case, the author compares the contrasting experiences of China and Mexico since the 1980s, during which time globalization has been intensified.

This book is a collection of articles focusing on comparative analysis of the development trajectories in the semi-periphery countries of South America and Central and Eastern Europe.

''Techno-Economic Paradigms'' presents a series of essays by the leading academics in the field discussing one of the most interesting and talked-about socio-economic theories of our times, ''techno-economic paradigm shifts'', and its role in explaining processes of innovation and development. This festschrift honours Carlota Perez, founder of the theory of ''techno-economic paradigm shifts''.

'Why the Economists Got It Wrong' illustrates the origins and development of the financial crisis, tracing its cultural origins in mainstream views which favoured financial liberalization policies. These views are contrasted with those of Keynes and Keynesian economists such as Minsky. Thus, among other things, Keyness ideas on uncertainty and Minskys ideas on financial fragility are taken up. The book points to an interpretation of economic events where uncertainty plays a central role, the dichotomy between real and monetary variables is rejected, and elements from the Classical approach are revived. This implies drastic changes in economic policy recipes, and particularly at economic policies aimed at building institutional and regulatory structures in order to counter financial fragility.

'Techno-Economic Paradigms' presents a series of essays discussing one of the most interesting and talked-about socio-economic theories of our times: techno-economic paradigm shifts.

"Classical Economics Today: Essays in Honor of Alessandro Roncaglia" is a collection of essays that investigates and applies the method and principles of Classical political economy to current issues of economic theory and policy.The contributors to the volume, like all classical economists in general, regard history as a useful tool of analysis rather than a specialist object of investigation. By denying that a single, all-encompassing mathematical model can explain everything we are interested in, Classical political economy necessarily requires a comparison and integration of several pieces of theory as the only way to discuss economics and economic policy. Economists inspired by the Classical approach believe that economic theory is historically conditioned: as social systems evolve, the appropriate theory to represent a certain phenomenon must evolve too. Therefore, plurality in methods, including the history of economic thought, must be a deliberate choice, as evidenced by the essays in "Classical Economics Today: Essays in Honor of Alessandro Roncaglia.""Classical Economics Today" is a tribute to Alessandro Roncaglia, to his personality and his research interests. Roncaglia's research is based on Schumpeter's dictum that good economics must encompass history, economic theory and statistics, and therefore does not generally take the form of elegant formal models that are applicable to all and everything. In this direction, Roncaglia is inspired by the Classical economists of the past, and becomes a model for present-day Classical economists. A perceptible family air imbues the essays: all the contributors are friends of Roncaglia and see his personality and his interests as a common point of reference.

Today's 'doctrine of choice' assures adults that they are competent to make serious personal decisions about healthcare, education and retirement plans. At the same time, most people are convinced that they are so ignorant of economics that they are not capable of holding an informed opinion, and that economic issues must be left to experts. The so-called experts of the mainstream economics profession claim to have profound, inaccessible knowledge; in fact they understand little and obscure almost everything.Understanding the economy is not simple, but it is no more complicated than understanding the political system sufficiently to cast a vote. In straightforward language, John F. Weeks exposes the myths of mainstream economics and explains why current economic policies fail to serve the vast majority of people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. He demonstrates that austerity policies have little theoretical basis and achieve nothing but inequality and misery. He goes on to explain how the current deficit and debt 'crises' in the United States and Europe are ideologically manufactured, unnecessary and simple to overcome. Drawing on examples from around the world, this book provides a bold alternative to the economics of the 1%. Their failure to serve the interests of the many results from their devoted service to the few.

In order to move beyond the international intellectual property rights regime in both theory and practice, this volume offers the novel approach of ?knowledge governance? as a way to understand the role of knowledge in growth and development.

This book argues that the current international intellectual property rights regime, led by the World Trade Organization (WTO), has evolved over the past three decades toward overemphasizing private interests and seriously hampering public interests in access to knowledge and innovation diffusion. This approach concentrates on tangible and codified knowledge creation and diffusion in research and development (R&D) that can be protected via patents and other intellectual property rules and regulations. In terms of global policy initiatives, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that the WTO in particular is mostly a conflict-resolution facility rather than a global governance body able to generate cooperation and steer international coordinated policy action. At the same time, rent extraction and profits streaming from legal hyperprotection have become pervasively important for firm strategies to compete in a globalized marketplace. "Knowledge Governance: Reasserting the Public Interest" offers a novel approach - knowledge governance - in order to move beyond the current regime.

'National Systems of Innovation' presents a new perspective on the dynamics of the national and the global economy.

This volume presents Martin Luther¿s contribution to the modern economic sciences, providing a detailed introduction and revised translation of his 1524 pamphlet, ¿On Commerce and Usury¿ (¿Von Kauffshandlung vnd Wucher¿).

'Ragnar Nurkse, Trade and Development' reprints Nukse's most important works, making them widely available for an audience of economists, policy makers, researchers and students.

'National Systems of Innovation' presents a new perspective on the dynamics of the national and the global economy.

The book presents state-of-the-art scholarship on Thorstein Veblen, one of the world's most influential social scientists. It explores hitherto neglected aspects of his life, works and historical relevance.

"e;Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards"e; explores the workings of the modern global economy - an economy in which competition has been corrupted and power has a ubiquitous influence upon economic behavior. Based on empirical and theoretical studies by distinguished economists from both the past and present day, this book argues that the true workings of capitalism are very different from the popular myths voiced in mainstream economics. Offering a closer look at the history of economic doctrines - as well as how economists are incentivized - "e;Economists and the Powerful"e; exposes how, when and why the theme of power was erased from the radar screens of mainstream economic analysis - and the influence this subversive removal has had upon the modern financial world.

Ragnar Nurkse (1907-1959) was one of the most important pioneers of development economics, and although his writings have been neglected in recent decades, leading development economists and international organizations such as the United Nations are now turning to Nurkse in search for new inspiration, due to the failure of neoclassical economics to adequately explain the experience of poor and developing countries. Yet Nurkse''s contribution to the field has never before been analysed before at book length.The present volume, ''Ragnar Nurkse (1907-2007): Classical Development Economics and its Relevance for Today'', contains a selection of papers that cast new insight on Nurkse''s thought, and discuss his relevance for today. The volume also celebrates the 100th anniversary of this profoundly important thinker''s birth.

Although no less an authority than Joseph A. Schumpeter proclaimed that Antonio Serra was the worlds first economist, he remains something of a dark horse of economic historiography. Nearly nothing is known about Serra except that he wrote and died in jail, and his Short Treatise is so rare that only nine original copies are known to have survived the ravages of time. What, then, can a book written nearly four centuries ago tell us about the problems we now face? Serras key insight, studying the economies of Venice and Naples, was that wealth was not the result of climate or providence but of policies to develop economic activities subject to increasing returns to scale and a large division of labour. Through a very systematic taxonomy of economic life, Serra then went on from this insight to theorize the causes of the wealth of nations and the measures through which a weak, dependent economy could achieve worldly melioration. At a time when leading economists return to biological explanations for the failure of their theories, the Short Treatise can remind us that there are elements of history which numbers and graphs cannot convey or encompass, and that there are less despondent lessons to be learned from our past. Serras remarkable tract is introduced by a lengthy and illuminating study of his historical context and legacy for the theoretical and cultural history of economics.