Bücher der Reihe Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics

This book examines and compares the 'old' institutionalism of Veblen, Mitchell, Commons, and Ayres, with the 'new' institutionalism developed from neoclassical and Austrian sources.

In popular imagery, Herbert Hoover is often stereotyped as a 'do-nothing' president who offered only nineteenth-century slogans for the greatest economic catastrophe in twentieth-century American history. Nothing could be further from the truth. This study examines the properties of an innovative approach to economic growth and stability formulated by Hoover and his associates during his years as secretary of commerce (1921-9) and inspects his deployment of this strategy from the White House following the Great Crash in the autumn of 1929. Attention is then focused on Hoover's attempts to reformulate his macro-economic programme as the depression deepened in late 1931 and 1932. Archival materials provide arresting insights into Hoover's aspirations for a new institution - the Reconstruction Finance Corporations - as a vehicle for stimulating investment through a novel form of 'off-budget' financing. To complement the discussion of Hoover's theories of economic policy in their various manifestations, the views of contemporary economists on problems of the day are surveyed.

In this volume leading scholars look at the heritage and impact of the important work done by the Stockholm School from the 1920s to the present. The first part of The Stockholm School of Economics Revisited covers the early years and is followed by an extensive review of the approaches to economics adopted by the school.

This book perceives Engels' early contribution to Marxian economic analysis. It justifies his defence of Marx against charges of plagiarism; rationalizes his objection that the 'utopian' socialists ignored the price mechanism; and analyzes his so-called revisionism in the light of constitutional and welfare reform.

This book describes the contribution of David Ricardo, one of the most influential economists of the nineteenth century, to the development of macroeconomics. It provides a detailed history of economic conditions in the early nineteenth century, showing that Ricardo was well versed in the affairs of the time.

This book provides a contextual study of the development of Alfred Marshall's thinking during the early years of his apprenticeship in the Cambridge moral sciences. Marshall's thought is situated in a crisis of academic liberal thinking that occurred in the late 1860s. His crisis of faith is shown to have formed part of his wider philosophical development, which saw him supplementing Anglican thought and mechanistic psychology with Hegel's Philosophy of History. This philosophical background informed Marshall's early reformulation of value theory and his subsequent wide-ranging reinterpretation of political economy as a whole. The book concludes with the suggestion that Marshall's mature economic science was conceived by him as but one part of a wider, neo-Hegelian, social philosophy.

In the comprehensive and full-length study of the English historical economists, Gerard Koot traces their revolt against the theory, policy recommendations and academic dominance of classical and neoclassical economics in Britain between 1870 and 1926.

An account and technical assessment of Marx's economic analysis in Capital and other documents, with particular reference to the transformation and the surplus-value doctrine, the reproduction schemes, the falling real-wage and profit rates, and the trade cycle.

Harry Johnson (1923-1977) was such a striking figure in economics that Nobel Laureate James Tobin designated the third quarter of the twentieth century as 'the age of Johnson'. This book chronicles his intellectual development and his contributions to economics, economic education, and the discussion of economic policy.

Adam Smith is the best known among economists for his book, The Wealth of Nations, often viewed as the keystone of modern economic thought. For many he has become associated with a quasi-libertarian laissez-faire philosophy. Others, often heterodox economists and social philosophers, on the contrary, focus on Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, and explore his moral theory. There has been a long debate about the relationship or lack thereof between these, his two great works. This work treats these dimensions of Smith's work as elements in a seamless moral philosophical vision, demonstrating the integrated nature of these works and Smith's other writings. This book weaves Smith into a constructive critique of modern economic analysis (engaging along the way the work of Nobel Laureates Gary Becker, Amarty Sen, Douglass North, and James Buchanan) and builds bridges between that discourse and the other social sciences.

Over the twentieth century monetary theory played a crucial role in the evolution of the international monetary system. The severe shocks and monetary gyrations of the interwar years interacted with theoretical developments that superseded the rigid rules of commodity standards and led to the full-fledged conception of monetary policy. The definitive demise of the gold standard then paved the way for monetary reconstruction. Monetary theory was a decisive factor in the design of the reform proposals, in the Bretton Woods negotiations, and in forging the new monetary order. The Bretton Woods system - successful but nevertheless short-lived - suffered from latent inconsistencies, both analytical and institutional, which fatally undermined the foundations of the postwar monetary architecture and brought about the epochal transition from commodity money to fiat money.

This book studies the development of ideas on freedom, coercion and power in the history of economic thought. It focuses on the exchange of goods and services and on terms of exchange (interest rates, prices and wages) and examines the nature of choice, that is, the state of the will of economic actors making exchange decisions.

In this volume leading scholars look at the heritage and impact of the important work done by the Stockholm School from the 1920s to the present. The first part of The Stockholm School of Economics Revisited covers the early years and is followed by an extensive review of the approaches to economics adopted by the school.

This 1996 work examines the history of debates between Friedman and his critics over money's causal role in business cycles from 1948 to 1991.

This 2002 book expands our understanding of the distinctive policy analysis produced between 1919 and 1950 by economists and other social scientists for four major international organizations: the League of Nations, the International Labor Organization, the Bank for International Settlements, and the United Nations. These practitioners included some of the twentieth century's eminent economists, including Cassel, Haberler, Kalecki, Meade, Morgenstern, Nurkse, Ohlin, Tinbergen, and Viner. Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes also influenced the work of these organizations. Topics covered include: the relationship between economics and policy analysis in international organizations; business cycle research; the role and conduct of monetary policy; public investment; trade policy; social and labor economics; international finance; the coordination problem in international macroeconomic policy; full employment economics; and the rich-country-poor-country debate. Normative agendas underlying international political economy are made explicit, and lessons are distilled for today's debates on international economic integration.

This 1988 book presents a historical investigation of the theoretical development of contemporary Equilibrium Business Cycle Theory (EBCT). The author examines the central features of the EBCT by tracing both the history of business cycle theory and the history of econometrics.

More Heat Than Light is a history of how physics has drawn some inspiration from economics and also how economics has sought to emulate physics, especially with regard to the theory of value. It traces the development of the energy concept in Western physics and its subsequent effect upon the invention and promulgation of neoclassical economics. Any discussion of the standing of economics as a science must include the historical symbiosis between the two disciplines. Starting with the philosopher Emile Meyerson's discussion of the relationship between notions of invariance and causality in the history of science, the book surveys the history of conservation principles in the Western discussion of motion. Recourse to the metaphors of the economy are frequent in physics, and the concepts of value, motion, and body reinforced each other throughout the development of both disciplines, especially with regard to practices of mathematical formalisation. However, in economics subsequent misuse of conservation principles led to serious blunders in the mathematical formalisation of economic theory. The book attempts to provide the reader with sufficient background in the history of physics in order to appreciate its theses. The discussion is technically detailed and complex, and familiarity with calculus is required.

The Victorian polymath William Stanley Jevons (1835-82) is generally and rightly venerated as one of the great innovators of economic theory and method. This book is an investigation into the cultural and intellectual resources that Jevons drew upon to revolutionize research methods in economics.

Laidler surveys the writings of a large number of economists in the inter-war years and argues that the 'Keynesian Revolution' is a myth, and that the 'new economics' was a careful and selective synthesis of an 'old economics' which had been developing for twenty years or more.

This work analyzes the centrality of law in nineteenth century historical and institutional economics and serves as a prehistory to the new institutional economics of the late twentieth century.

Professor Sent offers an innovative type of analysis of the recent history of rational expectations economics. In the course of exploring the multiple dimensions of rational expectations analysis, the author focuses on the work of Thomas Sargent, an instrumental pioneer in the development of this school of thought.

The first serious encounter between the science studies community and historians of economic thought, this 1994 book will serve to integrate previously disjointed inquiries. Numerous examples over three centuries are explored in the light of the new history of science, from Quesnay to Marshall to Jevons and Hayek.

The History of Econometric Ideas covers the period from the late-nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, illustrating how economists first learnt to harness statistical methods to measure and test the 'laws' of economics. Though scholarly, Dr Morgan's book is very accessible and does not require a high level of prior statistical knowledge.

This book is a comprehensive investigation of the work of Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950), one of the great economists of the twentieth century. Yuichi Shionoya aims at elucidating the total picture of his thought as well as his unique way of thinking.

This book covers a broad range of topics in the history of economics that have relevance to economic theories. The author believes that one of the tasks for a historian of economics is to analyze and interpret theories currently outside the mainstream of economic theory, in this case non-Walrasian economics.

This book argues that the work of the Austrian economists, including Carl Menger, Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, has been narrowly interpreted. Through a study of Viennese politics and culture, it is demonstrated that the project they were engaged in was much broader: the study of civilization.

This 1994 book examines the development of the ideas of the new Austrian school from its beginnings in the 1870s to the present. It focuses primarily in showing how the coherent theme that emerges from the thought of Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig Lachman, Israel Kirzner and others is an examination of the implications of time and ignorance for economic theory.

This is a history of international monetary thought from the end of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century. It provides a comprehensive survey of the literature produced on international macroeconomics for that period. Professor Flanders argues that progress in the field of international monetary economics (or in the discipline as a whole) has not been linear.

This book deals with the institutionalist movement in American economics, a movement that was a significant part of American economics in the interwar period. This movement emphasized the importance of institutions, an empirical approach and the need for new forms of 'social control'.

Franklin D. Roosevelt drew heavily on the thinking of economists as he sought to combat the Great Depression, to mobilize the American economy for war, and to chart a new order for the post-war world. This 1996 book explains how divergent analytic perspectives competed for official favour and the manner in which Roosevelt opted to pick and choose among them when formulating economic policies.