History of Economics Society Bulletin最新文献

{"title":"Geometric Population Increase: A Note on Priority of Usage","authors":"G. Gilbert","doi":"10.1017/S1042771600005986","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1042771600005986","url":null,"abstract":"Perhaps the most notorious choice of words ever made by an economist was the pair of mathematical terms used by Malthus to describe the maximum possible rates of increase in population and subsistence: “geometric” to describe population growth, and “arithmetic” to describe the growth of subsistence. If Malthus could have foreseen the linguistic and logical difficulties entailed by the geometric-arithmetic distinction, he might have looked for different adjectives. But what a loss to the “bravura” style of the Essay on Population so admired by Keynes! Consider the rhetorical impact of: “Population tends to increase at an exponential rate higher than the rate at which the food supply increases.” Is this the language of an economic classic?","PeriodicalId":123974,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics Society Bulletin","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130051350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"S. Todd Lowry (ed). Pre-Classical Economic Thought, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1987. pp. x, 271, ISBN O-89839-183-5. $ 47.50","authors":"G. W. Wilson","doi":"10.1017/S1042771600006013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1042771600006013","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":123974,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics Society Bulletin","volume":"BME-26 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121006567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Geoffrey M. Hodgson. Economics and Institutions: A Manifesto for a Modern Institutional Economics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. xxii, 365 pp. $39.95","authors":"Yngve Ramstad","doi":"10.1017/S1042771600006001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1042771600006001","url":null,"abstract":"\"Institutional economics\" is generally understood to be an exclusively American school of thought. This is not an entirely accurate presumption. Gunnar Myrdal and K.W. Kapp, for example, are well-known European economists of the last generation who each associated his own work with the institutional school. Still, as a self-conscious movement with both a negative and a positive agenda, the negative being the invalidating of \"orthodox\" economic theory and the positive being the construction of a non-Marxist alternative, institutionalism clearly has had its center of gravity in the United States. There are signs, however, of a growing interest in institutional economics among Europeans. The recent formation of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy is an objective manifestation of this development. This book, by Geoffrey Hodgson of Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic, is another. Indeed, as the title suggests, it is Hodgson's intent in this volume to give direction to the theoretical endeavors of those who seek to construct an institutional theory which incorporates \"modern\" knowledge about human behavior, economic institutions, and scientific practice. As is customary among writers seeking to outline the fundamentals of an \"institutional\" conception of economic theory, Hodgson's positive arguments emerge out of a critical examination of the fundamental preconceptions underlying \"mainstream\" economic theory. Critiques of mainstream theory are of course not in scarce supply. Hence one might suspect that Hodgson is simply rehashing familiar arguments. Such is not the case. For even though Hodgson does reach conclusions regarding the inadequacies of conventional economics that will be anticipated by all who are familiar with the writings of American institutionalists-to wit, that neoclassical economics is legitimized through a specious epistemological argument and that it embodies a fallacious understanding of human action as well as an erronous interpretation of economic processes, he makes his case through a somewhat different line of attack made possible by recent research findings in the areas of cognitive development and information theory. Moreover, Hodgson's critique is far more comprehensive than any I have seen, extending to all \"approaches\" premised even on a subset","PeriodicalId":123974,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics Society Bulletin","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"113971649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Interpreting Mr. Keynes","authors":"J. Kregel","doi":"10.1017/S1042771600005810","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1042771600005810","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":123974,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics Society Bulletin","volume":"243 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124682790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Patrick J. O'Sullivan, Economic Methodology and Freedom to Choose, London: Allen & Unwin, 1987, Pp. xvii, 265","authors":"L. Boland","doi":"10.1017/S1042771600005834","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1042771600005834","url":null,"abstract":"This book opens with a Forward by Mark Blaug. The book is about \"a critical philosophically based approach to the methodology of science guided by the regulative criterion of truth\" (p. 3). As a case study, O'SuUivan applies his approach to economics (Chapters 5-11). However, the book is more generally about the \"methodology of human science\" This review will focus primarily on the case-study. The main idea that O'SuUivan wishes economists to understand is that there is a difference between \"objectivist-behaviorist\" methodology based on mechanical-causal explanations of human behavior and what he calls the \"subjectivist-interpretive\" approach with its related teleological mode of explanation. He argues extensively that mainstream economists (i.e. neoclassical economists) are always caught in a contradiction between \"precept\" and \"practice\". Specifically, economists think they are engaged in the mechanical-causal mode of explanation that is usually associated with the physical sciences. In practice mainstream economists always rely on some form of the assumption that individual decision makers are optimizing. Not only is this assumption a subjective matter of interpreting the actions of other individuals but it is also teleological (involving the goals of the individual decision maker). O'SuUivan seems to think that these two approaches to methodology and explanation are unambiguously contradictory. He reviews the practice and methodological preaching of Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson and Richard Lipsey as well as the long-forgotten methodological views of John Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall and John Maynard Keynes. Everyone of these famous leading economists practice some form of subjectivist-interpretive teleological explanatory methodology while advocating an objectivist-behaviorist methodology. The only economists recognized for not being caught in such an alleged contradiction are the Austrians who consistently practice the subjectivist-interpretive approach to economic methodology. By comparing Austrian and mainstream economics from the perspective of the subjectivist-interpretive methodology O'SuUivan is certainly raising an important question for modern historians of economic thought. If both Austrians and mainstream economists practice the subjectivist-interpretive approach to economic methodology, why have Austrian economists had so little impact on mainstream economics? (Hayek is probably an exception but nobody seems to know why.) Unfortunately, O'SuUivan does not provide a clear answer to this question. Nevertheless, the evidence he presents in his case study is worthy of consideration.","PeriodicalId":123974,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics Society Bulletin","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123742773","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Macroeconometric Models and the Methodology of Macroeconomics","authors":"J. Lodewijks","doi":"10.1017/S1042771600005767","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1042771600005767","url":null,"abstract":"“The stimulation given by the General Theory to the construction and testing of aggregative models may well prove to be Keynes's chief contribution to economics in the longer perspective of historical judgement.”","PeriodicalId":123974,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics Society Bulletin","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131495673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Gladstonian Finance in Modern Light: Fiscal Constitutionalism or Supply-Side Economics?","authors":"C. Leathers","doi":"10.1017/S1042771600005792","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1042771600005792","url":null,"abstract":"Two new schools of thought have recently emerged in public finance: fiscal constitutionalism, founded on the theory of Leviathan government, and supplyside economics, popularly perceived in terms of the Laffer curve. Comments by several writers have raised the possibility of conflicts betweens the tax principles of the two schools. In particular, both Brunner (1982) and Reynolds (1982) criticized supply-siders for emphasizing tax cuts to increase public revenues and ignoring the importance of placing limits on governmental growth. In addition, McKenzie's description of “constitutional economics” as an intellectual movement that “promises far more radical reforms of government than those ever attempted by Keynesian and supply-side economics” (1984, p. 1) indicates that “constitutional” and supply-side economics are different. Yet, his discussion of the Laffer curve and supply-side tax cuts from a constitutional economist's perspective leaves the distinct impression that the two schools are in agreement on tax policy positions.","PeriodicalId":123974,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics Society Bulletin","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123905747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"D.P. O'Brien, Lionel Robbins (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988, pp. xii, 244)","authors":"D. Vickers","doi":"10.1017/S1042771600005822","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1042771600005822","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":123974,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics Society Bulletin","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126748995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Societies of Political Economy in Italy and the Professionalization of Economists (1860–1900) ()","authors":"M. Augello","doi":"10.1017/S1042771600005780","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1042771600005780","url":null,"abstract":"A recent comparative study of the economists' participation in government, draws negative conclusions with respect to this profession in Italy. The Italian case was shown to have been weak both in the teaching of economics at University level and lacking in the provision of a clearly defined and a highly specialized academic training. The complaint that Italian economists were generally devoted to teaching microeconomics, rather than macroeconomics, which is more strongly linked to political and productive demands, has often been heard.","PeriodicalId":123974,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics Society Bulletin","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116966685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Primer on Walrasian Theories of Economic Behavior","authors":"D. Walker","doi":"10.1017/S1042771600005743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1042771600005743","url":null,"abstract":"The story of the body of economic analysis that were initiated by Léon Walras can be divided into developments before and after 1930. During the period before 1930 there were two phases to the story. The first was the seminal achievement of Walras. The second was the refinements and extensions made by the generation of Walrasian theorists that followed him. During the period after 1930 the story is also divided into two phases. One is the work that has been done on the type of Walrasian model in which there are no disequilibrium transactions. The other is the beginning of work on the behavior of general equilibrium systems in which disequilibrium transactions and production occur. These phases will be sketched very briefly with the objective of giving a beginner's introduction to some major aspects of the history of general equilibrium theory.","PeriodicalId":123974,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics Society Bulletin","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115736534","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}