History of Economics eJournal最新文献

{"title":"Addressing the Audience: Paul Samuelson, Radical Economics and Textbook Making, 1967-1973","authors":"Yann Giraud","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3009252","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3009252","url":null,"abstract":"Historians of economics rarely consider textbooks as more than passive receptacles of previously validated knowledge. Therefore, their active role in shaping the discipline and its image is seldom addressed. In this paper, I study the making of Paul Samuelson’s successive editions of Economics from 1967 to 1976 as an instance of how textbooks stand at the crossroads between disciplinary knowledge, pedagogy and larger political and societal concerns. In the mid-1960s, Economics, now at its sixth edition, was at the height of its success. Considered one cornerstone of modern economics, it was also the center of a number of criticisms dealing with the current state of the economic discipline and its teaching in the universities. While the profession expressed its concern over the lack of relevance of economics to address the pressing issues of the day and pleaded for a new “problem-solving” approach to economic education, the late 1960s witnessed the emergence of a new generation of “radical” economists criticizing the economics orthodoxy. Their contention that mainstream theory had neglected the issues of class struggle and capitalist exploitation, found a favorable echo among an increasingly politicized population. Using archival materials, I show how Samuelson, helped by his editorial team at McGraw-Hill, attempted to take into account these changes in order to ensure the continuing success of subsequent editions of his text in an increasingly competitive market. While this study emphasizes Samuelson’s ambiguous attitude toward his contenders, revealing on the one hand his belief in a free marketplace of ideas and, on the other hand, his attachment to mildly liberal politics and aversion to Marxism, unchanged through revisions, it also shows that the textbook is a collective endeavor, embodying different stakeholders’ views and market forces. Therefore, those who are interested in studying textbooks as a way to retrace the development of economic knowledge should not necessarily postulate authorial intent.","PeriodicalId":253619,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics eJournal","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133228253","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":"UK Shocks and Irish Business Cycles, 1922–79","authors":"Rebecca Stuart","doi":"10.1111/ehr.12664","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12664","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the transmission of UK and global shocks to the Irish economy over the period 1922–79, using annual data for consumer prices and real GDP in a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. UK aggregate demand and supply shocks have large and significant effects on Irish CPI, but smaller effects on Irish real GDP. A historical decomposition indicates that UK aggregate supply and demand shocks played a more important role than domestic shocks in the evolution of Irish CPI. In contrast, the evolution of Irish real GDP is driven more by idiosyncratic domestic shocks than by UK shocks.","PeriodicalId":253619,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics eJournal","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"118353111","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 Comparison of Keynes’s General Theory Model of IS – LM in Chapter 21 and the 1934 Draft Copy of the General Theory: Keynes Made a Major Conceptual Improvement","authors":"M. E. Brady","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3379179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3379179","url":null,"abstract":"Keynes made major improvements in the manner in which he presented his IS-LM model in the General Theory in February 1936 when compared to the 1934 Draft copy of June–July Keynes’s improvements were with respect to the specification of the Consumption function, marginal propensity to consume, and investment multiplier and removing the variable, W, which stood for the impact of the \"the state of the News\", which actually measured the change in the weight of the argument (evidence).<br><br>Keynes correctly substituted “expectation(confidence)” in the 1934 draft, instead of using “the state of the news”. This was still not correct as Keynes is still incorporating and mixing up expectational and actual variables in the same set of equations. Keynes got it correct in the General Theory when he defined uncertainty as an inverse function of the weight of the argument and confidence as a negative function of uncertainty, which makes confidence a positive function of the weight of the argument, in the General Theory. The reader should note that Keynes never defined the weight of the argument, V(a/h)=w, until page 315 in chapter 26 of the A Treatise on Probability.<br><br>Keynes‘s comments to his students about the role of mathematical equations in macroeconomics has been severely and badly misinterpreted to mean that no formal mathematical analysis of macroeconomics was possible. Keynes was always aware of the fact that no mathematical model alone was capable of representing the macro economy in its entirety. He spent pages 300-303 of the General Theory listing the types of important analysis that were not considered or taken into account in the IS-LM model itself. However, the IS-LM model,while being presented on pp.298-299 of the General Theory as being “…valuable in introducing order and method into our enquiry., \"however,\" presents a deceptive simplicity, if we forget that the three elements (a), (b) and (c) are themselves partly dependent on the complicating factors (2), (3), (4) and (5) which we have not yet considered…” (Keynes,1936,p.298).<br><br>All of macroeconomic history needs to be rewritten in order to incorporate Keynes’s use of an explicit IS-LM model in chapter 21 of the General Theory.","PeriodicalId":253619,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics eJournal","volume":"224 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115503718","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":"Divergence and Convergence: Paul Samuelson on Economic Development","authors":"M. Boianovsky","doi":"10.1057/978-1-137-56812-0_22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56812-0_22","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":253619,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128529415","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":"Τα τραγικά λάθη της Οικονομικής Θεωρίας που εξακολουθούν να διδάσκονται στα Πανεπιστήμια (The Tragic Mistakes of the Economic theory that Are Still Being Taught in Universities)","authors":"Dimitrios Nomidis","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3369571","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3369571","url":null,"abstract":"<b>Greek Abstract:</b> Η συμβατική μικροοικονομική θεωρία, η οποία θεμελιώθηκε και αναπτύχθηκε κυρίως από τους νεοκλασικούς οικονομολόγους, εμπεριέχει κάποια βασικά λάθη τα οποία οδηγούν την οικονομική θεωρία σε εσφαλμένα συμπεράσματα σχετικά με τον τρόπο λειτουργίας της οικονομίας και τα αποτελέσματα αυτής της λειτουργίας. Δυστυχώς τα λάθη αυτά παρέμειναν και μετά τη νεοκλασική σύνθεση που επήλθε δια της ενοποιήσεως (merger) της νεοκλασικής με την κεϋνσιανή θεωρία (mainstream economics) και εξακολουθούν να διδάσκονται στα πανεπιστήμια μέχρι σήμερα. Κατωτέρω γίνεται μια σύντομη ανάλυση των λαθών αυτών και μια προσπάθεια ανίχνευσης των πιθανών αιτίων τους. Επίσης παρουσιάζεται μια περιληπτική αναφορά των δραματικών αλλαγών που επιφέρει η διόρθωση των λαθών αυτών στην οικονομική θεωρία με τις κοινωνικές και πολιτικές επιπτώσεις της. Για μια αναλυτικότερη παρουσίαση παραπέμπουμε στο άρθρο του συγγραφέα “A Revision of the Theory of Perfect Competition and of Value”.<br><br><b>English Abstract:</b> Conventional microeconomics theory, which was founded and developed mainly by the neoclassical economists, contains some basic mistakes that lead economic theory to erroneous conclusions about how the economy operates and the results of this operation. Unfortunately these mistakes have still remained after the neoclassical synthesis that came through the merger of neoclassical and Keynesian economics (mainstream economics) and are still taught in universities to this day. Below a brief analysis of these mistakes and an attempt to detect their probable causes is made. Also, a brief account of the dramatic changes brought about by the correction of these mistakes in economic theory with its social and political implications is presented. For a more detailed presentation, we refer to the author's paper \"A Revision of the Theory of Perfect Competition and of Value\".","PeriodicalId":253619,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics eJournal","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133456897","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":"Comparing Augustine's Version of Adam Smith's 'the Poor Man's Son' Analysis with Adam Smith's Version: Wealth Can't Make You Happy, but the Pursuit of Virtue Will","authors":"M. E. Brady","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3360182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3360182","url":null,"abstract":"Augustine’s argument about the failure of wealth to insure one’s happiness is very similar to Adam Smith’s position except that Augustine compares a lower income or middle income class citizen with a rich citizen while Smith compares a lower income class citizen,or poor citizen, with a rich citizen. The conclusions of Augustine and Smith are very similar. Wealth and riches can’t make you happy. This conclusion is directly opposite to the conclusion reached by Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian ethics that the more material goods you own, the more happy you will be.","PeriodicalId":253619,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics eJournal","volume":"30 3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132295612","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":"J. M. Keynes (Inexact Measurement, Approximation, Non- Linearity, Non-Additivity, Interdependence, Imprecision) Versus J. Tinbergen (Exact Measurement, Linearity, Additivity, Independence, Precision) on Probability in 1939–1940: There Was No Middle Ground Between Them","authors":"M. E. Brady","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3345430","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3345430","url":null,"abstract":"The Keynes-Tinbergen debates of 1939-40 pits two advocates of completely different, and diametrically opposed, methods of analysis. <br><br>J M Keynes was a lifelong practitioner of Inexact Measurement, approximation, nonadditive, nonlinear, indeterminate and imprecise probability, which emphasized the application of Boole’s interval-valued approach to a logical probability using upper and lower bounds or limits. The exact measurement was a special case involving problems that satisfied Keynes’s principle of Indifference (combinatorics, permutations) or frequency data that met the Lexis-Q test for stability over the long run. Probabilities for Keynes were non-(sub or super) additive, incorporated nonlinear probability preferences, and were not independent unless the data was based on the inanimate phenomenon. <br><br>J. Tinbergen was a lifelong practitioner of Exact Measurement, definite, precise, and determinate probability, which emphasized the application of the limiting frequency interpretation of probability. The exact measurement was the general case. Probabilities for Tinbergen were definite, exact, determinate, linear, additive and independent. Empirical evidence allowed one to specify a correct probability distribution of all possible outcomes before any choice needed to be made. Tinbergen’s physics background determined his approach to probability. <br><br>There was no room for compromise between Keynes’s Inexact approach to measurement and Tinbergen’s Exact approach to measurement except in areas of study where an analysis showed fairly stable behavior exhibited by decision makers that changed very slowly over time. These fields would be consumer consumption expenditure studies and business inventory studies to meet that consumer demand. Tinbergen’s concentration on Investment spending on durable capital goods in his study about the Business cycle was precisely where Keynes would argue that precision was not possible, given the constant interactions of changing expectations of future profits with difficult to judge technological advance, innovation, change, and obsolescence problems. <br><br>In August 1938, Keynes had sent Harrod his linear, first order, difference equation model that analyzed the interaction of the multiplier with the accelerator (relation) dynamically over time with respect to Harrod’s views on the relationship between full employment and the capital stock in his model of inter-temporal economic growth over time. Keynes reached the conclusion that it was impossible to identify full employment equilibriums from unemployment equilibriums, given a set of possible multiple equilibria that was being generated by the positive feedback engendered by the interplay of the multiplier-accelerator interactions. From 1939-1941, Samuelson had also reached the same conclusion using his own linear difference equation analysis. All that it was possible to conclude from the analysis was that the equilibriums, full employment or unempl","PeriodicalId":253619,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics eJournal","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127920287","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":"Douglass North as a Political Economist","authors":"Rafael Galvão de Almeida","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3345314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3345314","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores Douglass North’s intellectual development as a political economist and an interdisciplinary researcher. Although he was an important figure during the cliometrics revolution, he later grew dissatisfied with the approach and went on to study institutions, helping to establish the New Institutional Economics. His political theory evolved with influences from Marxism and Public Choice Theory and is reflected in his work in the 1980s. His directorship at the Center in Political Economy at Washington University at St. Louis allowed him to work directly with other social scientists for the development of a New Political Economy.","PeriodicalId":253619,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics eJournal","volume":"179 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114367806","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":"Adam Smith's 1759 Rebuke of the Slave Trade","authors":"D. Klein","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3337961","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3337961","url":null,"abstract":"Smith’s two-sentence rebuke of the slave trade was quoted in full four times in early anti-slavery literature. It helps us make sense of Part V of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and understand Smith’s posture toward slavery. Also, it might inform our understanding of the relationship between Smith’s two great works.","PeriodicalId":253619,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics eJournal","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134121051","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":"EL ANÁLISIS ECONÓMICO DEL DERECHO INTERNACIONAL: Una introducción a sus estructuras de gobernanza (Economic Analysis of International Law: An Introduction to Its Governance Structure)","authors":"D. A. Monroy","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3402718","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3402718","url":null,"abstract":"Spanish Abstract: El Análisis Económico del Derecho es un enfoque analítico de las instituciones legales que se consolidó desde la mitad del siglo XX. Sin embargo, hasta el final del siglo anterior, este enfoque mantuvo una evidente falta de interés en el estudio explícito de cuestiones relacionadas con el ‘derecho internacional’. Este artículo explica algunas de las causas de este desinterés. Por otro lado, el artículo propone utilizar las herramientas de la perspectiva de la 'Nueva economía institucional’ (NEI), la economía de los costos de transacción, y concretamente, el enfoque defendido por Oliver Williamson, como un marco analítico apropiado para continuar y consolidar el avance del análisis económico del derecho internacional. Para probar la consistencia de esta propuesta, el artículo se vale del análisis de las ‘estructuras de gobernanza’ sugerido por Williamson para demostrar cómo estas estructuras logran una comprensión satisfactoria de algunos fenómenos relevantes en el derecho internacional. English Abstract: The Economic Analysis of the Law is an analytical approach to legal institutions that was consolidated from the middle of the 20th century. However, until the end of the previous century, this approach maintained an evident lack of interest in the explicit study of issues related to ‘international law’. This paper tries to explain some of the causes of this disinterest. On the other hand, the paper proposes to use the tools of the New institutional economics perspective (NIE), transaction-cost economics and concretely, the approach defended by Oliver Williamson, as an appropriate analytical framework to continue and to consolidate the advance of the economic analysis of international law. To test the consistency of this proposal, the document uses the analysis of ‘governance structures’ suggested by Williamson to demonstrate that these structures achieve a satisfactory understanding of some relevant phenomena in international law.","PeriodicalId":253619,"journal":{"name":"History of Economics eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130958763","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}