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This paper examines the position of Thomas Tooke (1774-1858) on the issues at the centre of the Bullionist controversies, which occurred during the restriction of cash payments by the Bank of England in the period 1797-1821. It shows that Tooke was a strong supporter of resumption and the gold standard, but that from the beginning, his monetary thought significantly differed from that of the Bullionists. The paper shows that Tooke's explanation of price inflation and the depreciation of the paper currency as well as his assessment of the Bank of England largely supported the position of the anti-Bullionists against the Bullionists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper continues an ongoing reflection on the ways we do the history of economic thought, marked some decades ago by Mark Blaug. It offers a non-canonical typology comprising three alternative approaches, distinguished on the basis of the way they conceive of the link between statements, old and contemporary: the extensive, the retrospective, and the intensive approaches. It shows that the latter potentially challenges contemporary knowledge by introducing statements which do not belong to it. Despite its being a heuristic, it appears as a privileged route by which the history of economic thought can begin to engage with economic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of gift (donum) and common good in Thomas Aquinas' (c1225–1274) economic teachings. The result is a theory of economic agency, rooted in the concept of mutual assistance (reciprocity), under which Aquinas' account of just price is considered. The paper also relates Aquinas' thought to the work of the "civil economist" Antonio Genovesi (1713–1769). Genovesi's account of the market as a place of virtue and mutual assistance is deeply connected to Thomistic anthropological and economic theses. This would classify Aquinas as a fundamental author for the tradition of civil economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of female economists during the post-World War II reconstruction of Western Europe is as yet unresearched. A small but substantial collection of publications discusses the role of male economists within the European institutions created after World War II. However, none of them analyzes contributions made by female economists. This paper aims to shed some light on female economists who participated in the reconstruction of Europe through their work in the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), which was created by the Marshall Plan following the Conference of Sixteen (Conference for European Economic Co-operation). Firstly, we searched for names of female economists who served the institution, hoping that some relevant hidden female figures in the OEEC would resurface. Secondly, through oral history archives and personal documents, we reconstructed the biographies of three female economists who contributed, in different ways, to the activities of the OEEC: Miriam Camp, Florence Kirlin, and Vera Cao Pinna. By comparing these three figures, in terms of their educational and social backgrounds, their narrative, as well as their connections with international networks of experts, we defined their similarities and differences in order to identify the main characteristics that allowed them, even if at different levels and with different roles, to participate in international diplomacy and technical support deployed in the construction and diffusion of the idea of the peaceful, united, and prosperous Europe which we live in today. Tracing back the presence of women in OEEC, this article aims to bring some light on: what did being a woman economist entails in the after WWII in the newborn European institutions and what did it mean in terms of the kind of work and experience a woman could be doing within the process of professionalisation of the economics discipline in the international organisations. We are interested in describing the experiences and self-perceptions of women economists working in male dominated international institutions. Female international thinkers and experts, well known in their own time, were largely overlooked and neglected by scholars, politics, and international history later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post Keynesian models consider growth to be demand-led – a logical consequence of Keynes's principle of effective demand. After Harrod's seminal paper in 1939 they try to unearth the hidden variables that might allow the adaptation of the warranted rate, determined from the supply side, to demand-growth expectations that supposedly have an autonomous source. The purpose of this paper is to show that an investment function based on the accelerator and integrated in a supermultiplier is able to shape the warranted rate in consonance with the autonomous trend. The supermultiplier reveals itself as a stable and stabilising mechanism when demand is split into permanent and transient. Hopefully the paper will build bridges with other Keynesian, Kaleckian and Sraffian strands that have so far dismissed the supermultiplier solution because of its apparently inherent instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1955, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei awarded the inaugural International "Feltrinelli" Prize for the Economic and Social Sciences to Arthur Cecil Pigou. This paper considers Gustavo Del Vecchio's active role on the selection committee in recommending Pigou for the Feltrinelli Prize and the related correspondence between Pigou, Piero Sraffa, and Del Vecchio. One of the most significant discovery reported in this paper is Sraffa's contention, expressed in an unpublished letter to Del Vecchio, that Pigou had "never been honoured in proportion to his merits." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the life and work of the Hungarian-born, U.S.-naturalized economist Andrew Pikler (1907–1984). First in 1930s Hungary and then as a refugee in postwar U.S., Pikler pursued a radical program of physics analogies in economics. This program was endorsed by (among others) John von Neumann who, however, unsuccessfully tried to introduce Pikler into the Cowles Commission. In the end, Pikler could not become a professional economist. His experience testifies to a major turn in mathematical economics in the 1950s, as this field avoided programmatic and explicit physics analogies and also diverged from cybernetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

George J. Stigler's seminal role as one of the founders of the economics of science is summarized and evaluated. His main contribution rests in his asking an array of important questions and arguing persuasively for the application of empirical, and especially statistical, techniques to the answering of those questions. He asks whether and how science progresses; whether a scientist's biography is important in understanding his science; what characteristics of a scientist are most complementary to success in science; and how the professionalization of science redirects the attention of scientists more toward internal puzzle-solving, and less toward applied relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconstructs the academic figure of Sraffa at the University of Cambridge as it emerges from his papers, his correspondence with the economists with whom he had special relations, and the official documents of the University, in particular in connection with his role in the Faculty of Economics and Politics, to which he belonged from 1927 to 1965. It presents a detailed examination of the various posts held by Sraffa at the University as Lecturer, Assistant Director of Research, Member of the Degree Committee, Examiner, Member of the Faculty Board, as co-founder of The Department of Applied Economics, Elector to the Chairs of Political Economy, Industrial Relations and Economics, Member of King's College and finally as Fellow of Trinity College. Moreover, the relationship with his fellow economists in Cambridge, in particular Keynes, Kahn, Kaldor and Joan Robinson is also examined and assessed. The broad conclusion of the paper is that Sraffa's relationship with Cambridge University was complex, contradictory and intense, and should be seen within the broader context of the ambiguous relations Sraffa had with academia in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical reconstructions of the theories of Optimum Currency Areas (OCA) are usually biased by the underlying theoretical and policy orientation of their authors, they often provide a sort of internalist explanation of advancement in economic theory (assuming that economic theory evolves for internal reasons defined by theorists in the discipline) and sometimes neglect the influence of particular events and policy debates on the theoretical discussions. The impression is that some important links between facts, economic theorising and public policies are not yet clearly identified. The paper aims at investigating such relationships in a historical perspective, with a special reference to the evolving role of endogenous and exogenous criteria to the study of OCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wolfgang Stützel was a prominent German economist who coined a very special terminology in national accounting and in international economics. Therefore, it can be said that his contributions to economics got lost in translation. Especially, the Balances Mechanics approach and the paradox of competition are his biggest achievements in economic theory, but he never received international recognition. The objective of this paper is to pay tribute to his work by applying his analytical frameworks to the balance of payments crisis in the Eurozone and to the distributional impacts of austerity policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses why mathematical economists of the early Cold War period favored formal-axiomatic over behavioral choice theories. One reason was that formal-axiomatic theories allowed mathematical economists to improve the conceptual and theoretical foundations of economics and thereby to increase its scientific status. Furthermore, the separation between mathematical economics and other behavioral sciences was not as clear-cut as often argued. While economists did not modify their behavioral assumptions, some acknowledged the empirical shortcomings of their models. The paper reveals the multifaceted nature of rational choice theories reflected in the changing interpretations and roles of the theories in those early years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Oskar Lange's 1938 article “The Rate of Interest and the Optimum Propensity to Consume” is usually associated with the original IS-LM approach of the late 1930s. However, Lange's article was not only an attempt to illuminate Keynes's main innovations but the first part of a wide project that included the development of a theory of economic evolution. This paper aims at showing that Lange's article can help in illuminating critical aspects of this project: in particular, Lange's idea that a synthesis between Kaldor's and Kalecki's theories and that of Schumpeter, might have been possible and that it represented (in intentions) a “modern” and consistent reconstruction of the Marxist theory of the business cycle. Section 2 clarifies Lange's early reflection on dynamics. Section 3 centres on Lange's 1938 static model and indicates the effects of a change of saving on investment. Section 4 suggests a dynamic reconstruction from which are addressed important arguments raised by Lange in a series of papers written between 1934 and 1942. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The influence of Spencer's ideas is now generating a good deal of analysis. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of Spencer's work on economic thought. It also analyses the way in which this work was interpreted by the Italian economists. In particular, it investigates the influence of Spencer's theory of evolution on the thought of Pantaleoni (1857–1924) and Nitti (1868–1953). These two representative Italian scholars were on opposite sides for their economic methodology and the issue of government intervention in the economy. The paper clarifies whether their two divergent visions on social change could both be in accordance with Spencer ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper explores the intellectual trajectory of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. By reviewing his memoirs and the various interpretations of his work, it puts forward the particular conditions and circumstances that shaped Georgescu-Roegen's theoretical developments. His way from neoclassical consumption behaviour to the entropy law and the economic process was a very exciting intellectual journey. Born in Romania, having experienced four dictatorships in the 1930s and 1940s, he confronted with the problems of a rural, overpopulated economy. The paper shows that his practice in Romania was the rain that made grow the seeds planted in his mind by Schumpeter at Harvard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of social comparison have a long presence in the social sciences and have provided many useful insights. In economics, the idea of comparison, aspiration or relative income belongs to this theoretical framework. The first systematic usages of this notion can be found in the works of Keynes and Duesenberry. After these works the concept was relatively ignored by orthodox theorists until its recent re-appearance, mainly in the fields of labour and macroeconomics. To the contrary, however, income comparisons continued to play a role in much of Keynesian inspired and non-mainstream economics literature. In the past few years it has made a strong comeback in the literature of job satisfaction and of the economics of happiness. This paper attempts to trace the development of the concept in the modern history of economic thought. It also discusses the main theoretical implications of adopting income comparisons and possible reasons for its relative disregard by orthodox economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes Eli Heckscher's dual nature: as both an economist and an economic historian. Emphasis is put on his insistence on the use of economic theory in economic historic analysis, as manifested in a large number of publications throughout his life; and Heckscher's practical employment of his theoretical principles is examined. Since Heckscher was one of the founders of the modern theory of international trade, special attention is paid to his applications in this area. The paper highlights Heckscher as a precursor in the areas of Public Choice and New Political Economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William Edward Hearn is generally regarded as Australia's first economist of international note and his Plutology ([1863]1864) is invariably deemed to be Australia's first economics text. In this paper I argue that it is more appropriate to describe Hearn as an Anglo-Irish economist and, to this end, provide the Anglo-Irish context for the economic doctrines that he expressed in Plutology and elsewhere. I also argue that the failure of Plutology in the market place was, in part, due to a campaign waged against Hearn in London by John Elliot Cairnes, who was an undergraduate contemporary of Hearn's at Trinity College, Dublin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French philosopher and economist Henri Saint-Simon (1760–1825) published numerous writings. Upon his death, his disciples endeavoured to pursue the dissemination of his ideas. A large number of great economists took the time to read Saint-Simon and his successors, and to write about them even when they did not share their ideas. It was the case of Auguste Walras (1801–1866) and his son Léon (1834–1910). The paper examines the relationship the two Walras had with the Saint-Simonians, considers their criticism of the Saint-Simonian political economy and economic policy and highlight their adherence to the opposition between idlers and workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to clarify on the evidence of primary material how Keynes transformed his theory from the Tract to the Treatise. Keynes went on working along the lines of the Tract theory until around April 1926, subsequently adopting the Transaction Approach up until September 1927. The paper stresses the importance of the three TOC between September 1927 and September 1928 as pointing the way towards the Treatise's fundamental equations - the breakthrough opening the way to the Treatise. The second fundamental equation, the TM supply function and the natural rate of interest had made their appearance by April 1930. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses Sraffa's consecutive attempts in the late 1920s and early 1940s to tackle a problem which endangered his objectivist, surplus-based approach to the theory of value and distribution aimed at reviving the standpoint of the classical economists. Whilst with circulating capital the value transfer to the product and the physical ‘destruction’ of the input are one and the same thing, with fixed capital this is not so. Sraffa eventually overcame the difficulty in terms of the joint products-method. This allowed him to explain relative prices and the rate of profits strictly in ‘material terms’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces a series of articles based on papers presented at a conference held in honor of economist Don Patinkin in September 2001 at the Walras-Pareto Center of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.

This paper discusses the legacy of Austrian economist and economic sociologist Friedrich von Wieser (1851–1926) and shows a number of reasons why Wieser can be seen as an undeservedly underresearched scholar. His life and work are portrayed along five dimensions: the innovative social scientist (section 2); the erector of the Austrian School in its formative decades (section 3); the synthesiser of socio-economic ideas (section 4); the teacher to whom scientific credit has been granted unfairly seldom (section 5); the connector to contemporaneous paradigms of economic sociology, especially the ones of Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto (section 6). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general trend of research specialisation in economics has contributed to the marginalisation of the history of economic thought. However, it has also led to a state of fragmentation in the profession and thereby increased the costs of neglecting the history of economic thought. This paper argues that historians of thought can help to counteract fragmentation because they are special generalists that fulfil multiple functions, for example, in the education of economists, the detection of blind spots in modern theories and the identification of routes for innovation by backtracking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper examines the pro-work doctrines of four writers who were connected with the 'utopian' and 'romantic' critique of classical economics in the nineteenth century. These authors are Charles Fourier, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and William Morris. All four argued that the problem of work aversion stemmed from the existing institutions of capitalist society, and could be overcome by the creation of an alternative system of production. Their aim was to create a future society in which work could be experienced as a positive activity. The paper argues that the views of the aforementioned authors provided an important counterchallenge to the classical economists' conception of work as a disutility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article contributes to the history of the concept of natural monopoly, focusing on the reconstruction of its origins. The paper considers various facets of natural monopoly: the expression itself; the singling out of the concrete situations to which it is applied; the inquiry into economies of scale; the consideration of their incompatibility with perfect competition; the drawing of the diagram; and the need for government intervention. In this paper each of the above features is separately examined from a historical perspective. Priorities and influences are then traced, and in particular it is found that the pivotal figure in this historical reconstruction is that of Edgeworth. The relation of the concept of natural monopoly with that of competition is also highlighted, as well as its policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines Marshall's use of Smith's writings in his own published work as an aspect of Marshall's citation practice and to demonstrate Marshall's great admiration for Smith as economist. Section 2 reviews the Smith citations in Marshall's Principles of Economics', section 3 those in Marshall's other published work. The conclusion notes that this citation practice matches Marshall's great admiration Smith the economist, because of Smith's great ability to blend fact and theory, for drawing measured conclusions and, above all, for constructing useful arguments in a field of imprecise knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that economics is not a perfect selection mechanism that preserves each and every economic idea that is valid and useful and jettisons all ideas that are not. The teleological view of the subject cannot be sustained. Therefore the task of the history of economic thought cannot be limited to the study of the past from the present state of economics. Another important task is to study the present state of economics from the standpoint of past authors in order to see what has been gained and what lost in the course of time. The history of the subject is a treasure trove of ideas. The history of economic thought may play a useful role by preserving valuable ideas which otherwise would fall into oblivion. To foster the subject is therefore also in the interest of general economists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper retraces some of the stages in Sraffa's thinking about the work of Marshall, by drawing on unpublished material in the Sraffa archive from 1923 to 1930. It argues that Sraffa transformed his dissent – which was based on ideological grounds – into a ‘quest for the fatal error’ to demolish the logical construction of Marshallian theory. Some of his attacks were successful (for example, the critique of the relation between costs and output); other attempts failed (the critique of the ‘normal rate of profit’ and the critique of the concept of marginal productivity) since Sraffa could not find enough textual evidence to support his position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the ideology of Piero Sraffa, an economist and author. Impact of the author's theory on the history of economics; Detail of message on his writings; Wonders of the economists on Sraffa's ability to link mathematical figures with economics.

In the political background that prevailed in Italy after the unification of the country in 1860, many economists were attracted by the prospect of playing an active role in politics. In particular, thirty academic economists became MPs between 1860 and 1923. Many of them became ministers and three of them were appointed prime ministers. The quantitative analysis attempted in this paper reveals the professional and social characteristics of this group of economists and the importance of their political commitment. Many of them sat in parliament for more than twenty years. In both houses, they often played a technical role, concentrating their efforts in the discussion of the economic issues on the agenda. But they did not refrain from becoming involved with questions of a more direct political nature. The high number of economists who were elected deputies even after the Reform Bills of 1882 and 1911 – which gradually extended the suffrage – implies that they took part in open political contests and built up a network of patronage in their local constituencies. In particular, some indicators – like their presence in the ministries and councils of education and the role they played in the creation of institutions of research – show that they exerted their political influence to facilitate the institutionalization and professionalization of economics. Last, some interesting generational differences are highlighted in this paper. In the period between 1861 and 1922, the relationship between political and scientific/academic reputation was inverted. Whereas the economists of the Risorgimento generation employed their political role as a means to obtain tenure in universities, those of the younger generation trained after 1876, who had received a more specialized education in economics, profited by their reputation as scientists and professors in order to foster their political ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to show that Ad image of nature related to economic discourse. In Smith, visible events (or interdependencies) must be connected to invisible principles which, in particular, should provide an explanation of the self-coordination processes (especially that of market). In a broad sense, this approach was adopted by a number of disciplines in Smith's time (especially the sciences of life), which focused the analysis of the organization of complex systems. Moreover, the conceptual pair (visibility and invisibility) is connoted in terms of theoretical duality, and the paper attempts to demonstrate how such duality is reproduced in Smith's economic categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the differences between the theories of value and distribution of Jean-Baptiste Say and David Ricardo. The attention focuses on fundamental issues in controversy between them. These are Say's confounding of 'value', 'riches' and 'utility', the theory of value, the problem of the measure of value, and the distinction between net and gross revenue; and the theory of income distribution, especially the explanation of rents and of profits. Since Say variously expressed his wish to learn from Ricardo and to absorb his doctrine, the aim of the paper is essentially to examine whether he made any progress in this regard. Whenever possible we let the authors speak for themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued that Kalecki had a greater appreciation of the role of the monetary sector than has been generally recognized, and that Kalecki presented ideas which can be seen as now embedded in the structuralist post Keynesian analysis of endogenous money and in the circuitist approach. Six key features of Kalecki's monetary analysis are identified. The paper outlines Kalecki's dismissal of the 'Pigou effect' and the 'Keynes effect', and then discussion the relationship between the 'principle of increasing risk' and the nature of the supply of credit. It discusses interest determination in Kalecki's writings and the manner in which he distinguished different types of money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical forerunners of contemporary austerity are still largely unexplored. This essay considers the “liberal phase” of Fascist Italy (1922–1925) as a case study to explain austerity as a full-blown rationality, that is intrinsically, and simultaneously, theory and practice, encompassing the moral, the economic and the political. My explanation moves beyond the interpretation of austerity as the post-1980, neoliberal recipe of price deflation and budget cuts. The Italian case draws attention to a neglected connection: that between austerity and repression. Austerity was the guiding principle of the Fascist economic agenda during the 1920s. It served to extinguish the effects of the democratisation process of the post-WWI years. The paper examines the work of four distinguished economists, Maffeo Pantaleoni, Luigi Einaudi, Alberto De Stefani and Umberto Ricci, who – in different roles as professors, journalists, advisors, and policy-makers – can be considered the source, the guardians and the enforcers of Fascist austerity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces Buchanan's comment on Tiebout's "A Pure Theory of Local Public Expenditures". It helps us to understand the nature of the relationship between Buchanan and Tiebout. Usually, it is claimed that Buchanan modelled Tiebout's insights, that there exists a Buchanan-Tiebout hypothesis, and that Buchanan in 1965 complemented what Tiebout had written in 1956. We show that Buchanan could not have written "An Economic Theory of Clubs" as a complement of "A Pure Theory of Local Public Expenditures". He disagreed with Tiebout's ideas on mobility because he saw mobility as a cause of inefficiencies and not a cause of homogeneity in groups. This is what we show by putting Buchanan's comment on Tiebout into historical perspective. It appears that Buchanan interpreted Tiebout 1956 from the perspective of his works on fiscal federalism from the early 1950s. We show that there is a continuity between Buchanan's work from the early 1950s and his works in the early 1970s; and Buchanan's way of reading Tiebout is part of it. Hence, when he wrote "An Economic Theory of Clubs", Buchanan was convinced that Tiebout was wrong and that he was offering an alternative framework for public economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the popular radicalism of the day and his own development of the theory of the stationary state, John Stuart Mill had argued on normative and positive grounds that capitalist firms were transitional institutions and should/would evolve into producer co-operatives. In Britain, Mill's work set off a dialogue among mainstream economists. Contributors included Thornton, Fawcett, and Cairnes from Mill's "school," as well as Jevons and Marshall who while sympathetic endorsed the less radical reform of profit sharing. Ironically, much of the socialist left, including Beatrice Potter (Webb), praised Mill's concerns, but rejected producer co-operatives in favour of nationalisation. By the early twentieth century, Mill's message resonated only with the guild socialists who kept the radical argument for producer co-operatives alive. The subtext of the paper is that modern liberals have too conveniently lost connection with this important history and its radical/liberal message of capitalism as a transitional mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jean-Baptiste Say dedicated a significant part of his work to monetary questions, as much to explain the monetary practices of his period and to propose concrete measures to improve certain elements, as to develop theoretical reflections on the role of money in the mechanisms that political economy sheds light upon. His thought for that matter is not always devoid of contradictions when it comes to reconciling the results of observation with certain dimensions of his analysis. The article explains his conception of money. A variation in its quantity has an impact not only on prices, but also on the real economy, favourable when this issue is slow and moderate, but negative, on the other hand, when it is fast and large-scale. This leads to the measures of monetary policy recommended by Say. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using a retrospective methodology, my paper examines critically the insights on involuntary unemployment offered by Keynes in his General Theory. Keynes, it is argued, gave involuntary unemployment a modern micro-founded definition yet — quite opportunely, in view of the difficulty of the task — did not attempt to provide a direct microeconomic explanation of it. Rather, his claim to the demonstration of its existence rests on an indirect argument, where involuntary unemployment emerges at the corollary of effective demand falling short of its full employment level. This justification is based on the more or less tacit assumption that involuntary unemployment and effective demand-deficiency are equivalent. This claim of equivalence, it will be argued, is wanting. Hence the view that involuntary unemployment may have been demonstrated through the proxy of demand-deficiency falls. My paper evaluates whether Keynes's other arguments in favour of involuntary unemployment are robust. Several alternative interpretations of his General Theory Chapter Two 'fundamental observation', focusing respectively on money illusion, adjustment flaws, and resistance to cuts in nominal wages, are discussed. Here also the verdict will be negative. The general conclusion then follows that no solid explanation for the existence of involuntary unemployment is to be found in the General Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and discusses the “Attempt at Constructing a New Theory of Economic Development and Cultural Cycles”, published by the Bulgarian economist and sociologist of Russian origin, Ivan Kinkel (1883–1945) in 1921. Kinkel's theory, although unknown outside Bulgarian academic circles, carries a range of original ideas and new insights within the frame ofSchmollerprogramm. It emphasises the importance of studying economic development as sociocultural evolutionary change, focuses on the role of unity in social life and the plurality of human motives and attempts to methodologically link theory and history into a multidisciplinary approach. Kinkel's work in general, and his theory of cyclical development in particular, can not only be of value for the study of economic thought and the diffusion of ideas, but can also offer insights into the forces underlying the profound changes that we have been witnessing recently. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper discusses Ralph Hawtrey's critical approach to welfare economics. Hawtrey, one of the Cambridge Apostles, was deeply influenced by the ethical philosophy of G.E. Moore. First in The Economic Problem (1926), and then in several other writings, Hawtrey denounced contemporary economics as lacking in ethical foundations, and, accordingly, regarded the individualist economic system as morally unsatisfactory. Hawtrey's approach is compared to that of a contemporary Apostle and Cambridge economist, Gerald Shove. Hawtrey's and Shove's tentative applications of Moore's philosophy to economics and political science, respectively, provide intriguing evidence of a neglected Moorean undercurrent in Cambridge social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of institutionalisation of political economy has become of increasing interest in tracing the evolution of economic thought. This paper presents a comparison of the development of these processes in Italy and Spain, through the analysis of the presence of political economy in some institutions in both countries between 1860 and 1900: universities, economic associations, economic journals and national parliaments. This essay aims at supplying new insights to the consolidation of economics as a scientific and socially appreciated field of knowledge, and exploring the influence of the form of institutionalisation on the economic ideas diffused in a particular country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article transcripts and comments a hitherto unpublished letter by David Ricardo, dated 19 January 1823 and addressed to Grenfell. In this letter Ricardo opposes the adoption of a double standard of money, two years after the return to convertibility of banknotes and in the midst of an economic recession that pressed for drastic monetary changes. It contains an argument – linking the double standard of money, the seignorage on the silver coin, the behaviour of the Bank of England, and the fall in the value of the pound – which is to be found nowhere else in Ricardo's works. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the neglected, significant influence of Robinson on Penrose and her profound impact on the resource-based view (RBV) of strategy. The modest intent is to awaken strategy scholars and perhaps others to Austin Robinson's pioneering volume. The ambitious intent is to deepen the historical intellectual roots of the RBV, thereby securing a more certain foundation and direction. An enriched historical background may well add significance and validity to the questions pursued and the research methods employed in any science. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper deals with the abolition of the Ottoman university and the reopening of Istanbul University in 1933, and the dismissal of many scientists in Nazi Germany. This allowed the Turkish government to invite a large group of these scholars to the benefit of the academic endeavours of the young Turkish Republic. The article gives an overview on the refugees from Nazism who came as experts and advisers to the Turkish government. It then focuses on the scientific contributions and activities of the small but significant group of economists and concludes with an assessment of their impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standard view about the relationship between the Marshallian and the Walrasian approaches is that they are complementary to each other. My aim in this paper is to show that, on the contrary, they constitute alternative sub-research programmes within the wider neoclassical paradigm. I make my point by contrasting the two approaches against the following benchmarks: the purpose of economic theory according to Marshall and Walras; their views as to the role of mathematics; their specific ways of tackling complexity; the conception of equilibrium underpinning their theories; and, finally, their trade organisation assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a group of Catholic political economists in France in the 1830s, which was described by the Dublin Review as ‘Catholic in its faith, and Catholic in its manner of conceiving science’. A first section clarifies how contemporaries perceived this group. This is followed by an analysis of Villeneuve-Bargemont's Economie politique Chrétienne in order to outline a standard Catholic approach to political economy. Finally, that standard is used to chart the work of other Catholic economists within that group and to contrast it with the approach followed by other contemporary social political economists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The economic literature is giving new attention to Lionel Robbins' main contributions to economic theory, confined for several decades to the Essay, systematically misunderstood as the manifesto of the epistemology of neoclassical economics, where its underlying ontology characterized by rational maximizing agents, social atomism and a positivistic approach to economics is systematized and laid down. This paper aims at verifying ‘which’ Robbins was received in Italy in the 1930s and 1940s and what was the attitude of Italian economists, from the manifold approaches that characterized the debate in Italy in that period, towards him. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Herman Gossen's book is usually praised for its contribution to the mathematisation of economics and the obsessive presence of religious references is unduly left out. This paper takes both dimensions seriously and explains how the religious emphasis is crucial for a historical and theoretical understanding of Gossen's view on maximisation of utility and the government of rational and selfish human beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]