|
on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Pierre Januard (PHARE - Philosophie, Histoire et Analyse des Représentations Économiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | The Latin terms commonly used to signify 'risk' are absent from Thomas Aquinas's economic writings. Instead, Aquinas offers a lexicon of probability, prudence and danger. This ternary lexicon brings with it a triple universalisation of risk: first, a universalisation through activity, including the activity of analysis considered as part of economic activity; second, a universalisation through the agents, since everyone-the observer, the co-contractors, the prince and the population-is affected by the risk; and, finally, a partial universalisation of its definition, since the lexicon indicates a risk which is not yet restricted by calculation, as the modern notion is, although some distinctions are already made by Aquinas. However, the lexicon only describes a risk of loss and does not take into account chance of gain. |
| Keywords: | Thomas Aquinas, scholastics, danger, probability, prudence, risk |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04074876&r=hpe |
| By: | Duarte, Pedro; Hurtado, Jimena |
| Abstract: | We invited well-known Smith scholars and had an open call for contributions to participate in this celebration. We asked people to write short pieces telling us what their favorite quote from Adam Smith was and why. We were fortunate enough to receive an unexpectedly high number of responses. We were unfortunate enough to have to choose among the contributions we received. We thank all those who allowed us to read why Smith was important to them. The Smith we are left with after reading them is a tremendously inspiring and contemporary author. This Smith celebration opens the June 2023 issue of JHET, which is entirely dedicated to Adam Smith: we have in addition five regular articles on Smith, and two letters to the editor related to a paper on Smith published in JHET. The issue closes, as usual, with four book reviews. |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:a4bgp&r=hpe |
| By: | Ramos, Aida |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Aida Ramos "There are three areas of interest to me in discussing this quote. The first is that it is revealing of the social concerns of Smith. The second is that it underscores the remarkable consistency of Smith’s growth theory on the importance of the circulation of capital. The last point is that in its concern for society and social stability, it demonstrates that Smith is in engaged in the science of society as much as his fellow intellectuals, such as Adam Ferguson and Lord Kames, in the Scottish Enlightenment. The three areas mentioned and the passage as a whole evince Smith’s concern with society, justice, and growth and stability, which are three abiding subjects of Scottish Enlightenment inquiry." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:jyh9s&r=hpe |
| By: | Horn, Karen |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Karen Horn "The hypothetical part of the opening sentence ends after seven words, after the first comma, upon which Smith switches to certainty. Through the catchy paradox that unfolds between the two legs of the sentence, between “may be supposed” and “evidently”, he erects the two systematic pillars that his philosophical edifice will rest upon, here, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, and also, after some contextual adaptation, in the Wealth of Nations (see Horn 2019, p. 26). Smith puts it all on the table: He builds his system on the stunningly lean twin assumptions about human nature according to which people care about themselves (self-regard) and also about others (other-regard). Minimalistic as this is, everything starts from there. By the way how Smith introduces these parallel dispositions it is clear that the latter cannot be collapsed into the first, as he also explains at length when dealing with Hutcheson and Mandeville (e.g. TMS VII.ii.3.13 and TMS VII.iii.1.4). Other-regard and self-regard coexist. Each in itself, unchecked by the other, is but a moral corner solution. We must strive to prudently combine the two time and again. In Smith’s system, everything evolves in interaction, and everything is about balance." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gcvtp&r=hpe |
| By: | Andrews, David |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by David Andrews. "This passage would also seem to undermine suggestions, such as that of Jacob Viner in his famous “Adam Smith and Laissez Faire, ” that Smith, influenced by Stoics and Physiocrats, held a “doctrine of a harmonious order in nature” (Viner 1927, 199), to which it is in everyone’s moral and material interest to conform. It was on this basis, so the argument goes, that Smith believed free markets to lead to optimal outcomes. If Smith was committed to conformity with nature, however, his claim that the produce of labor is its natural recompense would seem to imply that labor should receive the whole of the product of labor, a position Smith did not clearly advocate." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:tmdp3&r=hpe |
| By: | Cunha, Alexandre Mendes |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Alexandre Mendes Cunha "The election of an excerpt from the Early Draft (ED) of the Wealth of Nations (WN) that was later suppressed as a favorite Smith quote may seem like a criticism of the author’s judgment. Nonetheless, that is not the aim. On the contrary, WN was probably better and less confusing without the passage and its emphasis on “police regulations”. What I want to highlight here is precisely this little-visited topic of Smith’s approach to the role of “police” in the economic order, differentiating the author’s use of the terms “police” and “policy”. Excerpt’s content is principally associated with Smith’s interest in the Hume-Tucker debate on trade, as already pointed out by Hont (2005: 71-2). What is of interest to me here is the reason for the suppression, which seems to be related to his intention to remove any association that might sound like praise for the idea of police (in this case, the view that a good police could be the solution for the rich country) from the WN. This was, however, in direct contrast to the prominence of the topic in Smith’s Lectures on Jurisprudence (LJ), in which police served as a broad category, associated with the internal administration of a country and the means for promoting economic order." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:wt2mz&r=hpe |
| By: | Skwire, Sarah |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Sarah Skwire This brief 720 piece considers the reasons that Adam Smith’s early letter to his mother, describing a “violent fit of laziness” is my favorite Smithian passage. |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:v7fbn&r=hpe |
| By: | Carrasco, Maria |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Maria Carrasco "Adam Smith is known as a liberal thinker. The political system that he promotes and describes as one of “perfect justice, perfect liberty, and perfect equality” (WN IV.ix.17, 669), is characterized by the primacy of the rights of non-interference and the protection of a private sphere where every individual directs its life according to its own decisions. The moral justification for the primacy of negative justice is in the second book of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, where he unambiguously states: “Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbor” (TMS II.i.1.9, 82). For the same reason, the first time I read that book, the following paragraph struck me as an inexplicable contradiction, an incomprehensible lapse in Adam Smith’s thoroughly revised text." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:qhpgr&r=hpe |
| By: | Liu, Glory M. |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Glory M. Liu "TMS I.iii.3.1 is one of my favorite passages from the works of Adam Smith. It is striking, surprising, provocative, and puzzling at the same time. It also raises more questions than it answers; for me, that is what makes this passage so interesting and worth reading. Setting aside my own reading, though, this chapter of The Theory of Moral Sentiments has much to offer for both new and experienced readers of Smith. It beckons us to make sense of the relationship between TMS and WN and the arc of Smith’s intellectual trajectory. It also asks us to critically reflect on the ideals and values that Smith himself might have held, and the ideals and values we project on to him." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:avkmc&r=hpe |
| By: | Drylie, Scott |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Scott Drylie "Adam Smith’s excellence in the art of belles lettres is well known and is on vivid display in his most memorable quotes, enriching his arguments and augmenting their impact. Sometimes, however, the effects of time obscure his artistry and purpose. The following passage from the Wealth of Nations (WN) is one such example. It contains an overlooked expression of Smith’s liberal vision and serves to encourage further exploration of the relationship between form and substance in his writing." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:75phv&r=hpe |
| By: | Dow, Sheila |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Sheila Dow "I have selected this quotation for special attention because we can identify from it, and the surrounding passages in the Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, key elements of Adam Smith’s philosophy of science. At the same time the quotation provides an example of Smith’s own arresting use of rhetoric. The quotation arises from Smith’s exploration of the philosophy of science in terms of didactic rhetoric. Smith’s theory of rhetoric emphasised its role in persuasion, departing from the conventional emphasis on style. Persuasion by argument was central to an epistemology (in the Scottish enlightenment tradition) which was sceptical about the scope for establishing absolute truth." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:g43ye&r=hpe |
| By: | Smith, Craig |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Craig Smith "It is a difficult task to narrow down a favourite passage from a body of work as rich as that of Adam Smith. One of the things that has always amused me about Smith is his use of Scottish examples to make universal points. In one of these he launches himself into the long running rivalry between Scotland’s two major cities: Edinburgh and Glasgow. Smith lived for a time in both cities and worked on what would become the Wealth of Nations in what were then, as now, two very different cities. In The Wealth of Nations he makes use of this to develop a classic example of Smithian social theory." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:7q54p&r=hpe |
| By: | Kuchar, Pavel |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Pavel Kuchar "Smith’s views on inequality have recently been examined with some interest (Rasmussen 2016; Walraewens 2021). But was Smith really genuinely interested in addressing the shortcomings of the society built on the “liberal plan of equality, liberty and justice” (WN IV.ix)? While critical accounts of Smith’s thought may tend to zero in on his concerns with absolute poverty – or the equality in the “share of the necessaries of life” (TMS IV.1.10) – rather than economic inequality, they may perhaps also tend to confuse his account of our tendencies to admire the rich, wealthy and powerful with the advocacy of a system in which the rich, wealthy and powerful ride roughshod over the poor and disempowered as long as the order of the society founded on the “distinction of ranks” (TMS I.iii.2) is preserved." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:se64h&r=hpe |
| By: | Rothschild, Emma |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Emma Rothschild The central drama of the Wealth of Nations is the reciprocal influence of states and markets. It is played out in Smith's denunciations of regulated companies. |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:rhxs5&r=hpe |
| By: | Lange, Jérôme |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Jérôme Lange "Like Hume, Smith was wrong in supposing that “[a]ll the inland parts of Africa … seem in all ages of the world to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilized state in which we find them at present” (think of the 13th to 17th century Empire of Mali, then one of the wealthiest nations around the globe, with Timbuktu one of the principal centres of learning of the Medieval world). Yet his explanation for the lower level of economic development in Africa as compared to Europe, based on the idea that the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market, was one that upheld the essential equality of Africans to Europeans, against the descriptions of Africans and other “non-white” people as being naturally inferior to “whites” by fellow enlightenment philosophers and a great many scholars throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:pu2hc&r=hpe |
| By: | Fontaine, Philippe |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Philippe Fontaine "For the twenty-first-century student of sympathy, the excerpt above is an obvious reminder that the history of ideas is not just a history of words. Empathy does not appear in that passage, nor in TMS in general, which has often caused confusion among commentators, and yet the “imaginary change of situations” with another looms large in Smith’s analysis of sympathy. In an era where “lovers” and “haters” command center stage, whose alleged concern for others can reasonably be regarded as selfish, it may be useful to be reminded of the distinction between sympathy and empathy. Outside the discipline of psychology, indeed, “empathizers” attract less attention than “sympathizers” and their nameless opposites." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:s3be2&r=hpe |
| By: | Paganelli, Maria Pia |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Maria Pia Paganelli "The appeal to the self-love of the butcher, brewer, and baker is thus the most powerful statement of the equal dignity that all individuals have. When we can trade, we don’t have to be like dogs or like beggars. It is not just an effective way of getting dinner. It is also a moral claim of equality among human beings. Depriving someone of the opportunity to trade means depriving them of their dignity as human beings. Allowing people to trade is to recognize their moral equality and equal dignity. So whenever we read that famous sentence again, I hope we can also think of the respect and dignity that is exchanged every time we buy our dinner." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:sfzqr&r=hpe |
| By: | Dekker, Erwin |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Erwin Dekker "It might be true that no one has made a ‘bargain’ in verse as Smith suggested. But new products will be advertised, packaged, and launched in ‘verse’. The eighteenth-century trader speaking precise and pointedly has been supplemented, if not replaced by the designer, the (m)ad man and the PR-manager. They have incorporated what Smith already recognized in his lectures on rhetoric: “The best prose composition, the best oratorical discourse does not affect us half so much [as poetry].” An engineer might believe that economics is about production and the stuff, but Smith knew all along that the economics was a humanistic endeavor, where the fluff cannot be separated from the stuff. In Smith’s humanomics perspective we see a world where traders develop language to interact with each other, where ornaments and elegance create a diversity of goods and services, and where marketing campaigns and inspirational stories entice us to explore the new. Call it ‘the lure of poetry and profit.’ " |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:mvcdh&r=hpe |
| By: | Aspromourgos, Anthony |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Tony Aspromourgos "The ongoing and contemporary relevance of the quotation is then clear: Smith has opened the door, at least a little way, to conferring legitimacy upon the regulation of unequal economic and political power that informs functional and personal income distribution." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5dm92&r=hpe |
| By: | Otteson, James R. |
| Abstract: | Most Adam Smith scholars hold that Smith endorsed public provision of education to offset deleterious consequences arising from the division of labor. Smith’s putative endorsement of publicly funded education is taken by some scholars as evidence that Smith tends more toward progressive than classical liberalism, or that this is a departure from, perhaps an inconsistency with, Smith’s otherwise strong presumption against government intervention in markets. This paper argues that these interpretations are flawed because Smith ultimately does not advocate public provision of education. He raises the idea and explores its potential benefits, but he ultimately does not endorse it. Smith also provides reason to be skeptical of public provision of education, which suggests that his final position may have inclined against it. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:xrzmk&r=hpe |
| By: | Heath, Eugene |
| Abstract: | In his lectures of 1978-1979, published posthumously as The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault addressed versions of liberalism in which an invisible market appears immune to government intervention. Among the thinkers discussed were Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson. This essay offers critical reflections on Foucault’s description of Smith as emphasizing the invisibility of the economy, as well as on Foucault’s interpretation of the “invisible hand” and his ascription of egoism to Smith’s economic agents. Foucault also appeals to Ferguson’s notion of civil society to resolve incompatibilities between economic agents and the sovereign. However, Ferguson’s theory of society does not provide the assistance that Foucault thinks it does. Moreover, like Smith, Ferguson holds no egoistic view of economic motivation. Nonetheless, and surprisingly, Foucault would have found enticing Ferguson’s use of conjectural history, with its appeal to the unintended, contingent, and conflictual basis of social change. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:nw5rk&r=hpe |
| By: | Morales Meoqui, Jorge |
| Abstract: | The paper offers the first interpretation of David Ricardo’s famous numerical example fully compatible with the primary source. It claims that the sole purpose of the four numbers was to illustrate that the relative value of commodities made in different countries is not determined by the respective quantities of labour devoted to their production. This exception results from unequal ordinary profit rates between countries because capital does not move across national borders as easily as it does within the same country. Likewise, the paper also debunks some entrenched myths about the numerical example. It shows that Ricardo did not leave the terms of trade indeterminate; that the purpose of the four numbers was not about measuring the gains from trade; and lastly, that Portugal had no productivity advantage over England. All of this contradicts the way scholars have interpreted Ricardo’s numerical example since the mid-nineteenth century. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:3wu6x&r=hpe |
| By: | Louis Azan (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne) |
| Abstract: | In the early 19th century, the entrepreneur became a major figure, both in economics and in literature. He is to be found in the analyses of economists (Cantillon, Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say), as well as in the novels and short stories of writers, in particular Balzac, who gives a special place to money and commerce in his work. This article explores the representation of the entrepreneur in a novel and a short story (César Birotteau and La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote) by the author of the Comédie Humaine, and seeks to draw a dialogue between economics and literature, in order to sketch the place of the Balzacien entrepreneur in the history of economic thought. |
| Abstract: | L'entrepreneur devient au début du XIXème siècle une figure majeure, à la fois sur le plan économique et sur le plan littéraire. On le retrouve ainsi dans les analyses des économistes (chez Cantillon, Smith ou encore Jean-Baptiste Say), ainsi que dans les romans et nouvelles des écrivains, en particulier chez Balzac, qui fait dans son oeuvre une place toute particulière à l'argent et au commerce. Le présent article explore la représentation de l'entrepreneur que donne à voir l'auteur de La Comédie Humaine, dans un roman et une nouvelle (César Birotteau et La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote), et cherche à tracer un dialogue entre économie et littérature afin d'esquisser la place de l'entrepreneur balzacien dans l'histoire de la pensée économique. |
| Keywords: | Economic Theory, Literary Theory, History of Economic Thought, Entrepreneur, Théorie économique, Théorie littéraire, Balzac, Histoire de la pensée économique |
| Date: | 2023–04–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04084476&r=hpe |
| By: | Simon Papaud (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne, TRIANGLE - Triangle : action, discours, pensée politique et économique - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - IEP Lyon - Sciences Po Lyon - Institut d'études politiques de Lyon - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I study the relation between the economic thought of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and his claimed heir Silvio Gesell. I argue that their socialism can be described as a « Monetary Analysis Socialism »: both authors place the monetary institution at the very heart of their economic analysis and consider a profound transformation of the rules that govern that institution as a necessary preliminary to the advent of socialism. Their efforts to conceive non-capitalist monetary systems aren't, I argue, a fortuitous trait of libertarian thought : the will to think a coordination for individual action that does not involve central coordination makes the monetary system a central object for libertarian political thought, and the design of this institution a crucial political issue. |
| Keywords: | Monetary Analysis, Non-capitalist Money, Proudhon, Gesell, Anarchism |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04084725&r=hpe |
| By: | Cervera-Ferri, Pablo; Insa-Sánchez, Pau |
| Abstract: | Historians of economic thought have carried out detailed studies of classical and marginalist approaches to value based on production cost and utility respectively, not to mention about the fusion of both interpretations by the neoclassical school. This is not the case with rareness value, a theory commonly attributed to Léon Walras, although Aristotle surely had rareness in mind when he first attempted to explain chrematistics. This article focuses on how our understanding of rareness has evolved from the earliest economic formulations to those of Auguste and Léon Walras, contesting Rothbard’s thesis that there is only one way in which the transmission of the utility theory of value can be tracked from scholasticism to the Austrian school. On the contrary, the concept of rareness continued to figure in some theories of value of the French Enlightenment, especially those that emerged within Calvinist circles, and was recovered in times of reaction against the dominant classicism. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vjn2q&r=hpe |
| By: | Pavanelli, Giovanni |
| Abstract: | Luigi Einaudi was an authoritative Italian economist and a leading representative of economic and political liberalism in Europe. After the Second World War, he became governor of the Bank of Italy and President of the Italian Republic. This paper analyses his role as opinion maker from the end of the Nineteenth century till the 1920s, when he was a leading columnist at ‘La Stampa’ and the ‘Corriere della Sera’, the most influential newspapers in Italy at that time. It focuses on the scope and limits of Einaudi’s efforts to broaden consensus among the Italian public opinion on the principles of economic liberalism and free competition. To this end, it investigates Einaudi’s journalistic style, his views on the role of the newspapers and his large following among the public. Further sections analyze the main issues tackled by Einaudi in his articles in the Corriere and the systematic work of propaganda he enacted during World War I to convince the Italian households to reduce consumption and to finance the military expenditure. A final section deals with the “reconstruction program” devised by Einaudi in the early 1920s with the aim of restoring price stability and fiscal restraint, his efforts to propagate this program in the Corriere and his defeat after the beginning of the fascist regime in 1924-25. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:7wn4t&r=hpe |
| By: | Gerrard, Bill |
| Abstract: | In his recent paper in this journal, Bateman (2021) breaks with the “Standard View” of Ramsey’s influence on Keynes and argues that Ramsey’s pragmatist philosophical thought underpinned both Keynes’s acceptance of Ramsey’s subjective theory of probability, and Keynes’s adoption of a narrative theory of the role of confidence in economic fluctuations in the General Theory. In this paper it is argued that Bateman is right both in emphasizing the influence of Ramsey’s pragmatist philosophy on Keynes’s thought during the development of the General Theory and afterwards, and in arguing that the influence of Ramsey’s pragmatist philosophy partly explains Keynes’s emphasis on the importance of the state of confidence in Chapter 12 of the General Theory. However, it is argued that Ramsey’s pragmatist philosophy had a much greater influence on Keynes than acknowledged by Bateman. Furthermore, contra Bateman, Keynes’s move to a more pragmatist philosophical position does not imply that Keynes’s accepted Ramsey’s subjective theory of (measurable) probability. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:6w8g2&r=hpe |
| By: | Bateman, Bradley W. |
| Abstract: | In his response to my essay in the recent symposium celebrating the centenary of John Maynard Keynes’s Treatise on Probability (Bateman 2021), Bill Gerrard (2022) offers a comprehensive critique of my argument that Keynes was influenced by Frank Ramsey’s turn to pragmatism. Gerrard’s comments cut both ways: on the one hand, he agrees that Ramsey’s turn to pragmatism influenced Keynes, but argues that I do not go far enough in articulating the extent of the influence; on the other hand, Gerrard argues that Keynes’s embrace of Ramsey’s subjective theory of probability has nothing to do with his acceptance of Ramsey’s pragmatism. The purpose of this short comment, however, is neither to rehearse the many ways in which I agree with Gerrard, nor to elaborate each way in which we disagree. The purpose of this comment is to address just one of my disagreements with Gerrard and to use this clarification to reiterate Keynes’s embrace of pragmatism. The disagreement on which I focus concerns the question of whether Keynes employed mathematical expectation in The General Theory. In particular, it stems from my focus on the distinction between the way that expectations about future profit are handled in Chapters Eleven and Twelve of The General Theory. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:j23hm&r=hpe |
| By: | Zouboulakis, Michel S. |
| Abstract: | The aim of this article is to make an overall assessment of Andreas Georges Papandreou’s theoretical contributions during his American academic career, from the perspective of the history of economic thought. Papandreou contributed to the post-war development of economic thought in competition theory and experimental testing of consumer theory. In developing competition theory, he introduced a new method of evaluating the monopolistic power of a firm through a coefficient measuring the firm’s penetration in the market. Furthermore, he suggested a way of experimentally testing whether individual preferences satisfy the axiom of transitivity. Lastly, he actively participated in the methodological controversies on the realisticness of economic assumptions which took place between 1946 and 1953, and on the empirical meaning of economics in 1963, between Friedman, Samuelson, Machlup, Simon and others. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:3nqfb&r=hpe |
| By: | Mosca, Manuela |
| Abstract: | Review of “A History of European Economic Thought” by Antonio Magliulo |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:uexnv&r=hpe |
| By: | Carlo Zappia |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the engagement of economists with the issue of the measurability of uncertainty. Since Knight’s seminal distinction between risk, intended as measurable uncertainty, and unmeasurable uncertainty, the question has been to what extent the extension of the theory of choice from certainty to risk through von Neumann and Morgenstern’s expected utility hypothesis would allow dealing with uncertain events. The paper develops from a study of the rationale underlying the theories of those authors who objected to the mainstream view that the axiomatic approach developed in the early 1950s, mainly through Leonard Savage’s generalization of expected utility, makes it, indeed, possible to reduce uncertainty to risk. After a summary of the meaning attributed by authors such as Knight, Keynes, Shackle and Ellsberg to the contention that uncertainty is irreducible to risk and unmeasurable, the paper aims to investigate why this view did not emerge as a significant alternative to the mainstream up until recently. A main reason, at times alluded to but never openly discussed in the literature, is shown to be the close link between Savage and the group of decision theorists at the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics under the directorship of Jacob Marschak and Tjalling Koopmans. Archival evidence suggests that arguing that a theory of decision under uncertainty could be developed on the basis of “axioms that seem unobjectionable, ” as Koopmans put it, was indeed an integral part of the attempt undertook at Cowles to move forward in economic theory by prioritizing scientific rigour in the form of mathematical models engaging with new mathematical tools |
| Keywords: | probability, uncertainty, decision-making |
| JEL: | B21 D81 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:893&r=hpe |
| By: | De Bromhead, Alan; O'Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj |
| Abstract: | This paper asks whether history should change the way in which economists and economic historians think about populism. We use Müller's definition, according to which populism is 'an exclusionary form of identity politics, which is why it poses a threat to democracy'. We make three historical arguments. First, late 19th century US Populists were not populist. Second, there is no necessary relationship between populism and anti-globalization sentiment. Third, economists have sometimes been on the wrong side of important policy debates involving opponents rightly or wrongly described as populist. History encourages us to avoid an overly simplistic view of populism and its correlates. |
| Keywords: | populism, globalization, economists, history |
| JEL: | D72 N40 N70 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202306&r=hpe |
| By: | Bankovsky, Miriam |
| Abstract: | Review of “The Sympathetic Consumer: Moral Critique in Capitalist Culture” by Tad Skotnicki |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vbqx4&r=hpe |
| By: | Sergio Cesaratto |
| Abstract: | I compare three approaches to economic history and institutions: the classical surplus approach, the Polanyian view, and New Institutional Economics (NIE). In the first institutions are seen in relation to the production and distribution of the social surplus. Research in economic anthropology, archaeology and history has validated the fecundity of this approach. The Polanyian criticism to classical and neoclassical theories is then considered and appreciated, although some severe limitations are envisaged. Most of the paper concentrate upon Douglass North, the NIE most representative author in the field of economic history. Striking of North is the attempt to replicate Marx’s relation between economics and institutions in the context of neoclassical theory. Transaction costs economics revealed a dead end in explaining institutions and the power of predatory élites. Lacking a material anchor such as surplus theory, North’s theory became progressively more elusive and indeterminate. On balance, a surplus-based Marxist-Polanyian approach is the most promising direction although much further work is still necessary to explain the coevolution of the economic and institutional sides of the economy |
| Keywords: | Institutions, Surplus approach, Karl Polanyi, New Institutional Economics, Douglass North |
| JEL: | A12 B15 B51 B52 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:899&r=hpe |
| By: | Fernando Collantes |
| Abstract: | This text comments on Domingo Gallego’s book Los caminos del progreso: una historia del desarrollo económico (“The ways of progress: a history of economic development”). It is argued that the book’s originality lies in the assembling of a wide variety of pieces within a long-run approach that tends to unify the historical experience of today’s developed countries and brings together the history of economic facts and ideas. From an analytical point of view, the key to progress is not placed on any particular industry or social group, but on the contexts that promote the flourishing of diverse projects and their coordination. After identifying the echoes of Gallego’s trajectory as an agricultural historian in the book’s argument, the main contents of the book are reviewed. The paper also provides some observations about the definition of progress, the kind of institutionalism that informs the book, the historical positioning of the present time in developed countries, and the material on less developed countries. |
| Keywords: | world economic history, international economic development, institutional economics, history of economic thought, agricultural history |
| JEL: | N00 O10 B00 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:2301&r=hpe |
| By: | Erikson, Emily |
| Abstract: | Review of “Constructing Economic Science: The Invention of a Discipline 1850-1950” by Keith Tribe |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5djpe&r=hpe |
| By: | Louis Azan (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the figure of the Schumpeterian entrepreneur is deeply marked by a Romantic imagination, critical of Utilitarianism. Schumpeter constructs the entrepreneur as a creative and dynamic agent, who succeeds in creating something radically new by the force of his will and his freedom of spirit, thus destroying the existing equilibrium. He is not a rational economic agent, a homo oeconomicus, but a romantic man who uses imagination and intuition in his actions. Like the Romantic authors, the Austrian economist puts forward the idea that economic life is marked by an incessant flow of innovations, destroying the old so that the new may emerge. Moreover, the decline of the entrepreneurial function is interpreted by Schumpeter from a romantic perspective, with the idea that capitalist modernity is a force for the rationalization of the world and the routinization of human existence, which no longer allows entrepreneurs to deploy their creative energy. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04084445&r=hpe |
| By: | Wennerlind, Carl |
| Abstract: | Review of “Free Market: The History of an Idea” by Jacob Soll |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:6dxtk&r=hpe |
| By: | Jérôme Sgard (CERI - Centre de recherches internationales (Sciences Po, CNRS) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Book review - Making Commercial Law Through Practice, 1830–1970. By Ross Cranston. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 483. |
| Keywords: | economic history, commercial law |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04081582&r=hpe |
| By: | Boumans, Marcel |
| Abstract: | Review of “The Friedman-Lucas Transition in Macroeconomics: A Structuralist Approach” by Peter Galbács |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:x8576&r=hpe |
| By: | Hoffmann, Maja; Pantazidou, Maro; Smith, Tone |
| Abstract: | Critiques of work are at the roots of degrowth. Early degrowth pioneers, in particular Gorz and Illich as well as the French décroissance tradition, placed considerable emphasis on overcoming the centrality of work in the organisation of society. However, more recent degrowth authors have largely been inconsistent or conflicting in the stance they take towards work. This contribution traces the development of degrowth thought with regard to work and critiques of work, from its roots in the 1970s up until the present. It finds that at large, current degrowth debates do not embrace their postwork roots or engage with the postwork literature that has re-emerged over the last decade. At the same time, work is a prominent topic on the degrowth agenda and despite its contradictions, degrowth remains open for critical work scholarship. For future degrowth debates, we argue that the perspectives of critiques of work and critiques of growth are natural allies and that a genuinely critical and radical degrowth debate should again adopt a clearer stance towards work. From engaging once more with postwork perspectives, degrowth could gain a more profound analysis of the unsustainable status-quo and renewed momentum as a much-needed corrective in sustainability debates. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:m9q2s&r=hpe |
| By: | Rafael Galvão de Almeida (UFMG); Leonardo Gomes de Deus (UFMG) |
| Abstract: | This article analyses Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, from the point of view of the critique of political economy. Using immanent analysis, we critically analyze the objectivist philosophy of the novel and its superficial resemblances with Marxism, especially its idea of a utopic society in the John Galt’s Gulch. While Rand presents the individual producer as a realized and rational human being, we contrast him with the idea that the capitalist is merely the personification of capital to show how Galt’s Gulch fails as a utopia. Such analysis allows us to situate Atlas Shrugged in the liberal project, arguing that liberalism still has an aristocratic bias which facilitate the 2008’s economic crisis. |
| Keywords: | Ayn Rand; liberalism; critique of political economy; aristocracy; economics and literature. |
| JEL: | B24 B29 Z11 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td654&r=hpe |
| By: | Gilles Lambert (Humanis - Hommes et management en société / Humans and management in society - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we look back at James March's main contributions to the evolution of organizations and their decision-making. On the basis of an in-depth analysis of his work, we discuss the main concepts to which he has dedicated his life as a researcher. Whether it is for innovation and the process of exploration associated with it, or for the ambiguity that persists in learning cycles, March always shows us the ambivalence of our concepts. While innovation is seen as the ultimate goal of any good differentiation strategy, his research warns us of the negative effects that can be associated with it, and the risks it poses to the organization. The same applies to the notion of ambiguity in learning. While our research would like to exclude it from our decision-making models, it reminds us of its persistence, but also of the potential for creativity that it constitutes. The strength of March's work is to encourage us to remain cautious in our diagnoses for the development of our companies by not venerating too strongly the notions seen exclusively as virtuous, such as innovation or by not too quickly condemning situations perceived as harmful, such as ambiguity. It is therefore subjective and unpredictable, making the idea of a unified theory of management inoperative (Joullié, 2018). March's way of thinking is deeply postmodern in the sense of Foucault (1961) who saw the world as a representation. In March's case, learning is ambiguous and decisions are often far from purely performative logic. In this social game, myths play an important role in organizations and behavior takes on roles that counteract any objective learning based on facts. His teachings remain of the utmost importance for both practitioners and academics in charge of modeling the real functioning of our organizations. |
| Date: | 2022–01–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03936938&r=hpe |
| By: | Nikodem Tomczak |
| Abstract: | Adam Smith developed a version of moral philosophy where better decisions are made by interrogating an impartial spectator within us. We discuss the possibility of using an external non-human-based substitute tool that would augment our internal mental processes and play the role of the impartial spectator. Such tool would have more knowledge about the world, be more impartial, and would provide a more encompassing perspective on moral assessment. |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2305.11519&r=hpe |
| By: | Heckman, James J. (University of Chicago); Galaty, Bridget (University of Chicago); Tian, Haihan (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | This chapter presents an economic approach to character and personality traits with an application to the study of virtue. Economists interpret psychological traits, including character traits and virtue, as strategies that shape responses to situations (actions) determined by underlying endowments, preferences and resources, as well as incentives to act in situations. Philosophers of virtue consider a more limited set of goals than economists but the same tools can be applied to the economics of virtue ethics. Character traits and personality are not considered immutable in either field. They are shaped by genetics, parents, peers, and schools, as well as life experiences. We develop economic models to interpret and give empirical content to virtue ethics and suggest what virtue ethics contributes to the study of economic models. |
| Keywords: | traits, philosophy, ethics, economic models |
| JEL: | J24 J13 I24 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16133&r=hpe |
| By: | Fontaine, Philippe |
| Abstract: | Review of “Thinking like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy” by Elizabeth Popp Berman |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:sy9ac&r=hpe |
| By: | Gaiya, Abel B. S. |
| Abstract: | The abolition of slavery in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a long process. In terms of the economic views of abolitionists, there has been an excessive focus on the economic ideas of liberal abolitionists and their approach to Civilization, Christianity and Commerce. However, there was a “developmental abolitionism” which has received little attention. Afro-American Martin R. Delany and Liberian James S. Payne were writers who approached abolitionism through this developmentalism. They favored more interventionist measures at building the material power and national autonomy of black nations to undercut the power of slave-using African chiefs, to provide indigenous Africans with employment, and to undermine the profitability of slave-based cotton production in the Americas. They also implicitly and indirectly approached labor scarcity with solutions ranging from promoting labor-saving technology to cultivating national prosperity that would improve emigration to Africa or increase birth rates. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:rqhau&r=hpe |
| By: | James J. Heckman; Bridget Galaty; Haihan Tian |
| Abstract: | This chapter presents an economic approach to character and personality traits with an application to the study of virtue. Economists interpret psychological traits, including character traits and virtue, as strategies that shape responses to situations (actions) determined by underlying endowments, preferences and resources, as well as incentives to act in situations. Philosophers of virtue consider a more limited set of goals than economists but the same tools can be applied to the economics of virtue ethics. Character traits and personality are not considered immutable in either field. They are shaped by genetics, parents, peers, and schools, as well as life experiences. We develop economic models to interpret and give empirical content to virtue ethics and suggest what virtue ethics contributes to the study of economic models. |
| JEL: | I24 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31258&r=hpe |
| By: | Lasse Mononen |
| Abstract: | The rationality of choices is one of the most fundamental assumptions of traditional economic analysis. Yet, substantial evidence has documented that choices often cannot be rationalized by utility maximization. Several measures of rationality have been introduced in the literature to quantify the size of rationality violations. However, it is not clear which of these measures should be used in applications, and many measures are computationally very demanding, which has restricted their widespread use. First, we introduce novel variations of the measures that allow us to establish connections between the different measures. Second, we develop methods to compute the most-used measures of rationality. Exploiting this computational progress, we offer simulation-based comparisons of the accuracy of the measures. These simulations show that a new type of measure that combines the size of rationality violations with the number of rationality violations outperforms other measures. Finally, we offer a method to calculate statistical significance levels for rationality violations. |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:437&r=hpe |
| By: | Christian Saad (CREDDI - Centre de Recherche en Economie et en Droit du Développement Insulaire [UR7_2] - UA - Université des Antilles) |
| Date: | 2023–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04051510&r=hpe |
| By: | Adrien Faudot (CERAG - Centre d'études et de recherches appliquées à la gestion - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes, CREG - Centre de recherche en économie de Grenoble - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes); Tsvetelina Marinova (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne); Nikolay Nenovsky (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne) |
| Abstract: | Today's fragmentation of the world economy, the emergence in the near future of large economic blocs operating in different ideological and conceptual models of economy and society, and the fierce struggle for resources and influence, logically lead us turn to history, including the recent one. The issue of the functioning and collapse of the socialist monetary community has another, more specific but also topical meaning. It has to do with understanding the mechanisms of disintegration of the European Union and the euro area, its management and eventual overcoming. In this paper, we focus on the study of monetary mechanisms within the socialist system, and more specifically on its model of integration, the Comecon, which lasted from 1949 to 1991. In the first part we present the basic principles of socialist integration and the role of international socialist money. In the second part we present the main stages in the evolution of the monetary mechanisms of Comecon. The third part is devoted to some technical problems of multilateral payments and the peculiarities of the transfer ruble. Finally, we try to compare with European Payment Union. We present some competing hypotheses, answering the question why the monetary system of Comecon failed. |
| Keywords: | socialist integration, Comecon, transferable ruble, European Payment Union, Soviet Union, commodity-money relations |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04084493&r=hpe |