I learned a good deal from Björn Hansson's paper, as I did from his book (Hansson, 1982), and I agree with his main conclusion, namely, that the ideas of the Stockholm School did not so much disappear from economics as lose their national identity when they became absorbed into the discipline's mainstream. Thus I have nothing in the way of adversely critical comments to offer, and of the three points I would like to make, two come in to the category of “suggestions for further work,” rather than bearing directly on the substance of Hansson's contribution.

Let me first deal with a matter that arises from the paper, however. Hansson suggests, at the very outset of his argument, that “after 1937 … the contributions [of the Stockholm School] are no longer isolated from foreign influences,” and he returns to this same theme later, for example, when discussing the work of Bent Hansen. One must be very careful when one speaks of the isolation of the Stockholm School, because throughout the first three decades of this century, it would be hard to find a group more aware of work going on elsewhere than the Swedes. A glance at Wicksell's Lectures will readily confirm that he was both one of the best read of his contemporaries, and also, particularly by the standards of his time, extremely conscientious about drawing his readers' attention to the work of others. The comparison here with Marshall, shall we say, is hardly to the credit of the latter.