Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T10:42:48.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

H. J. Davenport's Loan Fund Theory of Capital

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

J. Patrick Gunning
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The loan fund theory of capital was developed by the unheralded American economist, Herbert J. Davenport (1861-1931). Davenport's name has virtually disappeared from writings on the history of economic thought. Today, he seems best known as a teacher of Frank Knight at Cornell around 1915. Davenport wrote three major books during an 18-year period between 1896 and 1914. The first (1896) was a treatise based on what he called the “principle of sacrifice,” or subjective opportunity cost. His second book, Value and Distribution (1908), covered much of the same ground but also presented some original contributions. It marked his emergence as a professional economist, since he presented his ideas within the context of an appraisal of classical and neoclassical economic doctrine. Among other things, the book contained a penetrating, subjectivist critique of four ideas in the history of subjectivist economics: marginal utility, Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk's theory of capital, Friedrich Wieser's theory of cost, and Frank Fetter's theory of market interest. It also introduced the loan fund theory of capital, which is the topic of this paper.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 349 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Blaug, M. 1985. Economic Theory in Retrospect, 4th ed., Cambridge University Press, London.Google Scholar
Clark, John B. 1899a. The Distribution of Wealth: A Theory of Wages, Interest and Profits, Macmillan, New York.Google Scholar
Clark, John B. 1899b. “Natural Divisions in Economic Theory,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 13, January, 187–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, J. Maurice. 1914. “Davenport's Economics,” Political Science Quarterly, 29, no. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davenport, Herbert J. 1896. Outlines of Economic Theory, Macmillan, New York.Google Scholar
Davenport, H. 1898. Outlines of Elementary Economics, Macmillan, New York.Google Scholar
Davenport, H. 1908. Value and Distribution, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Davenport, H. 1914. Economics of Enterprise, Macmillan, New York.Google Scholar
Davenport, H. 1916. “Fetter's ‘Economic Principles,’” Journal of Political Economy, 24, April, 313–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davenport, Herbert J. 1935. The Economics of Alfred Marshall, Ithaca, New York.Google Scholar
Fetter, Frank A. 1904. The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical Problems, The Century County, New York.Google Scholar
Fetter, F. 1914a. “Interest Theories, Old and New,” American Economic Review, 4, March, 68–92.Google Scholar
Fetter, F. 1914b. “Davenport's Competitive Economics,” Journal of Political Economy, 22, June, 550–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetter, Frank. 1927. “Clark's Reformulation of the Capital Concept,” in Hollander, Jacob H., ed., Economic Essays Contributed in Honor of John Bates Clark, Macmillan, New York; reprinted in Fetter, 1977.Google Scholar
Fetter, Frank. 1977. Capital, Interest, and Rent, Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Kansas City.Google Scholar
Gunning, J. Patrick. 1990. The New Subjectivist Revolution: An Elucidation and Extension of Ludwig von Mises' Contribution to Economic Theory. Savage, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Gunning, J. Patrick. 1998. “Herbert J. Davenport's Transformation of the Austrian Theory of Value and Cost.” in Malcolm, Rutherford (ed.). The Economic Mind in America: Essays in the History of American Economics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gunning, J. Patrick. 1997. “Ludwig von Mises's Transformation of the Austrian Theory of Value and Cost,” History of Economics Review, 26, Winter–Summer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunning, J. Patrick. 1998. “Herbert J. Davenport's Transformation of the Austrian Theory of Value and Cost,” Perspectives on the History of Economic Thought, 14, Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Hayek, F. A. 1933. The Monetary Theory of the Trade Cycle, J. Cape, London.Google Scholar
Hoxie, Robert F. 1905. “Fetter's Theory of Value,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 19, February.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Alvin S. 1914. “Davenport's Economics and the Present Problems of Economic Theory,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 28, 417–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mises, Ludwig von. 1966. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Henry Regnery Company, Chicago.Google Scholar
Mises, Ludwig von. 1983. “The ‘Austrian’ Theory of the Trade Cycle,” in The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays, Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, Inc., Washington, D.C.; originally published in German in 1936.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Wesley. 1914. Book review of H. J. Davenport's The Economics of Enterprise, American Economic Review, 9, September, 602–5.Google Scholar
Robbins, Lionel. 1930. “The Economic Works of Philip Wicksteed,” Economica, 10, 245–58, In Robbins 1974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robbins, Lionel. 1974. Economic Science and Political Economy: Selected Articles, edited by Susan, Howson, Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Salerno, Joseph T. 1991. “Commentary: The Concept of Coordination in Austrian Macroeconomics,” in Ebeling, Richard M., ed., Austrian Economics: Perspectives on the Past and Prospects for the Future, Hillsdale College Press, Hillsdale, Michigan.Google Scholar
Wicksteed, P. 1910. The Common Sense of Political Economy, Land Humphries, London, 1933.Google Scholar
Wicksteed, P. 1914. “The Scope and Method of Political Economy in the Light of the ‘Marginal’ Theory of Value and Distribution,” Economic Journal, 24, March, 3–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wieser, Friedrich von. 1888. Natural Value, translated by A. Malloch and edited by William Smart, Kelley and Millman, New York, 1956.Google Scholar