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Sunspots and Expectations: W. S. Jevons's Theory of Economic Fluctuations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Sandra J. Peart
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Extract

W. Stanley Jevons's statistical study of periodicity has received much scrutiny (Aldrich 1987), but less attention has been given to his theoretical position on economic fluctuations, a circumstance which T. W. Hutchison justly finds surprising considering that “Jevons maintained that aggregate instability, and the distress it caused, presented profoundly serious problems, and devoted some of his most strenuous economic research to their explanation” (Hutchison 1988, p. 6). This paper takes up the challenge to examine the development of Jevons's thought on economic fluctuations from the early 1860s until his death in 1882.

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Articles
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Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , Fall 1991 , pp. 243 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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