Before the emergence of the field of development economics in the mid-1940s, the mainstream of Western economists had very little to say about the world outside western Europe. However, perhaps due to Russia’s ambivalent location as a nation considered not fully European (nor completely Asiatic) and to her status as a major player in the international arena despite the fact of her modest economic achievements, from the eighteenth century onwards the “Russian case” called the attention of some of the most prominent Western minds, including the first economists. By discussing Russia’s economy, they came to notions and concepts regarding development and backwardness that, to a great extent. informed the twentieth-century debate. The aim of this article is to explore the way in which Russia as a case study affected the evolution of ideas on economic growth or development. The evidence of things Russian, it will be argued, raised doubts about common economic views, thus enabling new thinking that pointed either to criticism of liberal orthodoxy, or to expansion and refinement of its arguments.

This paper examines the role of the English economist Arthur (A. J.) Brown in the 1950s debate surrounding the wage-rate change/unemployment relationship. While the publication of William (Bill) Phillips’s 1958 paper and the subsequent moniker of the “Phillips Curve” attracted a wealth of attention, Brown’s book on the subject, The Great Inflation, and his later work on inflation have received much less. Here, the focus is on redressing this situation somewhat by looking at Brown’s work to see how much it predates Phillips’s paper, and what differences there are to it. We also consider this within the changing institutional structure of English economic networks in the 1950s that led to a relatively rapid acceptance of Phillips’s analysis and, in many cases, to a strong, ordinal interpretation of the Phillips Curve that overshadowed Brown’s work.

The paper investigates how Arthur Pigou came to adopt the reasoning essentially based on the working of the IS-LM model and to admit that money wage cuts are neutral to employment under the liquidity trap. This occurred through his involvement in the controversy with John Maynard Keynes in 1937–38. In the first instance, Pigou used a simple model to oppose Keynes’s assertion on such neutrality. Pigou (and Keynes too) applied verbal logical analysis to the model to derive his conclusions. Submitting a paper to the Economic Journal, Nicholas Kaldor analyzed Pigou’s model in mathematical terms and asserted that Pigou derived inconsistent conclusions from his model. Kaldor’s method eventually convinced Pigou, Keynes, and Dennis Robertson (who participated in the debate in correspondence). The paper thus argues that the controversy was concluded when one form of model analysis replaced another; specifically, when mathematical analysis replaced verbal logical analysis. This study provides a case study to the first category of Mary Morgan’s two functions of economic modeling: models as an object to inquire into and models as an object with which to inquire.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze Léon Walras’s theory of public interest goods. For him, “services and products of public interest are theoretically those that interest men as members of the community or of the State emanating from the authority to establish social conditions, that is, from the satisfaction of needs that are the same and equal to all” ([1875, 1897a] 1992, EEPA, p. 187). In Walras’s mind, this definition meant that public interest goods could not be factored into the utility function, in sharp contrast with the standard approach in public goods theory. Walras did not imply that public interest goods were not useful, but he maintained instead that their utility was felt only by the community as a whole and not by the individual. Walras developed an anti-individualistic view of the State in which the collective interest was not reducible to the sum of private interests.

In his attempt to improve Carl Menger’s economics, Friedrich von Wieser frequently discussed methodological issues. This paper proposes that Wieser’s epistemological position can be understood as the result of a reformulation of the empirical position that Menger (1871) developed in his Grundsätze der Volkswirthschaftslehre. This paper proposes four ways of interpreting Wieser’s concept of “experience”: i) experience stored in language, ii) experience as introspection, iii) experience as a mental experiment, and iv) experience as observation. Because Wieser applied the concept of “motivational power” derived from psychological induction in order to explain observable social phenomena, this paper calls his position “methodological motivationalism.” This particular position can help explain his later shift to sociological studies.

Modern Austrian economists employ the Austrian Theory of Capital as an analytical construct with which to interpret policy-induced business cycles and suggest an appropriate remedy. The argument is that the structure of production, particularly the degree of capital intensity or “length of the production period” among different sectors of a non-collectivized economy, depends on the level of interest rates. Low interest rates encourage greater capital intensity in production while high interest rates reduce the degree of capital intensity or roundaboutness. Thus a greater capital intensity encouraged by an artificially low rate of interest created by a central bank's credit inflation must be followed by increased unemployment of labor when interest rates rise again to reflect the ensuing price inflation and the credit inflation stops. Restraint on central bank credit creation is thus prescribed as the remedy for fluctuations in output and employment in the business cycle.

John Maynard Keynes’s analysis of the Great Depression has strong parallels to recent theorizing about the post-2008 Great Recession. There are also remarkable similarities between the two historical episodes: the collapse of demand for new fixed investment, the role of the zero lower bound liquidity trap in hampering conventional monetary policy, the multi-year period of near-zero short-term rates, and the protracted period of subnormal prosperity. A major difference between then and now is that monetary authorities in the recent situation actively pursued an unconventional policy with massive purchases of long-term securities. Keynes couldn’t convince authorities of his era to pursue such a plan, but it was precisely the monetary policy he advocated for a depressed economy stuck at the zero lower bound of nominal interest rates.

Following the appearance of John Barton Condition of the Labouring Classes of Society (1817), David Ricardo admitted, in the third edition (1821) of his Principles, that the process of mechanization may prove injurious to the working class.1 Michio Morishima claims, however, that he carefully investigates Ricardos chapter on machinery and shows that the introduction of machinery does not create unemployment (Morishima 1989, p. 14). In view of the importance of Ricardos machinery problemin the history of economic thought,2 aS well as its applicability in past and current cases of rapid industrialization,3 it is worthwhile to scrutinize Morishimas criticism of Ricardo carefully.

Adam Smiths adding up theory (Sraffa 1951, p. xxxv) has generally been interpreted as an expression of the harmonious view of the mechanisms governing exchange ratios and distribution In two preceding works (Nistico 1988,1991) I tried to show that Smith's theory of prices is instead fully compatible with the classical approach to the theory of value and distribution based on the essential role played by class antagonism in a capitalist system.

Although the ground I cover in this address is familiar, I approach it as a novice (Clower, 1973). I have written some history of economic thought papers over the past fifty years, but the bulk of my work has been theoretical; and I have known too many good historians of thought to imagine I belong in that class. As W. J. Ashley (1891) observed, “The economic historian … is apt to be confused in theory; [and] the … theorist runs the risk of being unhistorical” (compare Wicksell, 1904, p. 61). Unhistorical or not, I shall discuss some major vicissitudes of economic inquiry over the past three centuries.

This article highlights the roles played by knowledge brokers in the history of economics. Knowledge creation is the joint product of teams of people engaged in parallel work. Economists do their professional work, whether that involves creating elaborate theories, gathering and interpreting data, or conducting experiments, all the while creating a variety of competing narratives about the economy. Economic agents go about their daily lives creating goods and services, caring for one another, saving and consuming, all the while making decisions based on whatever narratives they believe about how the economy functions. The various narratives between and among economists and economic agents create market opportunities for knowledge brokers, who sell their services to whoever will pay. They popularize economic insights in bestselling books, and work for think tanks or with various organizations, but they are also textbook writers, journal editors, and conference organizers, all of whom jointly contribute to the edifice of economic knowledge and facilitate communication. European beekeeping is used as an analogy.

The last twenty-five years of the twentieth century were freighted with important moments for historians of economic thought: the collapse of the Keynesian consensus, the rise (and fall) of monetarism, the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the other Marxist-Leninist states in central and eastern Europe, the rise of neo-liberalism, and arguments over the possible emergence of a “New Economy” following the internet investment boom at the end of the 1990s. Each of these moments will require its own history as we slowly move away from the tumult of the times and begin to weigh them for their own significance. But several of the moments have a common iconic face in Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979 to 1990. Few other individuals so readily embody the sense of the times. Thatcher's election—a full year and a half before Ronald Reagan's—marks for many people the moment when Keynesian policies finally and irretrievably lost their legitimacy. Likewise, the timing of her election, just two months before Paul Volcker's selection as the chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in the United States, also means that for many people Thatcher's is the public face of monetarism's ascendancy. Finally, there is probably no one person whose name is so clearly associated with the rise of free market thinking and neo-liberalism during the end of the twentieth century.

Allen V. Kneese is called the “father” or “pioneer” of the field of environmental economics but, despite his contributions to that field and the importance of his works, Kneese has not been acknowledged sufficiently in the history of environmental economic thought, and differences between his research and that in the Pigouvian tradition have been obscured over time. This article focuses on his research in the 1960s on water quality management and inquires into differences between his work and that in the Pigouvian tradition. Kneese alternated between theoretical and empirical work and revised the Pigouvian framework pragmatically. The Kneesian framework consists of a two-stage approach, and its substructure is the institutional form of policy agents. To understand the historical meaning of the Kneesian approach, it is useful to compare it to John Krutilla’s “evaluation of non-market value,” Ronald Coase’s “comparative institutional approach,” and Elinor Ostrom’s “Commons.”

Loïc Charles and Philippe Steiner (2000) rightly draw our attention to Quesnay's neglected political views, namely the project of making France strong enough to confront England in economic and in military affairs. Schematically, Quesnay insists more upon wealth than upon population, which makes for a difference with most of the economists of his time, and more upon the navy than upon the army. Walter Eltis (1999) carefully relates the “explanations” of the Tableau économique contained in l'Ami des Hommes and the Philosophie rurale to the policy recommendations of Quesnay. He emphasizes the practical character of these different Tableaux in contrast with the abstract character of the first versions and of the Formule. He also gives a detailed account of the efects of diferent policies, namely the extension of grande culture, free trade of corn (which amounts to a higher price of corn), and tax reform. Gianni Vaggi (2001) insists on the modernization of agriculture as a decisive element of the power of a nation. Such preoccupations seem well in accordance with Quesnay's more general concern—that is, refounding the French monarchy on a natural order in which politics and economics can hardly be distinguished.

Italy entered the war in May 1915; the USA, in April 1917. One hundred years on, this paper examines the viewpoint of Antonio de Viti de Marco, the renowned Italian economist who was one of the founders of the pure theory of public finance. It first focuses on De Viti’s interpretation of the economic and political aspects of the Great War, and reconstructs his vision of the world conflict as a struggle between liberal democracies and authoritarian states. Second, the paper highlights the convergence of De Viti’s ideals with those of President Wilson, seen as the powerful international leader of the Italian democratic interventionists. It also clarifies that the “Wilsonianism” of this movement originated in the Italian Risorgimento, and suggests that this convergence was not coincidental. Finally, it shows how, after the war, the unconditional admiration De Viti felt for the American positions gave way to bitter disappointment.

David Ricardo indicated in his famous numerical example in the Principles that it would be advantageous to Portugal to import English cloth made by 100 men, although it could have been produced locally with the labor of only 90 Portuguese men. As the production of the cloth required less quantity of labor in Portugal, it has been commonly inferred that this country had a production cost advantage over England in cloth making. This inference will be proven wrong here by showing that the English cloth had a lower cost of production than the Portuguese cloth. This finding refutes the widespread belief that Ricardo had formulated a new law, principle, or rule for international specialization, known as “comparative advantage.” He used the same rule for specialization as Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. Thus, the popular contraposition of Smith’s absolute versus Ricardo’s comparative cost advantage has to be dismissed.

Ever since the French Revolution, Abbé de Mably has been portrayed as a forerunner of utopian communism and common ownership, and, more recently still, as a “classical republican” in the Age of Enlightenment. This article aims to reappraise Mably’s position. We attempt to show that he proposed a science of commerce in his Droit public de l’Europe (1746), and that his economic ideas displayed continuity and consistency throughout his lifetime. Far from being an enemy of trade, Mably sought a realpolitik in an attempt to strike a balance between the race for the enrichment of nations of the Moderns and the virtues and equality of the Ancients that he never thought possible to restore. The paper also examines his place in the history of economics. In particular, the similarities and differences between Mably’s ideas and those of the Gournay circle are studied, the issue of inequalities being the dividing line between them.

Henry Martyn's Considerations Upon the East-India Trade, published anonymously in 1701, stands out as a major contribution to the field of political economy that took root in Britain in the eighteenth century, and to the demonstration of the gains from free trade (Martyn 1701). Martyn provided one of the earliest formulations (and by far the clearest) of what Jacob Viner termed the “eighteenth-century rule” for the gains from trade, that “it pays to import commodities from abroad whenever they can be obtained in exchange for exports at a smaller real cost than their production at home would entail” (Viner 1937, p. 440). The numerical examples that Martyn used to illustrate it went even beyond the case for free trade advanced seventy-five years later by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. Martyn's tract contains other remarkable insights that became important features of classical political economy, such as the nature and advantages of the division of labor, the dependence of the latter on the extent of the market, the workings of a market economy, the role of money, and the impact of international trade on resource allocation, on productivity, and on economic welfare.