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In An Engine, Not a Camera, Donald MacKenzie argues that the emergence of modern economic theories of finance affected financial markets in fundamental ways. These new, Nobel Prize-winning theories, based on elegant mathematical models of markets, were not simply external analyses but intrinsic parts of economic processes. Paraphrasing Milton Friedman, MacKenzie says that economic models are an engine of inquiry rather than a camera to reproduce empirical facts. More than that, the emergence of an authoritative theory of financial markets altered those markets fundamentally. For example, in 1970, there was almost no trading in financial derivatives such as "futures." By June of 2004, derivat...
This valuable reference is an authoritative guide to 20th century French thought. It considers the intellectual figures, movements and publications that helped define fields as diverse as history, psychoanalysis, film, philosophy, and economics.
Geoff Pilling’s work shows that Marxist theory is relevant to those struggling to understand the problems of capitalist society today, and that the work not only of Marx and Engels but that of later Marxist theorists, including Lenin is worth studying. It also shows that to understand the problems of today’s society needs more than narrow specialist economic analysis, but a deep awareness of current developments in society.
This book is the first work dedicated to the key ideas of Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase on pollution and public goods with sustainable development in mind from the perspective of an economist-town planner. The seminal contributions of Ronald Coase, foretold in the form of the Coase Theorem by another Nobel laureate, George Stigler, have been much analyzed and often misinterpreted by friends and foes alike. In this book, Lawrence Lai attempts to revisit Coase's seminal works and bring to the fore their importance in economic and urban planning policy analysis. Coase's comparative institutional approach offers an important vehicle for the analysis of pressing social issues such as sustainable development, and all those interested in the creation of new platforms for performing policy analysis will welcome this important work.
This book covers the development of economics in Japan from the inter-war period to the 2000s focusing on the international theoretical contributions of Japanese economists. The first focal point is the international contributions of Japanese economists before and after World War II. The second focal point is the controversies concerning macroeconomic policies in Japan in the period of the ‘Great Depressions’ in the 1930s and the period of Japanese ‘Great Stagnation’ in the 1990s and the early 2000s. In short, economics in Japan is considered from both a theoretical and a policy-oriented point of view. The intimate relationship between economic theory, thought and policy is also fully examined, as well as the development of both academic and non-academic (practical) Japanese economics and the influence of Marx, Walras, Keynes, Fisher and Cassell.
A fascinating and comprehensive history, this book explores the most important transformation in twentieth century economics: the creation of econometrics. Containing fresh archival material that has not been published before and taking Ragnar Frisch as the narrator, Francisco Louca discusses both the keys events - the establishment of the Econometric Society, the Cowles Commission and the journal Econometrica – and the major players - economists like Wesley Mitchell, mathematicians like John von Neumann and statisticians like Karl Pearson - in history that shaped the development of econometrics. He discusses the evolution of their thought, detailing the debates, the quarrels and the interrogations that crystallized their work and even offers a conclusion of sorts, suggesting that some of the more influential thinkers abandoned econometrics or became critical of its development. International in scope and appeal, The Years of High Econometrics is an excellent accompaniment for students taking courses on probability, econometric methods and the history of economic thought.
Various explanations have been put forward as to why the Keynesian Revolution in economics in the 1930s and 1940s took place. Some of these point to the temporal relevance of John Maynard Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), appearing, as it did, just a handful of years after the onset of the Great Depression, whilst others highlight the importance of more anecdotal evidence, such as Keynes’s close relations with the Cambridge ‘Circus’, a group of able, young Cambridge economists who dissected and assisted Keynes in developing crucial ideas in the years leading up to the General Theory. However, no systematic effort has been made to bring together thes...
This collection of twelve new essays by distinguished scholars in the fields of history and the philosophy of economics is one of the first book-length studies of Hume‘s political economy.
2010 marks the hundredth anniversary of the death of Léon Walras, the brilliant originator and first formaliser of general equilibrium theory – one of the pillars of modern economic theory. In advancing much derided practical solutions Walras also displayed more concern for the problems of living in a second best world than is common in modern pure theories of the invisible hand, efficient market hypothesis, DSGE macroeconomics or the thinking of some contemporary free market admirers all based on general equilibrium theory. This book brings contributions from the likes of Kenneth Arrow, Alan Kirman, Richard Posner, Amartya Sen and Robert Solow to share their thoughts and reflections on the theoretical heritage of Léon Walras. Some authors reminisce on the part they played in the development of modern general economics theory; others reflect on the crucial part played by general equilibrium in the development of macroeconomics, microeconomics, growth theory, welfare economics and the theory of justice; others still complain about the wrong path economic theory took under the influence of post 1945 developments in general equilibrium theory.
This study seeks to demonstrate the subtle ways in which changes in the language associated with economic issues are reflective of a gradual but quantifiable conservative ideological shift. In this rigorous analysis, David George uses as his data a century of word usage within The New York Times, starting in 1900. It is not always obvious how the changes identified necessarily reflect a stronger prejudice toward laissez-faire free market capitalism, and so much of the book seeks to demonstrate the subtle ways in which the changing language indeed carries with it a political message. This analysis is made through exploration of five major areas of focus: "economics rhetoric" scholarship and the growing "behavioral economics" school of thought; the discourse of government and taxation; the changing meaning of "competition," and "competitive"; changing attitudes toward lab∨ and the celebration of growth relative to the decline in attention to economic justice and social equality.