An Outline Of The History Of Economic Thought

by Screpanti, Ernesto; Zamagni, Stefano; Field, David; Kirby, Lynn

• ISBN13: 9780199279135
• ISBN10: 0199279136
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-08-11
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the development of economics from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary developments. It is strong on contemporary theory, providing extensive coverage of the twentieth century, particularly since the Second World War.The second edition has been revised and updated to take account of new developments in economic thought.

Author Biography

Ernesto Screpanti studied Sociology at the University of Trento (Italy) and Economics at the University of Cambridge. He has taught economics in various Italian universities and, at present, is teaching at the University of Siena. He was a member of the Steering Committees of the EAEPE and the AISSEC. He publishes extensively on labour economics, institutional economics and the history of economic thought.
Stefano Zamagni studied Economics at the Catholic University in Milan and then at the University of Oxford with John Hicks. He holds the chair of Economics in the University of Bologna; he is adjunct professor of Public Sector Economics at the Johns Hopkins University, Bologna Center, and visiting professor of History of Economic Thought at Bocconi University, Milan. He was a member of the executive committee of International Economic Association (1989-1999) and Vice President of the Italian Economic Association. He publishes on consumer theory, capital theory, institutional economics, history of economic thought.

Table of Contents

Preface to the second edition	v
Preface to the first edition	vii
Introduction	1	(18)
PART I FROM THE ORIGINS TO KEYNES
The Birth of Political Economy	19	(35)
Opening of the Modern World	19	(13)
The end of the Middle Ages and scholasticism	19	(3)
Communes, humanism and the Renaissance	22	(5)
The expansion of `Mercantile' capitalism	27	(2)
The Scientific Revolution and the birth of political economy	29	(3)
Mercantilism	32	(11)
Bullionism	32	(2)
Mercantilist commercial theories and policies	34	(2)
Demographic theories and policies	36	(2)
Monetary theories and policies	38	(2)
Hume's criticism	40	(1)
Theories of value	41	(2)
Some Forerunners of Classical Political Economy	43	(11)
The premisses of a theoretical revolution	43	(2)
William Petty and `political arithmetick'	45	(2)
Locke, North, and Mandeville	47	(2)
Boisguillebert and Cantillon	49	(2)
Relevant Works	51	(1)
Bibliography	52	(2)
The Laissez-Faire Revolution and Smithian Economics	54	(36)
The Laissez-Faire Revolution	54	(11)
The preconditions of the Industrial Revolution	54	(1)
Quesnay and the physiocrats	55	(3)
Galiani and the Italians	58	(5)
Hume and Steuart	63	(2)
Adam Smith	65	(17)
The `mechanical clock' and the `invisible hand'	65	(3)
Accumulation and the distribution of income	68	(1)
Value	69	(3)
Market and competition	72	(1)
Smith's three souls	73	(4)
Smith as an institutionalist	77	(5)
The Smithian Orthodoxy	82	(8)
An era of optimism	82	(1)
Bentham and utilitarianism	83	(2)
The Smithian economists and Say	85	(2)
Relevant Works	87	(1)
Bibliography	88	(2)
From Ricardo to Mill	90	(43)
Ricardo and Malthus	90	(10)
Thirty years of crisis	90	(1)
The Corn Laws	91	(1)
The theory of rent	92	(3)
Profits and wages	95	(1)
Profits and over-production	96	(1)
Discussions on value	97	(3)
The Disintegration of Classical Political Economy in the Age of Ricardo	100	(11)
The Ricardians, Ricardianism, and the classical tradition	100	(2)
The anti-Ricardian reaction	102	(2)
Cournot and Dupuit	104	(3)
Gossen and von Thunen	107	(2)
The Romantics and the German Historical School	109	(2)
The Theories of Economic Harmony and Mill's Synthesis	111	(10)
The `Age of Capital' and the theories of economic harmony	111	(2)
John Stuart Mill	113	(2)
Wages and the wages fund	115	(3)
Capital and the wages fund	118	(3)
English Monetary Theories and Debates in the Age of Classical Economics	121	(12)
The Restriction Act	121	(3)
The Bank Charter Act	124	(3)
Henry Thornton	127	(3)
Relevant Works	130	(1)
Bibliography	131	(2)
Socialist Economic Thought and Marx	133	(30)
From Utopia to Socialism	133	(5)
The birth of the workers' movement	133	(1)
The two faces of Utopia	134	(1)
Saint-Simon and Fourier	135	(3)
Socialist Economic Theories	138	(4)
Sismondi, Proudhon, Rodbertus	138	(1)
Godwin and Owen	139	(1)
The Ricardian socialists and related theorists	140	(2)
Marx's Economic Theory	142	(21)
Marx and the classical economists	142	(4)
Exploitation in the production process	146	(2)
Exploitation and value	148	(3)
The transformation of values into prices	151	(3)
Equilibrium, Say's Law, and crises	154	(1)
Wages, the trade cycle, and the `laws of movement' of the capitalist economy	155	(4)
Monetary aspects of the cycle and the crisis	159	(2)
Relevant Works	161	(1)
Bibliography	162	(1)
The Triumph of Utilitarianism and the Marginalist Revolution	163	(33)
The Marginalist Revolution	163	(10)
The `climax' of the 1870s and 1880s	163	(2)
The neoclassical theoretical system	165	(2)
Was it a real revolution?	167	(3)
The reasons for success	170	(3)
William Stanley Jevons	173	(7)
Logical calculus in economics	173	(3)
Wages and labour, interest and capital	176	(3)
English historical economics	179	(1)
Leon Walras	180	(9)
Walras's vision of the working of the economic system	180	(3)
General economic equilibrium	183	(4)
Walras and the articulation of economic science	187	(2)
Carl Menger	189	(7)
The birth of the Austrian School and the Methodenstreit	189	(3)
The centrality of the theory of marginal utility in Menger	192	(1)
Relevant Works	193	(1)
Bibliography	194	(2)
The Construction of Neoclassical Orthodoxy	196	(36)
The Belle Epoque	196	(2)
Marshall and the English Neoclassical Economists	198	(11)
Alfred Marshall	198	(2)
Competition and equilibrium in Marshall	200	(2)
Marshall's social philosophy	202	(1)
Pigou and welfare economics	203	(2)
Wicksteed and `the exhaustion of the product'	205	(2)
Edgeworth and bargaining negotiation	207	(2)
Neoclassical Theory in America	209	(6)
Clark and the marginal-productivity theory	209	(3)
Fisher: inter-temporal choice and the quantity theory of money	212	(3)
Neoclassical Theory in Austria and Sweden	215	(8)
The Austrian School and subjectivism	215	(2)
The Austrian School joins the mainstream	217	(1)
Wicksell and the origins of the Swedish School	218	(5)
Pareto and the Italian Neoclassical Economists	223	(9)
From cardinal utility to ordinalism	223	(3)
Pareto's criterion and the new welfare economics	226	(1)
Barone, Pantaleoni, and the `Paretaio'	227	(2)
Relevant Works	229	(1)
Bibliography	230	(2)
The Years of High Theory: I	232	(38)
Problems of Economic Dynamics	232	(13)
Economic hard times	232	(2)
Money in disequilibrium	234	(2)
The Stockholm School	236	(2)
Production and expenditure	238	(3)
The multiplier and the accelerator	241	(2)
The Harrod-Domar model	243	(2)
John Maynard Keynes	245	(13)
English debates on economic policy	245	(4)
How Keynes became Keynesian	249	(2)
The General Theory: effective demand and employment	251	(3)
The General Theory: liquidity preference	254	(4)
Michal Kalecki	258	(4)
The level of income and its distribution	258	(2)
The trade cycle	260	(2)
Joseph Alois Schumpeter	262	(8)
Equilibrium and development	262	(3)
The trade cycle and money	265	(1)
Relevant Works	266	(2)
Bibliography	268	(2)
The Years of High Theory: II	270	(53)
The Theory of Market Forms	270	(10)
The first signs of dissent	270	(1)
Sraffa's criticism of the Marshallian theoretical system	271	(2)
Chamberlin's theory of monopolistic competition	273	(2)
Joan Robinson's theory of imperfect competition	275	(3)
The decline of the theory of market forms	278	(2)
The Theory of General Economic Equilibrium	280	(11)
The first existence theorems and von Neumann's model	280	(4)
The English reception of the Walrasian approach	284	(2)
Value and demand in Hicks	286	(1)
General economic equilibrium in Hicks	287	(2)
The IS-LM model	289	(2)
The New Welfare Economics	291	(4)
Robbins's epistemological setting	291	(1)
The Pareto criterion and compensation tests	292	(3)
The Debate on Economic Calculation under Socialism	295	(4)
The dance begins	295	(1)
The neoclassical socialism of Lange and Lerner	296	(2)
Von Havek's criticism	298	(1)
Alternative Approaches	299	(24)
Allyn Young and increasing returns	299	(2)
Thorstein Veblen	301	(3)
Institutional thought in the inter-war years	304	(4)
From Dmitriev to Leontief	308	(5)
The reawakening of Marxist economic theory	313	(3)
Relevant Works	316	(2)
Bibliography	318	(5)
PART II CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTS OF ECONOMIC THEORY
Contemporary Macroeconomic Theories	323	(57)
From the Golden Age to Stagflation	323	(2)
The Neoclassical Synthesis	325	(10)
Generalizations: the IS-LM model again	325	(3)
Refinements: the consumption function	328	(2)
Corrections: money and inflation	330	(3)
Simplifications: growth and distribution	333	(2)
The Monetarist Counter-Revolution	335	(11)
Act I: money matters	335	(2)
Act II: `you can't fool all the people all the time'	337	(3)
Act III: the students go beyond the master	340	(3)
Was it real glory?	343	(3)
From Disequilibrium to Non-Walrasian Equilibrium	346	(5)
Disequilibrium and the microfoundations of macroeconomics	346	(1)
The non-Walrasian equilibrium models	347	(4)
The Post-Keynesian Approach	351	(12)
Anti-neoclassical reinterpretations of Keynes	351	(2)
Distribution and growth	353	(5)
Money and the instability of the capitalist economy	358	(2)
Heterodox microfoundations of macroeconomics	360	(3)
The New Keynesian Macroeconomics	363	(17)
A distant Hicksian background	363	(2)
Nominal rigidities	365	(3)
Real rigidities	368	(3)
A comparison between some contemporary schools of macroeconomics	371	(3)
Relevant Works	374	(3)
Bibliography	377	(3)
Neoclassical Economics from Triumph to Crisis	380	(48)
The Neo-Walrasian Approach to General Economic Equilibrium	380	(16)
The conquest of the existence theorem	380	(4)
Defeat on the grounds of uniqueness and stability	384	(4)
The end of a world?	388	(6)
Temporary equilibrium and money in general-equilibrium theory	394	(2)
Developments in the New Welfare Economics and the Economic Theories of Justice	396	(17)
The two fundamental theorems of welfare economics	396	(4)
The debate about market failures and Coase's theorem	400	(4)
The theory of social choice: Arrow's impossibility theorem	404	(2)
Sen and the critique of utilitarianism	406	(3)
Economic theories of justice	409	(4)
The Controversy on Marginalism in the Theory of the Firm and Markets	413	(15)
Critiques of the neoclassical theory of the firm	413	(2)
Post-Keynesian theories of the firm	415	(3)
Managerial and behavioural theories	418	(2)
The neoclassical reaction and the new theories of the firm	420	(3)
Relevant Works	423	(3)
Bibliography	426	(2)
At the Margins of Orthodoxy	428	(28)
Games, Evolution and Growth	428	(9)
Game theory	428	(4)
Evolutionary games and institutions	432	(3)
The theory of endogenous growth	435	(2)
The Theory of Production as a Circular Process	437	(9)
Activity analysis and the non-substitution theorem	437	(3)
The debate on the theory of capital	440	(4)
Production of commodities by means of commodities	444	(2)
Marxist Economic Thought between Orthodoxy and Revision	446	(10)
Marxist thought before 1968	446	(3)
Marxist heresies	449	(2)
Toward a theory of value with the feet on the ground	451	(2)
Relevant Works	453	(2)
Bibliography	455	(1)
A Post-Smithian Revolution?	456	(67)
At the Threshold of the Millennium	456	(10)
Globalization	456	(5)
Modern and post-modern	461	(5)
Sources of Contemporary Institutionalist and Evolutionary Theory: Four Unconventional Economists	466	(9)
Karl Polanyi	466	(3)
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen	469	(3)
Albert O. Hirschman	472	(1)
Richard M. Goodwin	473	(2)
Approaches to Institutional Analysis	475	(25)
The `new political economy' and surroundings	475	(1)
Contractarian neo-institutionalism	476	(3)
Utilitarian neo-institutionalism	479	(5)
The new `old' institutionalism	484	(5)
Evolutionary neo-institutionalism	489	(2)
Irreversibilities, increasing returns, and complexity	491	(4)
Von Hayek and the neo-Austrian school	495	(5)
Radical Political Economy	500	(12)
The monetary circuit and structural change theories	500	(3)
Analytical Marxism	503	(5)
Post-Marxism	508	(2)
The feminist challenge	510	(2)
Beyond Homo oeconomicus	512	(11)
Relevant Works	515	(4)
Bibliography	519	(4)
Index of Subjects	523	(20)
Index of Names	543