The interdependence between economic analysis and methodology in the work of Joseph A. Schumpeter ∗

Abstract

This paper offers an overview of Schumpeter's entire economic work from a methodological perspective. Only from this ‘birds-eye’ view do all the well-known parts of his work become part of a mosaic which – from a distance – forms a picture of logical succession: It tells the story of an intensive search for an appropriate analytical understanding of the phenomenon of economic change. As a result, this paper argues that, from a methodological perspective, Schumpeter's work appears to be anything but a monolithic unit.     

Adding links,adding persons,and adding structures: Using Sen's frameworks

Abstract

This essay is a comment on “Sen on Freedom and Gender Justice,” by Mozaffar Qizilbash, which appeared in Feminist Economics Volume 11, Number 3, November 2005.

Building on the 2003 double special issue of Feminist Economics entitled “Amartya Sen's Work and Ideas,” this paper responds to the review essay by Mozaffar Qizilbash. It identifies and illustrates various possible evaluations of a theoretical system, including that it has acknowledged strengths, unrecognized strengths, remediable gaps or failings, or structural faults. The paper then looks at Sen's system as a theoretical basis for “human development”– in particular in relation to personhood, emotions, and psychological interdependence – and argues that it points in directions required for economic and social analysis, including towards theories of care, but is not itself a sufficient treatment. The paper suggests deepening Sen's system by connecting to other important languages of analysis concerning the structuring of attitudes, emotions, felt well-being, public reasoning, and politics.     

Women,Real Estate,and Wealth in a Southern US County, 1780–1860

Abstract

In her 1986 book Women and the Law of Property in Early America, Marylynn Salmon concludes that the legal and economic changes experienced by early national and antebellum (pre–Civil War) United States women – which culminated in the passage of married women's property acts – were evolutionary rather than revolutionary. This paper examines changes in the economic status of women preceding the enactment of these statutes by analyzing new and valuable information: real-estate deeds and probate records in Henrico County, Virginia. Supplementing the diverse, yet limited, international and historical evidence on women's wealth holdings, this exploration of the asset accumulation of elite, free women in the southern US reveals that women's property holdings, personal and real, rose substantially over the 1780–1860 period. Thus, these results are consistent with those of other scholars, such as Marylynn Salmon, who document an increase in early national and antebellum women's economic status.     

Thoreau's economic philosophy

Abstract

This paper provides an encompassing portrayal of Thoreau's economic thought. It is analyzed against the background of the history of economic thought and the economic thinking of his time. Thoreau's economic thought is an extensive examination of the ideas of classical political economy, and particularly of Jean-Baptiste Say, and it is a fundamental critique thereof. Thoreau recognizes that some aspects and foundations of the modern conception of the economy lead to an alienation of the human being from itself as well as to an alienation from nature. I demonstrate that this critique is a result of Thoreau's specific approach to the economy, which, based on his particular understanding of the human being and his philosophy of nature, seeks the meaning of the economy for human life and for nature. In this philosophical approach, which I characterize as an economic philosophy, Thoreau's deeper defiance of classical political economy and his original place within the history of economic thought are grounded. It leads Thoreau to an alternative conception of an economy of moderation, which is identified and described in detail. I conclude with considerations on the potential meaning of Thoreau's thought for current economic research.     

Classical and Neoclassical harmonies and dissonances

Abstract

Proofs are given that only singularly can real 1750 – 2007 competitive price ratios be ‘natural', in the sense of being invariant under changes in demand tastes. Proofs are given that both 1750 – 1870 discrete technologies or 1890 – 2007 continuum technologies, with convexity properties sufficient for arbitrage-proof supply-demand equilibria, will be ‘intertemporally Pareto optimal', immune to leaving any deadweight (inefficient) losses on the table. Sraffa (1960), ignoring the vast post-1945 linear and non-linear programming mathematical literature of Danzig, Kuhn-Tucker-Bellman, von Neumann, Ramsey literature does not quite arrive at attainable distribution solutions. Where it tolerates increasing or decreasing returns to scale, there can be no competitive equilibria. When its matrix equations do obey first-degree-homogeneous functions, the book's stress on Basics or non-Basics is an irrelevancy leading to bizarre novel interpretations of Ricardo.

Old age overtakes us all. Alas, Sraffs's proposed critique of twentieth century political economy we will never be able to know.     

Gender and Network Formation in Rural Nicaragua: A Village case study

Abstract

This contribution examines the relation between gender and network formation in rural Nicaragua in 2007 and studies differences in the structure and contents of men's and women's networks. Such differences are relevant, as network theory suggests that structural characteristics – as well as the contents of networks – strongly influence the type and amount of benefits generated. Through the application of dyadic regression techniques, this study examines the determinants of the size and socioeconomic heterogeneity of individual networks. Research findings suggest gender segregation of networks and considerable differences in the structure and content of men's and women's networks. These differences relate to the gendered division of labor and to women's time poverty in particular. Our results are relevant in a context where policy makers increasingly consider social networks an important policy tool. We caution against a gender-blind alignment on existing social networks and argue for detailed mapping and unpacking of social networks through a gender lens.     

Ivan Kinkel's (1883–1945) theory of economic development

Abstract

This paper presents and discusses the “Attempt at Constructing a New Theory of Economic Development and Cultural Cycles”, published by the Bulgarian economist and sociologist of Russian origin, Ivan Kinkel (1883–1945) in 1921. Kinkel's theory, although unknown outside Bulgarian academic circles, carries a range of original ideas and new insights within the frame of Schmollerprogramm. It emphasises the importance of studying economic development as sociocultural evolutionary change, focuses on the role of unity in social life and the plurality of human motives and attempts to methodologically link theory and history into a multidisciplinary approach. Kinkel's work in general, and his theory of cyclical development in particular, can not only be of value for the study of economic thought and the diffusion of ideas, but can also offer insights into the forces underlying the profound changes that we have been witnessing recently.     

Pigou on philosophy and religion

Abstract

This article discusses a group of essays on ethical issues written by Pigou between 1900 and 1908. It is argued that they contain the foundations of his economic philosophy. Pigou's research on the meaning and content of the good merged into his definition of welfare, and his interest in religion as a subjective experience resurfaced in the subjective framework of his economics. A methodological pragmatism informed his economics as well as his ethics; moreover, the endorsement of interpersonal comparisons of the good in the ethical texts was consistent with Pigou's adoption of utility comparisons in welfare economics. Pigou's philosophical pessimism was reflected in his analysis of the economic evils of society, eventually leading to his advocacy of governmental intervention to foster economic welfare. The article contends that Pigou's philosophy derived not only from Sidgwick, as commonly believed, but also from G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica.     

Women in the Rural and Industrial Labor Force in Nineteenth-Century Spain

Abstract

This contribution analyzes determinants of women's labor force participation (LFP) in northwest coastal Spain (Galicia) in the second half of the nineteenth century. The study uses census takers' notebooks from 1857 and 1870 in three municipalities with different economic structures: Nigrán, an agricultural municipality in southern Galicia on the estuary of Vigo, where women predominantly worked in agriculture; Bueu, an industrial town where 80 percent of women were employed in fish processing and related activities; and Coruña, Galicia's biggest city in 1857, where commerce and services were the main economic activities. The sample represents 2 percent of the region's population. The study focuses both on demand – how the local economic structure influenced the entrance of women into the labor market; and supply – how age, civil status, and number of children influenced women's LFP. The industrialization of coastal Galicia impelled women's high participation rates.     

Scitovsky's The Joyless Economy and the economics of happiness

Abstract

Scitovsky's The Joyless Economy is especially well-known in recent economic studies on happiness. However, his insightful contributions have not been taken up as they deserve, mainly because they were, and still are, too original. By reconstructing Scitovsky's analysis on the basis of all his relevant writings, this article integrates his most original concepts, such as novelty, consumption skill, endogenous preferences, pleasurable uncertainty, into conventional economics; it compares Scitovsky's analysis to the economic thought of his time and to current consumer theory and it reveals his contributions to happiness economics, such as an original interpretation of the Easterlin paradox.     

ECONOMIC RELATIONS BETWEEN WOMEN AND THEIR PARTNERS: AN EAST AND WEST GERMAN COMPARISON AFTER REUNIFICATION

abstract

This article compares women's and men's economic relations in East and West Germany following the 1990 reunification to exemplify the impact of varying opportunity structures on women's relative contribution to family income. West Germany's takeover set in motion a rapid transformation of East German institutions and employment structures. The analysis shows that women in West Germany became less dependent on their partners in the 1990s, largely because fewer women were housewives without earnings. In contrast, the contributions of women to the family economy in East Germany fell between 1990 and 1996. Afterwards, women in East Germany regained some of their economic power because of their partners' increasing difficulties sustaining employment. A multivariate analysis showed that the fact that women in West Germany were more likely to work less or not at all – especially if they were married or had children – accounted for much of the difference.     

The arrow of time in economics: from Robinson's critique to the new historical economics

Abstract

How time is comprehended in economics is central to the type of discipline to which economics is analogized. Rejecting the symmetrical notion of time in classical physics, Joan Robinson emphasized the importance of ‘historical time’, and hence history. A new generation of economists – including Paul Krugman, Paul David, and Brian Arthur – took up Robinson's challenge, seeking to create a new historical economics by relating random or ‘accidental’ historical events in different ways to the necessity of economic rules, and finding that, as Robinson saw, scale effects were crucial. Their efforts, however, fell short of integrating history into economics.     

Continuity and change: Mapping the community of economists in Greece (1944 to 1967)

Abstract

This paper combines quantitative, biographical and qualitative data to trace out the structure and dynamics of Greece's post-war community of economists, and explore its implications for the country's economic discourse. Greek economics was a state-centred profession whose fate was intertwined with that of the post-war developmental state apparatus. Most economists were employed in universities, the civil service or banking, with substantial interpenetration between branches. This configuration of professional constituencies, in conjunction with the structural features of each institution, conditioned the form and content of economic discourse. Professional and ideological cohesion went hand in hand, whilst substantial degrees of vertical and horizontal control by senior members further fostered consensus and increased professional sclerosis. Nevertheless, evidence from a new database of economic journal publications suggests that a substantial realignment took place in the late 1950s and 1960s, as a younger generation of scholars – most of them educated in the post-war UK/US, and affiliated with the newly established Centre for Planning and Economic Research – entered the scene.     

Turgot: a critic of physiocracy? An analysis of the debates in Éphémérides du Citoyen and in correspondence with Dupont

Abstract

Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727–1781) is one of the few French economic theorists who led a political career and held ministerial office. He continues to intrigue both historians and historians of economic thought where his relationship with the physiocrats is concerned. Does Turgot fully share their belief system, or does he only borrow a few elements from it? Is he a critical author of this school of thought? To date, no agreement has been reached on this subject. This paper attempts to answer some of these questions in an objective manner, drawing on the evidence provided by texts and therefore minimising the interpretations. The sources we will primarily refer to are the Éphémérides du citoyen and Turgot's correspondence with Dupont. We will revisit the economic themes of large- and small-scale farming, as well as savings, and discuss Turgot's views on slavery and the “sectarian spirit” of the physiocrats.     

Enrico Barone's ‘Ministry of Production’: Content and Context

Abstract

Enrico Barone's famous article on economic planning, ‘Il Ministro della Produzione nello Stato Collettivista’ (‘The Ministry of Production in the Collectivist State’), which showed the theoretical possibility of an economically efficient collectivist planned economy, was published in Giornale degli Economisti in 1908. Barone's article has been widely cited, particularly in the comparative economic systems literature, but it has not been very widely read or analysed in recent years, and there is not much literature that places Barone's ‘Ministry’ model in the context of his other works or in its historical, social, or ideological context. The aims of this article are: (a) to analyse and clarify Barone's model in depth; (b) to place it in the context of Barone's other writings and the literature on the subject; and (c) to examine the apparent contradiction between Barone's hostility to socialism and his attempt to formulate the pure theory of the collectivist economy.     

The French Revolution and the Creation of Benthamism

Abstract

The article investigates Knut Wicksell's interpretation of aggregate economic fluctuations. It is shown that Wicksell described the business cycle as oscillations of an economy with increasing population and scarce natural resources around its steady growth path ('dynamic equilibrium'), provoked by sporadic technological progress. The ‘shocks’ bring about a wave‐like motion because of psychological and technical lags in the economic structure. Wicksell's suggestion that excess net savings in the depression take the form of stocks of commodities is compared to his contemporaries’ answers to the question ‘What happens to savings during the depression?’ The article also puts forward a relatively neglected connection between Malthus’ and Wicksell's notions of over‐production. Divergences between the natural and market rates of interest — essential to his better‐known ‘cumulative process’ ‐ are not a necessary part of Wicksell's business cycle, but they are important to explain why the upper turning‐point can have the nature of a crisis, which results from wrong expectations induced by cumulative price movements.     

‘Anecdotal myths’: Tinbergen's influence on Harrod's growth theory

Abstract

In the history of economic theory, Harrod's transition from the explanation of business cycles in An Essay on the Trade Cycle (1936) to his well‐known growth theory in ‘An essay in dynamic theory’ (1939) has always been surrounded by some degree of speculation. One of the topics in that area of speculation concerns the (degree of) influence exerted by Tinbergen on the development of Harrod's growth theory during the 1936–9 period.

This paper argues that Tinbergen's influence on Harrod's work mainly took place on formal, mathematical, grounds, leaving methodological matters untouched. This matter is of some importance in understanding the success of what was initially considered by others as a ‘dynamic’ extension of the Keynesian research programme and later evolved, through the work of Tinbergen and Solow, into a neoclassical growth theory.     

Economic theorist and ‘entrepreneur of popularisation’: Schumpeter as Finance Minister and journalist

Abstract

Modern theory of popularisation suggests that the production and the popularisation of scientific knowledge are interlinked and interactive processes. This perspective offers new insights into Joseph A. Schumpeter's main work in public finance, The Crisis of the Tax State, and into his later endeavours as Finance Minister and journalist to popularise two central economic ideas of this work, the once-and-for-all capital levy and the reform of the tax system. We demonstrate that Schumpeter's Crisis contains popularising features and was written with a popularising intention. Furthermore, we show that in his journalistic works popularisation went hand in hand with the development of innovative economic ideas.     

Economists on Darwin's theory of social evolution and human behaviour

Abstract

This article analyses Darwin's image among economists with a specific focus on his theory of social evolution as presented in the Descent of Man (1871). We propose an analysis of the way and context in which economists refer to Darwin, mention his name and quote his writings. It then appears that Darwin is most of the time viewed as a biologist only, who never developed his own theory of social evolution. He is thus quoted as a biologist who either borrowed concepts from economists who developed a theory of social evolution, or laid the basis for biological theory of social evolution developed by others, Spencer, in particular. It is only recently that eventually the twofold dimensions—biological and social—of Darwin's general theory of evolution are considered together by bioeconomists.