Student Evaluations of Teaching and the Cognitive Level of Economics Courses

The Journal of Economic Education of Fall 1973 was devoted to the subject of student evaluations of teachers. That issue has engendered a great many papers, only a few of which can be published in the JEE because of space limitations. Michael Everett's report is not a mere replication of previous research on the subject, but adds a new dimension—the possible effect of student evaluations on the cognitive level of college economics courses. His finding that students may favor professors who emphasize lower level cognitive material will surely be distressing to many teachers, and should cause sober reflection on the part of administrators and others involved in establishing faculty evaluation procedures and policies.     

The wages‐and‐profits fund: Classical remnants in Marshall's early theory of distribution

Abstract

This paper traces the development of Marshall's theory of wages from the late 1860s to the publication of the first edition of the Principles of Economics (1890). Section one attempts to unravel Marshall's recollections of early intellectual influences, many of which were often distorted or wrong. Specifically, J. S. Mill's, Fleeming Jenkin's and J. H. von Thünen's influence on Marshall's early theory of distribution is explored in this context. In section two, analyses of Marshall's theory of wages in Economics of Industry (1879) and in other published writings is presented. This section draws attention to the similarity between Marshall's treatment of wages and the classical wage fund doctrine. In the final section, we re‐examine Marshall's defence of his theory of value and distribution in the Economics of Industry in the face of criticism of it by American economists S. M. MacVane and J. L. Laughlin in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.     

Looking Backward at Feasible Socialism: Using Bellamy to Teach Schumpeter

This article demonstrates the parallels between Bellamy's fictional society in Looking Backward and Schumpeter's socialist blueprint Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. The socialist system Joseph Schumpeter describes is nearly identical to that in Edward Bellamy's utopia. Because Bellamy's society is a concrete one set within the readable confines of a novel, it provides a useful benchmark for students analyzing Schumpeter.     

From profit margins to income distribution: Joan Robinson's odyssey from marginal productivity theory

The point of departure for this paper is a 1941 Note on profit margins co-authored by Joan Robinson and Nicholas Kaldor that remained unpublished until 2000. Robinson's reviews of Henry Clay's The Problem of Industrial Relationships, Bresciani Turroni's The Economics of Inflation, and Roy Harrod's Towards a Dynamic Economics, along with her 1965 Cambridge Inaugural Lecture, may be interpreted as analogous documents that develop her critique of neoclassical wage theory and identify the money wage as the economy's ‘key’ price. These publications were critical steps toward the wage mark-up hypothesis and Post-Keynesian support of incomes policy to contain inflation. Robinson's Harrod review anticipated her later ideas about economic growth. With Kalecki's notion of ‘the degree of monopoly’ and her own concept of neo-mercantilism (from the Inaugural Lecture), these themes are nascent in the Robinson–Kaldor Note on profit margins.     

CAN SECRET INTERVENTION BE COMPATIBLE WITH A NON‐PROFITMAKING CENTRAL BANK AND A FUNDAMENTAL‐CONSISTENT TARGET?

The coexistence of secret intervention operations and “the signaling channel” (Mussa. The Role of Official Intervention, 1981) seems confusing. Vitale ( Journal of International Economics, 49, 1999, 245–267) resolves this puzzle by employing an asymmetric information framework and an assumption of a fundamental‐inconsistent target for the exchange rate. Ferré and Manzano ( International Journal of Finance and Economics, 14, 2009, 378–393) follow Vitale's microstructure framework and argue that the central banks' profitability motivation offers a rationale for their secret intervention even under a target consistent with the fundamentals. However, that the authority uses its superior information to obtain speculative profits through secret intervention in the market is not a typical goal for central banks. To theoretically explain the opaqueness in non‐profitmaking central banks' exchange rate policies, we employ a model of a central bank's optimization by considering that no bank really knows the exact fundamental rate and they take into account the possible bad consequences of announcing the intervention. We also show that, in passing the bank's private information to market participants, a bank's announcement of the intervention size is equivalent to revealing its target rate. (JEL E58, F39)     

The Anglo-Irish context for William Edward Hearn's economic beliefs and the ultimate failure of his Plutology

Abstract

William Edward Hearn is generally regarded as Australia's first economist of international note and his Plutology ([1863]1864) is invariably deemed to be Australia's first economics text. In this paper I argue that it is more appropriate to describe Hearn as an Anglo-Irish economist and, to this end, provide the Anglo-Irish context for the economic doctrines that he expressed in Plutology and elsewhere. I also argue that the failure of Plutology in the market place was, in part, due to a campaign waged against Hearn in London by John Elliot Cairnes, who was an undergraduate contemporary of Hearn's at Trinity College, Dublin.     

From the Encyclopédie to the Tableau économique : Quesnay on freedom of grain trade and economic growth

This paper investigates the evolution of Quesnay's economic thought between his Encyclopédie articles and the first edition of the Tableau économique. The rediscovery of a forgotten piece Quesnay included in an agricultural treatise — the Essai sur l'amélioration des terres — leads us to reconsider the origins of the first edition of the Tableau. This forgotten piece of writing is the missing link between Quesnay's first economic writings and the Tableau. It improves on the theory of grain trade liberalization Quesnay presented in his first writings on two levels. First, it reconstructs of his previous argument in order to give it a more coherent shape. Second, this text complements the Encyclopédie articles by a growth mechanism. Through a reconstruction of Quesnay's growth mechanism, we show that his argument is a significant analytical step toward the first edition of the Tableau.     

Distributing the Benefits from the Commons: A Square-Root Formula

What should be the distribution of the benefits of a fishery (or common-pool resource) where a group of fishers catch fish and sell it to consumers? I propose that, for each person i, where i is a fisher or a consumer, i's returns should be proportional to i's contributions. Unexpectedly, this implies that the fraction of benefits accruing to consumers must be √value of total output of fish/√value of total outputs of fish+√value of total fishers' labor.     

The modern foundations of Marx's monetary economics

The first chapters of Capital are still often ‘tlerated’, Mirowski (1986: 222) reminds us, as a ‘regrettable metaphysical residuum of [Max's] Hegelian [past]’. Such ‘tolerance’ has unfortunate consequences, howeve, not the least of which is Marx's reputation for ‘theoretical metallism’, simple and derivative. This paper builds on the recent efforts of de Brunhoff (1981), Lavoie (1983) and others to deconstruct, with support from Grundrisse and related texts, the important thrid chapter of Capital, Marx's account of the universal equivalent's four functions. As it is identified here, the chapter's core includes ‘pody-Keynesian’ elements– a reversal of the Ricardian view of the quantity equation, an effective demand principle in which capitalists’ dcisions about the recommitment of hoards assume a prominent role, and the deermination of interest rates, in the short term, on the basis of liquidity preference-– but does not include, in the conventional sense, a commodity theory of money.     

The impact of Fisher's Purchasing Power of Money in the German Language Area

Abstract

The paper focuses on the reception of Fisher's Purchasing Power of Money in the German language area. Despite widespread hostility of German economists to quantity theory, it was Germany where Wicksell's Interest and Prices was published in 1898, and the first foreign language translation of Fisher's book appeared in 1916. The hyperinflation in the early 1920s contributed to a greater interest in Fisher's approach. Among those economists who took the equation of exchange not only as a heuristic device, but also made some notable contributions themselves were Schumpeter, Marschak and Neisser.     

Globalisation, Growth and Crises: The View from Latin America

In this paper I analyse the role of openness and globalisation in Latin America's economic development. The paper is divided into two distinct parts: I first ( Sections 2 to 4 ) provide an analysis of 60 years of the region's economic history, that go from the launching of the Alliance for Progress by the Kennedy administration in 1961, to the formulation and implementation of the market oriented reforms of the Washington Consensus in the 1990s and 2000s. I conclude that Latin America's history has been characterised by low growth, high inflation and recurrent external crises. In Section 5 I deal formally with the costs of crises and I estimate a number of variance component models of the dynamics of growth. I find that external crises have been more costly in Latin America than in the rest of the world. I also find that the cost of external crises has been inversely related to the degree of openness.     

From bounties on exportation to the natural and market price of labour: Smith versus Ricardo

Abstract

The scope of this article is to examine the foundations of Smith's arguments and of Ricardo's criticisms on the issue of bounties on exportation. These criticisms are examined in the light of the counter-criticisms provided by a fictitious subject called Smith redivivus. These counter-criticisms highlight Ricardo's neglect of the differences between vérité de raison and vérité de fait and between the points of view of an individual and of society behind Smith's treatment of money vs. real, temporary vs. permanent and natural vs. market price of labour as labour and of commodities as products of labour.     

Alfred Marshall's use of Adam Smith: Coming to grips with an aspect of Alfred Marshall's citation practice

Abstract

This paper outlines Marshall's use of Smith's writings in his own published work as an aspect of Marshall's citation practice and to demonstrate Marshall's great admiration for Smith as economist. Section 2 reviews the Smith citations in Marshall's Principles of Economics', section 3 those in Marshall's other published work. The conclusion notes that this citation practice matches Marshall's great admiration Smith the economist, because of Smith's great ability to blend fact and theory, for drawing measured conclusions and, above all, for constructing useful arguments in a field of imprecise knowledge.     

The history of economics as economics?

Abstract

This paper critically evaluates the current decline of the relationship between economics and the history of economics, and proposes a framework called the panorama-cum-scenario model for the practice of the history of economics. Starting with the Hegelian thesis that the history of economics is economics itself, the paper argues that such a relationship is necessary but not sufficient because the history of economics is a metatheory addressed to economic theory. The history of economics needs a panoramic view of the subject and a scenario for the construction, interpretation, and evaluation of the system of economics. The panorama-cum-scenario model enables us to work on the history of economics not only by historical and rational reconstruction but also by global reconstruction. Nietzsche's anti-Hegelian viewpoint and Heidegger's hermeneutical standpoint are useful for identifying the role of historical research in developing economic knowledge based on the panorama-cum-scenario model. Several approaches to the history of economics are examined in light of the panorama-cum-scenario model. Schumpeter's history of economics is interpreted as an example of the panorama-cum-scenario model.     

A historiographical exhumation of J.A. Hobson's Over-Saving Thesis: General theory versus historiography

Abstract

The discussion of J.A. Hobson's understanding of over-saving has been largely confined within John Maynard Keynes' famous critique in the General Theory. I argue that gauging Hobson's contribution by ‘general theory’, that is, by an ahistorical, non-evolutionary yardstick, is to miss the larger part of Hobson's achievement. Hobson's conception of over-saving was contained within an evolving historiography of capital accumulation and took on various meanings depending on whether Hobson was discussing a competitive or monopolistic environment. I show that Keynes' ‘corrected’ version of over-saving was implicitly contained within Hobson's analysis of an evolving monopolistic industrial structure.     

Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success

Abstract

This essay is a comment on“The Citation Impact of Feminist Economics”by Frances Woolley, which appeared in Feminist Economics, Vol. 11, No. 3, November 2005.

This contribution comments on Frances Woolley's recent Feminist Economics article, “The Citation Impact of Feminist Economics.” It points to two avenues through which Woolley's article could have better illuminated the extent of Feminist Economics' scholarly relationship with the communities of both heterodox and mainstream economists: first, she omits several important heterodox economic journals in her study, and second, she could have offered a more critical evaluation of mainstream journals and economists relative to Feminist Economics and feminist economists. This paper uses citation data drawn from ten heterodox and ten mainstream journals to identify and build on these gaps.     

Hayek,Mach, and the re-ordering of mind

This paper argues that Friedrich A. v. Hayek's theory of mind and the relation between mental and physical events, most systematically presented in his 1952 book, The Sensory Order, is indebted to Ernst Mach's theory, and, in particular, to his Analysis of Sensations, above and beyond what Hayek himself along with multiple admirers of his work ever cared to admit. By highlighting a number of important similarities between Mach's and Hayek's theories of the psychical/phenomenal and physical world/order, the paper aims to show that key aspects of Hayek's theory of mind can be traced to Mach's theoretical foundations. The paper further argues that some of the criticisms Hayek levels against Mach concern nonessential points, arise from the uncritical acceptance of common misinterpretations of Mach's theory, or are plainly wrong.     

Reading Sraffa's Indices – a note *

Piero Sraffa took thirteen years to publish the General Indexto The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo.The Index is compared to others and is shown to be exceptional in that it leads the way to specific interpretations of Ricardo's life and theory. The choice of entries referring to theory is based on Ricardo's own concepts and carefully avoids neoricardian, Marxian and neoclassical terms. Examples discussed concern ‘comparative advantage’ and ‘value’ The entries referring to Ricardo's life are proof of Sraffa's broad historical interests and focus on certain characteristics of Ricardo.     

An overview of probability,expectations, uncertainty and rationality in Keynes's conceptual framework 1

Keynes's writings on the cognate topics of probability, expectations, uncertainty and rationality exhibit considerable complexity. This paper seeks to provide a clarifying overview of his position on these topics, both in his main philosophical workThe treatise on probability, and his main economic workThe general theory. It is argued that the most useful approach for understanding the deeper structure of Keynes's thought in each work is by means of a two-dimensional, two-domain analysis.Such an analysis helps demonstrate some of the ways in which the conceptual framework of The treatise on probability provides an essential part of the philosophical foundations of The general theory, while at the same time recognizing some of the key differences between the two works. It also illuminates Keynes's non-neoclassical theorization of rationality, and his path-breaking attempt to develop a theory of rationality under irreducible uncertainty.     

Culture and Economics: On Values,Economics and International Business

In his Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen compares the two basic approaches to evaluating institutions, transcendental institutionalism and realization-focused comparisons. Referring to Adam Smith's Impartial Spectator, he argues in favor of the latter and proposes the principle of open impartiality. However, this cannot solve the tension between universalism and contextualization of values that Sen has inherited from Smith. Based on recent Hegel scholarship, we argue that some of the difficulties can be resolved, considering the role Smith played in the development of Hegel's thinking. Hegel's concept of recognition plays an essential role in establishing the possibility of impartiality both on the level of consciousness and on the level of institutional intersubjectivity. Hegel's critique of Kant's formalist ethics (also considered as transcendental institutionalism by Sen) and his analysis of the civil society in the Philosophy of Right, especially his focus on associations and Estates, can serve as a model for making Sen's focus on public discourse theoretically more concise and pragmatically feasible. Hegel shows that universalistic attitudes can only emerge in specific institutional contexts.