Concentric circles of limits to the rate of accumulation: an interpretation of Joan Robinson's theory of economic dynamics

In addition to her well-known contributions to the theory of capital, Joan Robinson provided, in her Accumulation of Capital and Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth, a theory about the determinants of the rate of growth. The growth rate was limited by entrepreneurs' animal spirits. Within that constraint, growth might be further limited by the inflation barrier, which could occur either because of a floor to real wages or because of full employment. This paper provides a series of simple dynamic models that illustrate these situations, drawing attention to this neglected aspect of her work and making it easier to compare her work with the monetary growth models produced by her neoclassical contemporaries.     

Perspectives on Michael A. Bernstein's A Perilous Progress: Economists and Public Purpose in Twentieth-Century America *

The article compares Joseph Schumpeter's well-known perspectives of long term economic development with those put forward in the 1920's by the German economist Werner Sombart who followed an approach of ‘theoretical historicism’. There was general agreement between Schumpeter and Sombart that capitalism as an economic system was on the decline. Whereas according to Sombart this was attributable to a tendancy towards stagnation; in Schumpeter's view capitalism was doomed due to its success, not for its failure. The strongest parallels are to be found with respect to forces driving the transformation process, at the end of which Schumpeter expected a socialist system whereas Sombart envisioned some kind of mixed economy. The article also discusses the relevance of differences of approaches and of value judgments for the results of both authors' investigations.     

John Maynard Keynes: Artist, Philosopher, Economist

In this paper, we argue that there is a strong case for considering Keynes, not as an economic scientist in the modern sense of the term, but as a philosopher–economist comparable with Hume, Smith, Mill, and Sidgwick. Although he took his technical economics from Marshall, the use he made of it, and the system he created was impossible to understand apart from his role in the Bloomsbury group, whose values he shared and helped to forge.