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The Interrelation of Theory and Economic History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

W. W. Rostow
W. W. Rostow
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Extract

I Do not much hold with ardent debate about method. A historian method is as individual—as private—a matter as a novelist's style. There is good reason for reserve—even reticence—on this subject, except insofar as we seek to share each other's unique professional adventures and to listen occasionally, in a mood of interest tempered with skepticism, to such general reflections as we each would draw from those adventures.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 1957 , pp. 509 - 523
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1957

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References

1 We can, of course, track our ancestry to Adam Smith, in which case we have done briefs, for both sides on the issue of free trade, as indeed we (and other historians) have done oni most major issues of public policy.

2 The upper turning point in modern business cycle theories, for example, is usually traced back to a short-period rise in saving (reflecting the diminished relative marginal utility of consumption with a rise in income); to supply bottlenecks and cost increases (reflecting short-period diminishing returns); to a short or long-period exhaustion of avenues for profitable investment adequate to sustain full employment (again reflecting diminishing returns); or to some combination of these factors.

3 For further discussion see the author's Process of Economic Growth (London, 1953), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

4 This case could, of course, be reversed; that is, it could be regarded as a debate between those who held to classic assumptions and those who faced the long-period reality of inflexible money wage rates. Politically, the Keynesians were the men of the short-period; in theory, the Pigovians.

5 See, for example, The First Indian Five-Year Plan (New Delhi, 1951), Ch. iiGoogle Scholar.

6 See Eckaus, R. S., “The Factor Proportion Problems in Underdeveloped Areas”, American Economic Review, XLV (09. 1955), 539-65.Google Scholar

7 See, for example, Haavelmo, T., A Study in the Theory of Economic Evolution (Amsterdam, 1954)Google Scholar.

8 See Capital Formation and Economic Growth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955)Google Scholar.

9 Kuznets, S., Moore, W. E., and Spengler, J. J., Economic Growth: Brazil, India, Japan (Durham: Duke University Press, 1955)Google Scholar.

10 See, notably, Rustow, D., “New Horizons for Comparative Politics,” World Politics, IX (06 1957), 530–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarSee also Kahin, George McT., Pauker, Guy J., and Pye, Lucian, “Comparative Politics of non-Western Countries, American Political Science Review, XLIX (21. 1955), 1022–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.