Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:45:17.017Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Economics' Past and Present: Historical Analysis and Current Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

J. Allan Hynes
J. Allan Hynes
Affiliation:
University of Toronto, Department of Economics, 150 St. George St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3G7.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The place for the teaching of and research dealing with the history of economics continues to draw attention, at least from within our speciality. Recent examples are the History of Political Economy mini-symposium (1992) that was anchored to Margaret Schabas's paper and Donald Walker's affirming essay in the Journal of the History of Economic Thought (1999). The former asked whether the history of economics, given the neglect shown by mainstream economics, should be incorporated into history of science programs. The latter argued that this neglect is unfortunate because there is a place for the history of economics in the training of economists. (The neglect is documented by Aslanbegui and Naples (1997).) An important feature of Walker's essay is that the argument was based on structural aspects of the discipline. His point of departure was Donald Gordon's (1965) claim that there is little in the history of economic analysis that facilitates the understanding of current economics and the research problems with which it is concerned. Certainly the education of natural scientists, as Gordon noted, is consistent with this claim. George Stigler (1969) made a similar claim, and both more or less took the conclusion to be self-evident. Walker's response was that, at least among a variety of important sub-disciplines, there is not professional consensus and, therefore, there may not be a sharp distinction between current and past theory. This suggests that some form of historical analysis may be useful. Walker's paper moved the discussion away from arguments that begin with the presumption that every educated economist should be versed in the origins of economics. Instead, he focused on questions relating to history as a tool for understanding and for doing today's economics. In this respect, Walker returned to an issue addressed by Filippo Cesarano (1983)—they both focused on historical studies as a source of illumination for current economic analysis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 2001 , pp. 181 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aslanbeigui, Nahid and Naples, Michele I.. 1997. “The Changing Status of the History of Economic Thought in Economics Curricula.” In Aslanbeigui, Nahid and Choi, Y. B., eds., Borderlands of Economics: Essays in Honor of Daniel R. Fusfeld. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Baumans, Marcel. 1999. “Built-in Justification.” In Morgan, Mary S. and Morrison, Margaret, eds., Models as Mediators: Perspectives in Natural and Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bogaard, Adeienne van den. 1999. “Past Measurement and Future Prediction.” In Morgan, Mary S. and Morrison, Margaret, eds., Models as Mediators: Perspectives in Natural and Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brady, Dorothy S. and Friedman, Rose. 1947. “Savings and the Income Distribution.” In Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 10. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Cartwright, Nancy. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cesarano, Philippo. 1983. “On the Role of the History of Economic Analysis.” History of Political Economy 15 (Spring): 63–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duesenberry, James. 1948. “Income-Consumption Relations and their Implications.” Reprinted in Williams, Harold R. and Huffnagle, John D., eds., Macroeconomic Theory: Selected Readings. New York: Appelton-Century Crofts, 1969.Google Scholar
Duesenberry, James. 1949. Income, Saving and the Theory of Consumption Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Feyerabend, Paul. 1975. Against Method. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. 1980. Is There a Text in the Class? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton and Kuznets, Simon. 1945. Income From Independent Professional Practice. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton and Kuznets, Simon. 1957. A Theory of the Consumption Function. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Donald F. 1965. “The Role of the History of Economic Thought in the Understanding of Modern Economic Theory.” American Economic Review 55 (05): 119–27.Google Scholar
Gordon, Donald F. and Hynes, J. Allan. 1970. “On the Theory of Price Dynamics.” In Phelps, Edmund, ed., Microeconomic Foundations of Employment and Inflation Theory. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Hanson, Norwood R. 1958. Patterns of Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hynes, J. Allan. 1998. “The Emergence of the Neoclassica Consumption Function: The Formative Years, 1940–52.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 20 (Spring): 25–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hynes, J. Allan. 1999. “The Aggregate Consumption Function: A Study of an Adoption of Utility Theory.” University of Toronto: Department of EconomicsGoogle Scholar
Kalecki, M. 1935. “A Macrodynamic Theory of Business Cycles.” Econometrica 3 (07): 327–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro and Wright, Randall. 1989. “On Money as a Medium of Exchange.” Journal of Political Economy 97 (08): 927–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1977. “Second Thoughts on Paradigms.” In The Essential Tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1977. “The History of Science.” In The Essential Tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakatos, Imre. 1978. “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.” In Worrall, John and Curry, Gregory, eds., The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, Robert E. Jr. 1972. “Expectations and the Neutrality of Money.” Journal of Economic Theory 4 (04): 103–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. 1985. The Rhetoric of Economics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. 1990. If You're So Smart: The Narrative of Economic Expertise. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mirowski, Phillip 1989. More Heat than Light. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Modigliani, Franco. 1949. “Fluctuations in the Saving-Income Ratio: A Problem in Economic Forecasting.” In Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 11. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Modigliani, Franco and Brumberg, Richard. 1952. “Utility Analysis and Aggregate Consumption Functions An Attempt at Integration.” In Abel, Andrew, ed., The Collected Scientific Papers of Franco Modigliani, Vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Modigliani, Franco and Brumberg, Richard. 1954. “Utility Analysis and the Consumption Function.” In Post-Keynesian Economics. Reprinted in Abel, Andrew, ed., The Collected Scientific Papers of Franco Modigliani, Vol. 2. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Morgan, Mary S. and Morrison, Margaret, eds. 1999. Models as Mediators: Perspectives in Natural and Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, Margaret. 1999. “Models as Autonomous Agents.” In Morgan, Mary S. and Morrison, Margaret, eds., Models as Mediators: Perspectives in Natural and Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reid, Margaret G. 1952a. “Effect of Income Concept Upon Expenditure Curves of Farm Families.” In Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 15. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Reid, Margaret G. 1952b. “The Relation of the Within-Group Transitory Components of Incomes to the Income Elasticity of Family Expenditures.” Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Reuten, Geert. 1999. “Knife-edge Caricature Modelling: The Case of Marx's Reproduction Schema.” In Morgan, Mary S. and Morrison, Margaret, eds., Models as Mediators: Perspectives in Natural and Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A. 1937. “A Note on the Measurement of Utility.” Review of Economic Studies 4: 155–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schabas, Margaret. 1992. “Breaking Away: History of Economics as History of Science.” In E. Roy Weintraub, ed., “Minisymposium: The History of Economics and the History of Science.” History of Political Economy 24 (Spring): 185–247.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1939. “The Limitations of Statistical Demand Curves.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 34 (09): 469–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1949. “Monopolistic Competition in Retrospect.” In Five Lectures on Economic Problems. London: London School of Economics.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1950. “The Development of Utility Theory.” Journal of Political Economy 58 (08/10). Reprinted in Essays in the History of Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1969. “Does Economics Have a Useful Past?” History of Political Economy 1 (Fall): 107–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vickery, William. 1947. “Resource Distribution Patterns and the Classification of Families.” In Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 10. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Walker, Donald A. 1999. “The Relevance for Present Economic Theory of Economic Theory Written in the Past.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 21 (03): 7–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar