Economic Theory in RetrospectCambridge University Press, 1997 M03 27 - 725 pages This is a history of economic thought from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes - but it is a history with a difference. Firstly, it is history of economic theory, not of economic doctrines, that is, it is consistently focused on theoretical analysis, undiluted by entertaining historical digressions or biological colouring. Secondly, it includes detailed Reader's Guides to nine of the major texts of economics in the effort to encourage students to become acquainted at first hand with the writings of all the great economists. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
Division of labour 3 The measure and cause of value | 2 |
Says Identity and the quantity theory of money | 3 |
Costofproduction theory 5 Supplydetermined prices | 4 |
Solutions of the transformation problem | 5 |
Wages 7 Profits 8 Relative wages 9 Rent | 6 |
NOTES ON FURTHER READING | 8 |
Profit as unearned income 10 Marx and BöhmBawerk | 9 |
UTILITY | 311 |
Consumers surplus 14 Restatement | 352 |
COST AND SUPPLY | 363 |
Wants and activities 13 Marginal utility | 386 |
Equilibrium of demand and supply 21 Stability conditions | 392 |
The greatness of Marshalls contribution | 404 |
NOTES ON FURTHER READING | 405 |
MARGINAL PRODUCTIVITY AND FACTOR PRICES | 406 |
A social unit of accounting 11 The trend of prices | 10 |
Forced saving 12 Conclusion 160 | 11 |
Capital and income 13 Banking | 12 |
MALTHUSS THEORY OF GLUTS 13 Malthuss case 14 The doctrine of underconsumption | 13 |
Productive and unproductive labour | 14 |
An optimum investment pattern 16 Synoptic history | 15 |
The invisible hand 18 Taxation and the public debt | 17 |
The myth of a laboursaving bias | 19 |
Impoverishment of the working class 21 Economic imperialism | 20 |
The role of institutional assumptions | 22 |
READERS GUIDE TO CAPITAL 23 Value 24 Socially necessary labour 25 Commodity fetishism | 23 |
Theory of money 27 Surplus value 28 The Factory Acts | 26 |
Marxs use of historical material | 29 |
Division of labour and machinery | 30 |
NOTES ON FURTHER READING | 31 |
The accumulation of capital | 32 |
ADAM SMITH | 33 |
Primitive accumulation 35 The costs of distribution | 34 |
The theory of rent 36 The course of economic progress | 35 |
The turnover of capital 37 The reproduction schema | 36 |
The great contradiction again 39 The transformation problem | 38 |
The law of the falling rate of profit 41 Capitalsaving innovations | 40 |
The Wicksell Effect 42 Definitions of capital | 41 |
Foreign trade 43 Business cycles 44 Money and interest | 42 |
The accumulation of capital 44 Cassels theory of social economy | 43 |
Theory of rent 46 Marx as an economist | 45 |
Adam Smith as an economist | 59 |
NOTES ON FURTHER READING | 63 |
POPULATION DIMINISHING RETURNS AND RENT THE THEORY OF POPULATION 65 65 | 65 |
The population explosion 2 Malthuss analytical schema 3 The empirical content of the theory 4 Automatic checks 5 The optimum theory of populati... | 72 |
Malthusianism today | 73 |
DIMINISHING RETURNS AND THE THEORY OF RENT | 75 |
The law of diminishing returns 8 Differential rent 9 The alternative cost of land 10 Land as a factor of production 11 Site value taxation | 82 |
NOTES ON FURTHER READING | 84 |
RICARDOS SYSTEM 1 The theory of wheat profits or the corn model 2 The labour theory of value 3 Capital costs and labour values 4 The Ricardo ... | 105 |
READERS GUIDE TO THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 10 Value 11 Relative wages 12 The invariable measure of value 13 Demand ... | 123 |
The purchasing power parity theory 24 Says Law 25 Pessimism? 26 Monetary theory | 125 |
JOHN STUART MILL | 130 |
The Bullionist Controversy 28 The machinery question 29 Taxation 30 The lasting influence of Ricardo | 132 |
Ricardo in modern dress | 134 |
READERS GUIDE TO THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 1 Laws of production and distribution | 173 |
The doctrine of productive labour 3 Theory of capital 4 The wages fund doctrine | 178 |
Advance economics and synchronisation economics | 180 |
The machinery question | 181 |
The rate of growth of the factors of production 8 Socialism 9 Custom and the laws of distribution | 184 |
The distributive shares 11 The abstinence theory of interest 12 The theory of value 13 The quantity theory of money 14 Inflation 15 The loanable fu... | 196 |
International wage and price levels 22 Humes Law 23 Transfer payments 24 The ventforsurplus doctrine 25 The basis of a theory of international tra... | 202 |
Statics and dynamics 27 The falling rate of profit 28 The stationary state 29 Taxation 30 The incidence of taxes 31 The public debt 32 The scope of ... | 207 |
Education in classical economics | 208 |
The classical economists and the Factory Acts | 209 |
John Stuart Mill as an economist | 211 |
NOTES ON FURTHER READING | 213 |
75 | 220 |
NOTES ON FURTHER READING | 275 |
AN ABSOLUTIST OR RELATIVIST INTERPRETATION? | 277 |
The new departure 2 The maximisation principle 3 Value and distribution 4 The genesis of marginal utility theory 5 A multiple discovery? 6 When is... | 291 |
The catena 11 Disutility of labour 12 Negatively or positively sloped labour supply curves | 299 |
Marginal productivity theory 2 The normative implications 3 Exploitation 4 Is continuous substitution possible? | 411 |
The theory of imputation 6 Linear programming 7 The Hobson objection 8 The highwage economy theory 9 The present status of marginal producti... | 419 |
LINEARLY HOMOGENEOUS PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS | 421 |
Product exhaustion | 422 |
The formal properties of linearly homogeneous production functions | 425 |
The economic meaning of linearly homogeneous production functions | 433 |
THE OPTIMUM SIZE OF THE FIRM | 435 |
The indivisibility thesis 15 Genuine variable returns to scale 16 Diseconomies of management 17 The growth of firms THE THEORY OF PROFIT | 439 |
The meaning of pure profit 19 The entrepreneur as a factor of production | 440 |
The history of the concept of enterpreneurship | 441 |
Profit as a return to uncertainty bearing | 444 |
Profit as a return to innovations | 445 |
Profit as a return to arbitrage | 446 |
AGGREGATE PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS | 447 |
The concept of microproduction functions | 448 |
The problem of aggregation 26 Measurement of capital TECHNICAL CHANGE AND PROCESS INNOVATIONS | 454 |
Taxonomy 28 The automation bias in technical change | 460 |
The inducement mechanism 30 The neglect of technical change 31 Marginal productivity once again | 467 |
READERS GUIDE TO THE COMMON SENSE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY | 468 |
84 | 469 |
Consumer behaviour 33 The content of the maximand 34 Price formation 35 Supply as reverse demand 36 The doctrine of alternative costs | 472 |
THE AUSTRIAN THEORY OF CAPITAL | 480 |
The second reason 5 The third reason | 487 |
BöhmBawerks model 9 The definition of the average period | 495 |
The average period and the capitaloutput ratio | 502 |
Is switching likely? 18 A postmortem | 509 |
Willingness and opportunity 20 Rate of return over cost | 515 |
THE RICARDO EFFECT | 521 |
The concertina effect 28 The demonstration of the effect | 528 |
Utility and value 33 Welfare economics | 535 |
171 | 536 |
173 | 537 |
213 | 544 |
WALRASIAN GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM | 549 |
The concept of general equilibrium 2 The Walrasian system 3 The existence of general equilibrium 4 Stability and determinacy 5 The fall and rise of... | 557 |
READERS GUIDE TO THE ELEMENTS OF PURE ECONOMICS | 558 |
Capital theory | 566 |
Preface to the fourth edition 7 Definitions of basic terms 8 Bilateral exchange 9 Multilateral exchange 10 Theory of production 11 Theory of capital ... | 568 |
PARETIAN WELFARE ECONOMICS | 570 |
The optimum exchange conditions 18 A Pareto optimum 19 The Scitovsky double criterion 20 Recent welfare economics 21 The marginal conditions | 577 |
The optimal characteristics of perfect competition | 579 |
Costbenefit analysis | 591 |
Back to the conflict between efficiency and equity | 592 |
Competition as an endstate and competition as a process | 593 |
NOTES ON FURTHER READING | 595 |
SPATIAL ECONOMICS AND THE CLASSICAL THEORY OF LOCATION | 601 |
The isolated state 2 Rent theory 3 The Thünen problem again 4 The theory of rings 5 Industrial plant location theory 6 The threepoints problem 7 Sal... | 606 |
Webers theory of industrial location 10 Market area analysis 11 Isards general equilibrium theory 12 Linear transport functions 13 What survives of ... | 611 |
NOTES ON FURTHER READING | 612 |
Business cycles 16 Currency reform | 633 |
Is the demand for money stable? 19 Is money neutral? | 640 |
A METHODOLOGICAL POSTSCRIPT | 689 |
Index of names | 705 |
| 710 | |
| 713 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam Smith aggregate amount analysis argued argument assumption average Böhm-Bawerk Book capital capitalist chapter classical economics commodity concept constant consumer consumption demand curve determined diminishing returns distribution doctrine economic thought effect elasticity equal equations equilibrium exchange fact factor factor of production fall firm given growth hence history of economic income increase indifference curves industry inputs investment Jevons Keynes Keynes's Keynesian labour theory land long-run Malthus marginal utility Marshall Marshall's Marx Marx's maximise means mercantilist Mill monetary money wages optimum output perfect competition Phillips curve physiocratic population problem production function quantity theory rate of interest rate of profit ratio real wages relative prices rent returns to scale Ricardian Ricardo rise saving Say's Say's Law short run simply social supply curve surplus value technical change theory of value tion trade unemployment unit variable wage rate Walras welfare economics wheat Wicksell workers