Economic History books

The collection includes refereed articles on topics in economic methodology and the history of economics, including Austrian economic methodology and Wesley Mitchell. Review essays on new publications cover such topics as Adam Smith, John Kenneth Galbraith, Friedrich Nietzsche, Joseph Schumpeter, Janos Kornai, the Chicago School, French econometrics, financial economics, economic methodology, economists in parliament, the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the role of state power in economics.

This volume examines topics in the discourse and methodology of economics, focusing on the types of metaphor, the use of mathematics, and the "Economics of..." literature. Other articles deal with some continuities between Adam Smith and Max Weber, and pre-Keynesian heterodoxy in macro-monetary dynamics. A special section presents multiple reviews of books by Yuval Yonay and Perry Mehrling on American economic thought during the inter-war period. Also included are reviews covering topics such as Classical political economy, Marx, communitarianism, Scholasticism, Hume's political ideas, and rational expectations.

This volume includes referred articles, archival pieces, and book reviews. The first section deals with economics and AntiSemitism and focuses on the contribution of four leading economists: Werner Sombart; Thorstein Veblen; Maffeo Pantaleoni and the Italian corporatist Gino Arias. The second section comprises articles on several subjects: the notion of Pareto optimality; the OrdoLiberal conception of competition, and Keynes's German edition of the General theory. The archival section includes the English translation of a series of articles by Bertil Ohlin on the Great Depression, and of:" Pavel Illich Popov's "The Balance of the National Economy of the USSR."

Only after World War II did scholars move to theorize the distinction between the core countries at the center of capitalism and peripheral countries, often with an added distinction to include the semi-peripheral. Immanuel Wallerstein's World Systems approach has been particularly important and led the term periphery into common scholarly parlance. Not surprisingly, much work remains to be done to untangle the extreme diversity and complexity of the political economies and resistances against the multidimensional cruelties perpetrated in the world’s many, very different peripheral contexts.   Class History and Class Practices in the Periphery of Capitalism addresses this need head-on. A first chapter lays a theoretical groundwork by showing that Marx, in his later life, became aware that historical developments are much more complicated than he originally conceived them to be, and he was not as far away from calling for site-specific analyses. Contributions here carry out just such analyses: they describe specificities for Russia, Portugal, Argentina, and Mexico, offer broader perspectives on post-hegemonic Latin America and Asia, provide detailed analyses of resistances across Africa, and reflect on the deeper meaning of neozapatismo for promoting a shift in the entire terrain of discussion.   Rich in theoretical depth and empirical rigor, and supplemented by an out-of-the-archive translation of Karl Katusky's theory of crises, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of political economy and international political economy, and it is of keen interest to anyone working to resist specific capitalist exploitations in their own place and time.

Austrian economics is known for extensive—and many economists would say excessive—ruminations on methodology. Attempting to steer a middle course between radical forms of historicism (there are no economic laws) and scientism (economic laws are as precise as physical laws), this approach often appears to diminish the importance of empirical testing and quantitative methods more generally. Since the Austrian revival of the 1970’s, social scientists have developed a number of new theoretical and empirical approaches to studying the social world. Experimental and behavioral economics have exploded in popularity. Econometrics has arguably taken a more central role in the discipline than even formal economic theory. And, most prominently, econometricians have developed quasi-experimental techniques for examining real-world data as part of the “credibility revolution.” This volume, Contemporary Methods and Austrian Economics, examines the relationship between Austrian economics and these new social scientific methods. Do Austrian critiques of the excessive ambitions of formal theory and empirical measurement still hold water (if they ever did)? Do the findings of these new approaches bolster or undermine distinctively Austrian theories? How should we update our views on the relationship between abstract economic theory and empirical investigations?

Volume 26B continues, in part, the important graduate career of F. Taylor Ostrander, notable the year spent at Oxford University. Among his tutors and professors were some of the leading faculty at Oxford. The volume also contains two documents important for the history of Institutional Economics, John R. Commons' "Reasonable Value", his first effort leading to his Institutional Economics; and notes from Clarence E. Ayres' final course taught on institutional economics, at the University of Texas.

Volume 26C contains five sets of lectures taken by Glenn Johnson as a doctoral student in economics at the University of Chicago during 1946-7.Johnson went on to become a leading professor of agricultural economics at Michigan State University. At Chicago his professors were among the foremost in the country. They included Frank Knight, Milton Friedman, D. Gale Johnson, John U. Nef, and T. W. Schultz, several future Nobel Prize winners. Also included are notes by Mark Ladenson (also from Michigan State) at Northwestern and from a faculty seminar at MSU on comparative method.

Volumes 45a and 45b of Advances in Econometrics honor Joon Y. Park, Wisnewsky Professor of Human Studies and Professor of Economics at Indiana University. Professor Park has made numerous and substantive contributions to the field of econometrics since beginning his academic career in the mid-1980s and has held positions at Cornell University, University of Toronto, Seoul National University, Rice University, Texas A&M University, and Sungkyunkwan University. This first volume, Essays in Honor of Joon Y. Park: Econometric Theory, features contributions to econometric theory related to Professor Park’s analysis of time series and particularly related to the research of the first two or so decades of his career.

Volumes 45a and 45b of Advances in Econometrics honor Professor Joon Y. Park, who has made numerous and substantive contributions to the field of econometrics over a career spanning four decades since the 1980s and counting. This second volume, Essays in Honor of Joon Y. Park: Econometric Methodology in Empirical Applications, focuses on econometric applications related, some closely and some very loosely, to Professor Park’s more recent work before concluding with a retrospective summarizing four decades of Advances in Econometrics.

Both parts of Volume 44 of Advances in Econometrics pay tribute to Fabio Canova for his major contributions to economics over the last four decades. Throughout his long and distinguished career, Canova’s research has achieved both a prolific publication record and provided stellar research to the profession. His colleagues, co-authors and PhD students wish to express their deep gratitude to Fabio for his intellectual leadership and guidance, whilst showcasing the extensive advances in knowledge and theory made available by Canova for professionals in the field.  Advances in Econometrics publishes original scholarly econometrics papers with the intention of expanding the use of developed and emerging econometric techniques by disseminating ideas on the theory and practice of econometrics throughout the empirical economic, business and social science literature. Annual volume themes, selected by the Series Editors, are their interpretation of important new methods and techniques emerging in economics, statistics and the social sciences.