This work offers the first comprehensive comparison between the philosophy of Adam Smith and that of his successor, Thomas Reid. It looks at Reid's and Smith's remarkably similar accounts of human perception and judgement, and at their different moral and economic theories. In this way, this...

As with many philosophers of the modern period, Smith's thought was highly influenced by the advent of modern, Newtonian physics as well as by the so-called mechanistic worldview. However, the adoption of this theoretical paradigm leads to an aporia, i. e., to a fundamental problem, within...

In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith argued against the account of human nature which views moral sentiments as deriving from self-love. This paper emphasises that Smith's understanding of human nature was not that it was either selfish or benevolent. Human nature consists of the ability to...

Commentators often follow David Ricardo in looking, especially, at chapters Vand VI of Book I of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations as the place to find his theory of value. And most commentators attribute to Adam Smith some versions of a labor theory of value. But in those chapters, Smith is...

Based on some of Carl Menger's publications, his estate and archives, this article examines how the Austrian School relates to the thought of Adam Smith. Was Menger an heir of Smith, as Gustav Schmoller, leader of the German Historical School and Menger's arch-enemy, insinuated? Was there indeed...

On the 300th anniversary of his birth, one thing can be said about Adam Smith: entire libraries (real and digital) have been filled with analyses of his thought. This trend does not seem to be on the verge of ending soon. Everybody hopes to uncover the "real Smith." This article has a more...

How can we better understand the relationship between capitalism and democracy today? This article challenges the prevailing "independence thesis" that views capitalism and democracy as separate and often antagonistic systems. By revisiting Adam Smith's integrationist approach to political...

"Adam Smith's science of the legislator and the "virtues of the statesman" are understood as a kind of higher order-liberalism, coming close to what Colander and Freedman call "the liberal methodology" pertinent to the role of economics in policy-making. Evolving socio-economic heterogeneities,...

In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith lays out an account of ethics based on reflected passions towards our neighbours. I argue that this account can inform theories of intergenerational justice. Existing approaches implicitly focus on claims of justice between generations, not...

This article treats Smith's writings on patriotism and universal benevolence in the final edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments by placing them in some broader contexts. Smith affirmed proper patriotism as virtuous and consistent with the Christian ethic of universal benevolence. Proper...

"The data from text digitization show that "liberal" acquired a sustained political signification for the first time around 1769: the liberal policy principles of Adam Smith and his associates. The bodies of evidence include: (1) the non-occurrence in English prior to 1769 (with a few...

This article examines the interpretation of Adam Smith's writings in The Birth of Biopolitics, where Foucault delves into market processes, the government's role, the nature of economic knowledge, the dynamics of the "invisible hand," and the complex relationship between society and the state....

Der in der Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Jena aufbewahrte Nachlass der Publizistin Edith Eucken-Erdsiek enthält reiches Quellenmaterial zu den weltanschaulichen Debatten der Weimarer Republik, zu Leben und Werk von Walter Eucken und zur Geschichte des Ordoliberalismus zwischen...

Keynes's Principle of Effective Demand is widely recognized not only as a major theoretical innovation but also as one of the core concepts uniting various post-Keynesian strands. However, Keynes's own treatment of the Principle of Effective Demand - known as the Z/D model and identified by...

Early on Sunday morning, February 20, 1955, Friedrich Hayek and his wife Helene arrived at the airport in Cairo, Egypt, where he was greeted by the Director of Research of the National Bank of Egypt, Dr. Nikoli Koestner. Beginning the next evening and over the subsequent days, Hayek gave four...

Homo economicus has justly been identified as the universal bogeyman of economics. Economic man, having been showered with criticism for a century and a half, continues to occupy critics to this day. Plenty of economists in the previous century have proclaimed the death of homo economicus and...

The vast majority of economists reject the relevance of theology for their discipline. This paper challenges that consensus. Theological anthropology sees human beings as simultaneously created in the image of God, but also as fallen (through original sin). I argue that the combination of the...

This paper critiques constrained optimization as the dominant framework in contemporary economics by revealing its implicit theological flaw: the assumption that constraints are inherently bad. The author traces the development of Homo Economicus from Mill through Robbins to Becker, examining...

This contribution reviews key developments in Kaleckian economics after Kalecki, with a focus on its application to mature capitalist economies. Rather than revisiting interpretations of Kalecki's original work, the contribution highlights subsequent theoretical and empirical extensions. It...

This paper challenges the prevailing narrative that mathematical economics, particularly in the post-war era, neglected the study of social institutions. According to the common view, the concept of institutions was largely abandoned following the decline of institutionalism, only to be revived...

It is widely believed that Friedrich von Hayek's first encounter with Gunnar Myrdal involved the latter's last-minute contribution, as a replacement for Erik Lindahl, to a Sammelband edited by the former in 1933, and that Hayek was lukewarm towards Myrdal and his ideas from the very beginning....

This essay examines the contemporary discourse on inflation through the lens of Wittgenstein's late work on language games. Using his concept of hinge propositions - beliefs upon which language games depend - I offer a novel perspective on the public good that is price stability. In particular,...

This factsheet provides an overview of this European Universities alliance, including on its partners, focus areas, vision and activities undertaken. It relates to the pioneering new learning opportunities across borders developed by the alliance, the innovative European inter-university campus...

This factsheet provides an overview of this European Universities alliance, including on its partners, focus areas, vision and activities undertaken. It relates to the pioneering new learning opportunities across borders developed by the alliance, the innovative European inter-university campus...

It is widely believed that Friedrich von Hayek's first encounter with Gunnar Myrdal involved the latter's last-minute contribution, as a replacement for Erik Lindahl, to a Sammelband edited by the former in 1933, and that Hayek was lukewarm towards Myrdal and his ideas from the very beginning....

We provide a brief primer on how the core of usable macroeconomic theory for monetary policymakers has evolved over the past 50 years. Today's policy discussions center on the New Keynesian (NK) synthesis, which builds on the Neoclassical growth model and the AS-AD framework. It incorporates...

Social media have made it possible for us to display our vanity and court the attention of others at an unprecedented scale. This article engages Adam Smith's account of vanity to offer a fresh perspective on the online attention economy, focusing primarily on users' desire for attention and...

This work identifies the intellectual influences that supported Hayek's computational perspective as well as recognition that Hayek received from computational theorists in the decades following the publication of The Sensory Order. Having outlined Hayek's computational approach, I argue that 1)...

The correspondence of historical personalities serves as a rich source of psychological, social, and economic information. Letters were indeed used as means of communication within the family circles but also a primary method for exchanging information with colleagues, subordinates, and...