Nancy Cartwright views models as blueprints for nomological machines - machines that, if properly shielded, generate law-like behaviour or regularities. Marcel Boumans has argued that we can look for devices inside models, which enable us to measure aspects of these regularities. Therefore, if...

This is a unique account of the role played by 58 figures and diagrams commonly used in economic theory. These cover a large part of mainstream economic analysis, both microeconomics and macroeconomics and also general equilibrium theory.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the impact the Unemployment-Vacancy (UV) curve (or Beveridge curve) had on economic theory and to provide an account of the subsequent radical changes in its place and role over the decades since its first appearance in 1958. The paper...

During the interwar period, the Netherlands experienced a phase of rapid industrialization and mechanization and saw the introduction of many new labor-saving techniques on the shop floor. This process, which went under the name “rationalization of production,” caused great concern in the...