This paper attempts to cast light on the debate about the existence and size of a monetary overhang in household money balances in command economies. Four measures of shortage or price deformation are constructed for the Polish economy and used to test for the existence of ''shortage''money...

Reviews Milton and Rose D. Friedman’s, Two Lucky People: Memoirs, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998, $35 (£24.95), ISBN 0-226-26414-9. Focuses on how the memoirs illuminate the main contributions Friedman has made to political economy and the economics literature.

Considers two main strands of literature. The first deals with the tension between the falsificationist view of how economic know-ledge could or should be acquired, and the view that economics is a separate, deductive science. The second concerns the metaphors used in economic analysis, the main...

Looks at the relevance to economic systems of force field equilibrium metaphors. Points out that the force field view of physical reality developed in nineteenth century physics does not necessarily involve homeostasis and reversible time paths. Illustrates the properties of force fields with...

Assesses the NAIRU framework for analysing the determinants of equilibrium unemployment, as expressed in Layard, Nickell and Jackman's Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market. It is argued that the NAIRU has produced many useful insights regarding the effects of...

This paper considers three pillars of contemporary economic wisdom that form part of the so-called 'Washington consensus': that free markets work best; that price stability is a good thing; and that deregulated financial markets work best. We argue that these propositions apply in certain...

This paper deals with the way metaphors carried over from physical or biological systems condition the analysis of economic systems. The metaphors drawn from Newtonian mechanics, or from conservative fields of force, by neoclassical economists are discussed. Alternative metaphors which involve...

We argue that the Soros account of reflexivity does not provide a clear-cut distinction between a social science such as economics and the physical sciences. It is pointed out that the participants who attempt to learn from refutations of conjectures in the Soros world are likely to be haunted...