Sketches the history of economic thought regarding the self-expanding growth of investments through the accrual of compound interest. Exercises that calculate such growth in terms of “doubling times” have already been found in Babylonian textbooks from c. 2000?BC. Although compound interest...

Econometrics labours under the same limitations as economics: it rests on unrealistic hypotheses (and non-operational concepts) and is isolated from other sciences. It should try to test economic hypotheses and estimate relationships that constitute theory, notwithstanding the poor available...

Describes how mathematics enjoyed a virtual monopoly as the privileged method of economic inquiry in the post-war period. Counters the argument that such a position generates negative consequences, such as monopoly rents and the abuse of dominant positions. Argues that competing schools of...

Based on the proceedings of a conference organised by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Chicago, 1999. The Editors demonstrate, through contributions from business historians and economists, that “advanced research” has superceded the neo-classical theory of the firm.

The focus of this paper is the economic theory of the plans for the European Monetary Union. Part 1 demonstrates that economists, bankers and policy makers know very little about monetary policy. Part 2 explains the errors of the common practice of defining money by its functions. Because any...

Seeks to define the proper role for mathematics to play in economic theorizing by spelling out its limits. Specifically, has the mathematization of economics contributed to its narrowing of scope since the anti-classical reaction of the 1870s? If so, is mathematics inherently narrow? Or does the...

Discusses the economic thought of Hans von Mangoldt (1824-1868). We discuss how this German classical author seems to anticipate later “neoclassical” ideas, such as Schumpeter’s theory of the entrepreneur, Marshall’s partial price analysis and the graphical representation of supply and...

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.

Reproduces the main texts of hitherto unpublished reminiscences of the style and influence, as a teacher, of Allyn Abbott Young (1876-1929) by 17 of his distinguished students. They include Bertil Ohlin, Nicholas Kaldor, James Angell, Lauchlin Currie, Colin Clark, Howard Ellis, Frank Fetter,...

Begins by focusing on the rise of formalism in the post-war period leading to virtual monopoly as far as the method of economic analysis is concerned, and on the main consequences of this process. After mounting criticism of formalism, internal as well as external, it is acknowledged that some...