Between 1954 and 1955, in the context of a project launched by the Unesco social research section on the effects of agrarian reform in Italy, Manlio Rossi-Doria took on responsibility for and coordination of the surveys to be carried out at Scandale, a commune in the Marquisate of Crotone, in...

It has been widely accepted that philosophers of science wrote a “swansong” for positivism during the second half of the 20th century. Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson, major contributors in the fi eld of economic methodology at the time, the argument goes, never refl ected the demise....

This article introduces the collection of the translated versions of a number of essays published in Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali (RISS) during the 1940s and 1950s, under the directorship of Francesco Vito. More generally, this essay deals with the diverse topics discussed in RISS...

Few economists choose to write memoirs, and of those who do most adopt the "logic of my contributions£ approach. Tibor Scitovsky, Hungarian-born theorist who spent most of his career at Stanford and Berkeley, instead left us unpublished recollections, many of his childhood, others bearing on...

Financing patterns in corporate takeovers and private equity deals over the last twenty years demonstrate the widespread application of Rolnick and Weber’s (1986) extension of one of the most venerable principles of monetary economics: Gresham’s Law. Two currencies, corporate securities (bad...

In this study, the historical roots of individuality will be examined. According to the view of economic individuality, pursuit of self-interest is the fundamental motivation for all of human beings. When we look into the eighteenth century, the main argument was whether the rise of the...

This paper tells you everything you need to know in order to impress your friends with your knowledge of the most famous people and the useful past of the subject of economics. However, it is recommended that this paper should not be read in the company of anyone who reads dusty old books, and...

There is now a large and complex literature on optimal income taxation, within the context of second-best welfare economics. This paper considers the potential role of this analysis in the practical design of direct tax and transfer structures. It is stressed that few results are robust, even in...