This article, presented to the Annual Conference of the History of Economics Society, Vancouver July 1996, gives a historical analysis of the origins of the general equilibrium or comparative static approach and demonstrates that economic thought as a whole is divided, in each of its schools of...

The purpose of this paper is twofold: on the one hand is to discuss Ricardo’s version of the labour theory of value; and on the other hand, is to analyse some crucial aspects of Ricardo’s theory of taxation as an extension and further elaboration of his theory of value. This discussion is...

The question of the long-run prospects of profitability and its association with the stage of capital accumulation have occupied central importance in the history of economic thought. This paper focuses on Marx and Keynes and argues that Marx’s analysis, despite its incomplete nature, is...

The purpose of this article is, on the one hand, to shed light on some significant aspects of Ricardo's theory of value and on the other hand to show that Ricardo's insights about the explanatory power of the relative labour times on the movement of relative prices were in the right direction....

This paper reviews Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty's Capital seeks to bring the issue of inequality back to the centre of social analysis and to encourage discussion about the evolution of wealth and inequality with a view to inform policy. The book uses data...

This book presents the history of economic thought as it relates to today’s most pressing problems, and it emphasizes the critical connection that exists between what may seem cold, unrealistic mathematical economic models, and the quality of everyday life of any citizen of the planet earth....

This paper argues that Keynes’s analysis of the marginal efficiency of capital is consistent with the principle of effective demand and is, in this sense, characteristically different from the related classical or neoclassical conceptualisations. Furthermore, the notion of the marginal...

This is a pre-publication of the chapter of the same name which was first published in Freeman et al (2001), reproduced with the kind permission of the publishers. I have re-organized it for scholarly use as a separate text, with the references included and with footnotes instead of endnotes. I...

The general idea about unproductive labour and the associated with it activities is that they tend to expand and by expanding reduce the investible product and the growth potential of the economy, however little is known about the determinants of their movement. In this study, we take a closer...

The recent recession has brought a sharp decrease in income, output, and world trade, as well as an increase in unemployment in developed and underdeveloped countries. Experts such as Paul Krugman, Christina Romer, or Barry Eichengreen, compare the current situation with the Great Depression of...