Adam Smith recognized that there was a severe problem in all free market economies that no “Invisible Hand of the Market” could ever deal with effectively. Based on his readings of Plato (Socrates) and Aristotle, Smith explicitly identified a certain segment of upper income class individuals...

This chapter surveys the classificatory approaches of business cycles and crises theories found in dictionary articles. These are found to belong to a surprisingly small number of types. At first, dictionary writers only cited the theories they wanted to disprove. Then (especially in Germany in...

The recognition of the key importance of economic stability after World War I sparked interest in business forecasting on both sides of the Atlantic. This article explores the creation and the rapid international and domestic dissemination of the Harvard Index of General Business Conditions in...

It is sometimes pointed out that economic research is prone to move in cycles and react to particular events such as crises and recessions. The present paper analyses this issue through a quantitative analysis by answering two closely related research questions: (1) whether or not there are...

In a 1957 paper, Robert Solow exploited the mathematical properties of the aggregate production function to isolate the role of disembodied “technical change” in economic growth. Solow's method allowed to disentangle the role of technical change from that of production factors, with the...

This paper provides a theoretical and empirical evaluation of neo-Kaleckian supermultiplier and neo-Goodwinian models. The benchmark structuralist and Harrodian neo-Goodwinian models posit a macro economy with only one asset: the capital stock. Demand leakages presuppose that at least one sector...

We use individual level data covering 30 mostly post-communist and developing countries which account for over a fifth of the worldwide immigrant stock to assess the impact of risk aversion on the willingness to migrate. Consistent with theories of individual level migration decisions, risk...

The 2007/8 financial crisis has reignited the debate about austerity economics and revealed that it remains a highly contested, yet poorly understood idea. This article locates the debate in its historical context, tracing it from the early 18th and 19th century Classical debates, which focused...