In 1481 when King John II ascended to the throne of Portugal, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. A quarter of a century later, Portugal all but ruled the world, economically and scientifically – at least. This article seeks to investigate the policy decisions of King John II and his successor,...

Gordon Tullock denied the scientific status to economics because economists can trade results with the subject of our analysis, e.g., “you can have a low estimate for nothing but a high one will cost you something.” We suppose this to be the fate all disciplines in which the results matter...

Economists have occasionally noticed the appearance of economists in cartoons produced for public amusement during crises. Yet the message behind such images has been less than fully appreciated. This paper provides evidence of such inattention in the context of the eighteenth century...

The scholars of the History of Economic Thought, irrespective of their ideological school, have always regarded Adam Smith as the founding father of the discipline of political economy. Particularly, the first seeds of the economics discipline were believed to be sowed by An Inquiry into the...

This paper attempts to uncover the relevance of Cicero's thought to present-day management through an analysis of his last philosophical work, On Duties. Applying a methodology grounded in Socratic skepticism, Cicero synthesizes the Stoics and Aristotle to create his own moral theory. From this...

I review the contributions to Scholastic economic philosophy made by Duns Scotus in the Opus Oxoniense, showing that Duns Scotus makes considerable advances in the understanding of exchange, the legitimization of trade, and the development of the Church's traditional teaching on usury. I then...

One of the most debated issues today in the social sciences is the relationship between ethics and economics. Martin de Azpilcueta's (1492-1586) writings on morality hold a distinguished place in the theological literature of the early modern era because he addressed many of the fundamental...

The ethical and legal thought of Thomas Aquinas and F. A. Hayek emerged out of distinct philosophical traditions. Aquinas, following the Aristotelian tradition, emphasized the inexact character of ethics and hence the mutability of law due to the contingency of particular circumstances. Hayek,...

The last three years have witnessed a dramatic turn in the public's perceptions of business. At the height of the 1990's boom, business pursuits were widely held in high esteem, with entrepreneurs, financiers, and corporate executives seen as exemplifying a multitude of virtues. With the recent...

This study suggests that the origins of the economics of technical change go back to many years before Schumpeter’s contributions. The Scottish philosopher John Rae with his book Statement of Some New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy, issued in 1834, put forward the basis of the...