Research on the recent European financial crisis has prompted exploration of the harmonic and disharmonic views of international economic relations. The former, more liberal view is based on the Ricardian and Neoclassical trade theories. The latter is derived from pre-Smithian mercantilist...

The European crisis appears as the n-th “this time is different” episode of the financial liberalisation sequence cum fixed exchange rates, capital flows from the centre to the periphery, housing bubble, current account (CA) deficit and indebtedness, default. In the author’s view, although...

Contributions to Brancaccio and Fontana (2011) look at a variety of aspects of the current crisis, some of them focusing on the contingent financial causes, others on the underlying contradictions of capitalist economies. In this context, less attention has been paid to the role of Europe and...

This paper analyses the foundation of utilitarian ethics and theory of probability in the works of Francis Y. Edgeworth. We argue that he pursued an unitary philosophical project, the search for a common epistemological foundation for the social sciences. The common root of the disciplines is...

The aim of this paper is to investigate in some detail the origins of Knight’s antipositism and to assess the main influences that brought him to a change in methodological perspective after 1921. As importantly, what follows is also an attempt to increase our general understanding of the...

This note presents new archival evidence about John Maynard Keynes’ attitudes toward Jews. The relevant material is composed of two letters sent by Robert G. Wertheimer to Bertrand Russell and Richard F. Kahn along with their replies. Between 1963 and 1964, Wertheimer – an Austrian-born...

Probability theory has a central role in Edgeworth’s thought; this paper examines the philosophical foundation of the theory. Starting from a frequentist position, Edgeworth introduced some innovations on the definition of primitive probabilities. He distinguished between primitive...

This paper proposes a general interpretation of Edgworth’s thought based on the recognition of a unitary philosophical project in his contributions to ethics, economics, probability and statistics. This project consists in the search for a common epistemological foundation for the social...

The paper sheds new light on John Bates Clark’s mature position on the “trust” issue. Access to previously unpublished 1911 testimony before the Interstate Commerce Committee of the U.S. Senate, it is shown that, although Clark relied generally on competitive forces to keep monopoly power...

This paper presents and reproduces an unpublished oral history interview given by Jacob Viner in 1953. The interview released by Viner for the Columbia Oral History Project gives us a valuable opportunity to throw light on his advisory activity during the New Deal Era. In our introduction we...