First published in 1960, this seminal work illuminates the interrelations of the various approaches to the theory of economic growth. Professor Meade seeks to understand the factors which determine the speed of economic growth and outlines the ways in which classical economic analysis may be developed for application to the problem of economic growth.
The financial crisis and the economic crisis that followed triggered a crisis in the subject of economics, as it is typically being taught today especially in macroeconomics and related fields. A renewed interest in earlier authors, especially the classical economists from Adam Smith to David Ricardo and John Maynard Keynes, developed. This book may also be seen as a response to this interest. What can we learn from the authors mentioned, what we could not learn from the mainstream? This volume contains a selection of essays which deepens and widens the understanding of the classical approach to important problems, such as value and distribution, growth and technical progress, and exhaustible natural resources. It is the fourth collection in a row and reflects an on-going discussion of the fecundity of the classical approach. A main topic of the essays is a comparison between the classical approaches with modern theory and thus an identification of what can be learned by elaborating on the ideas of Smith and Ricardo and Marx above and beyond and variously in contradiction to certain mainstream view. Since the work of Piero Sraffa spurred the revival of classical economic thought, his contributions are dealt with in some detail. The attention then focuses on economic growth and the treatment of exhaustible resources within a classical framework of the analysis.
The essays in this collection argue that the 'classical' approach to economic problems holds the key to an explanation of important present day economic phenomena.
This book, which was first published in 1980, is concerned with one particular branch of growth theory, namely descriptive growth theory. It is typically assumed in growth theory that both the factors and goods market are perfectly competitive. In particular this implies amongst other things that the reward to each factor is identical in each sector of the economy. In this book the assumption of identical factor rewards is relaxed and the implications of an intersectoral wage differential for economic growth are analysed. There is also some discussion on the short-term and long-run effects of minimum wage legislation on growth. This book will serve as key reading for students of economics.
First published in 1990, this is an analysis of the history of western economics from Petty to Supply-Side, through the prism of the controversies over productive labour and its product. It treats the early economists’ "productive-unproductive" dichotomies as shorthands for many other sets of distinctions relevant for boundaries, value and welfare. Central to the debates is the question of whether the economy is said to generate a ‘surplus’. Economists and politicians with views on these matters include the Physiocrats, Smith and Ricardo, Marx and his Soviet and western admirers, the marginalists, Keynes, Polanyi, Becker, and Reagan. The book maps the shifting emphases that economists and social thinkers have placed on markets and ‘mode’ of production generally. This reissue will be useful to students of economic thought, welfare theory and policy, growth economics and economic systems.
Heinz Kurz is recognised internationally as a leading economic theorist and a foremost historian of economic thought. This book pays tribute to his outstanding contributions on the occasion of his 65thbirthday by bringing together a unique collection of new essays by distinguished economists from around the world. Keynes, Sraffa, and the Criticism of Neoclassical Theory comprises twenty-three essays, covering themes in Keynesian economic theory, in the development of the modern classical approach to economic theory, linear production models, and the critique of neoclassical theory. The essays in this book will be an invaluable source of inspiration for economists interested in economic theory and in the evolution of economic thought. They will also be of interest to postgraduate and research students specialising in economic theory and in the history of economic thought.
Global warming is an increasing problem, tropical forests are being wiped out and major upper watersheds are being degraded. Using insights provided by environmentalism, ecology and thermo-dynamics, this book – first published in 1989 – outlines an economic approach to the use of natural resources and particularly to the problem of environmental degradation. Edward Barbier reviews and critiques the long past of environmental and resource economics and then goes on to elaborate an economics which allows us to develop alternative strategies for dealing with the problems faced. With examples drawn from Latin America and Indonesia, he not only develops a major theoretical advance but shows how it can be applied. Barbier’s work is an important and relevant contribution to the discussion surrounding the economics of environmental sustainability.
First published in 1992, this volume brings together contemporary studies and reviews the research which established the study of networks as an area in its own right. By looking at the foundations of industrial networks and analysing network methodology and modelling, this book offers an integrated and coherent approach to the whole area. Covering small group analysis, network change processes and implications for business strategy, and presenting new ways to exploit inter-organisational relationships in the face of change, it tackles key issues with important implications for the future. This book will be of interest to students of economics and business.
First published in English 1929, this is a reissue of the nineteenth edition of Othmar Spann's classic history of economic thought, which is strongly influenced by the German Romantic tradition. Spann intended the work to serve as both history of economic thought and a critique of the main theories and systems of political economy, analysing the basic problems of economics in the light of the evolution of economic theory. His study encapsulates everything from pre-mercantile economics through to the political economy of the early twentieth century, encompassing such diverse subjects as the physiocratic system, the development of German political economy and the evolution of socialism.
First published in 1977, David Levine's Economic Studies offers a critique and reconstruction of the theoretical conception of economic life. The premise of the study is that only an investigation of the system of elementary economic relations - value, capital, production - can overcome the confusion and misdirection which baffles progress in all areas of economic theory, and lay the foundation for further development of economic science. Levine discusses both the origins of economic science and the character of contemporary economic thought. He presents a critique of the ideas of classical political economy and of the notion of a 'labor theory of value' which excludes the possibility of a science of economic relations.
