The Mediterranean Tradition in Economic Thought surveys the legacy of thinking on economic affairs from the countries in the Mediterraean basin over four millenia. It considers the economic content of the scriptures of the Mesopotamian civilisations, Pharaonic Egypt and the Biblical peoples and the contributions of the Greeks and Romans, and their influence on Islamic civilisation and on the Medieval scholastics. The flowering of the school of Salamanca as recently as the seventeenth century demonstrates how long-lived the tradition was, and throughout Baeck demonstrates how these ideas continue to survive and resurface, citing the renewed interest in the ethical dimension of economics, the revival of interest in the history of Islamic thought, and the re-emergence of Slavophile doctrines in contemporary Russian.
This thought-provoking monograph connects the idea of civil economy in Italian economic thought to the work of Thomas Aquinas. It will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in the history of economic thought, economic philosophy, Christian ethics and moral theology.
This reader in the history of economic thought challenges the assumption that today’s prevailing economic theories are always the most appropriate ones. As Leland Yeager has pointed out, unlike the scientists of the natural sciences, economists provide their ideas largely to politicians and political appointees who have rather different incentives that might prevent them from choosing the best economic theory. In this book, the life and work of each of the founders of economics is examined by the best available expert on that founding figure. These contributors present rather novel and certainly not mainstream interpretations of the founders of modern economics. The primary theme concerns the development of economic thought as this emerged in the various continental traditions including the Islamic tradition. These continental traditions differed substantially, both substantively and methodologically, from the Anglo-Saxon orientation that has been dominant in the last century for example in the study of public finance or the very construct of the state itself. This books maps the various channels of continental economics, particularly from the late-18th through the early-20th centuries, explaining and demonstrating the underlying unity amid the surface diversity. In particular, the book emphasizes the writings of John Stuart Mill, his predecessor David Ricardo and his follower Jeremy Bentham; the theory of Marginalism by von Thünen, Cournot, and Gossen; the legacy of Karl Marx; the innovations in developmental economics by Friedrich List; the economic and monetary contributions and “struggle of escape” by John Maynard Keynes; the formidable theory in public finance and economics by Joseph Schumpeter; a reinterpretation of Alfred Marshall; Léon Walras, Heinrich von Stackelberg, Knut Wicksell, Werner Sombart, and Friedrich August von Hayek are each dealt with in their own right.
A History of Portuguese Economic Thought offers the first account in English of the development of economic thought in Portugal. The authors adopt a comparative approach to analyse how economic doctrine, theories and policies have been disseminated and assimilated by Portuguese economists in different periods. They assess the influence on Portuguese economic thought of major economists such as Adam Smith, Keynes and Hayek.
This book is an introduction to medieval economic thought, mainly from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, as it emerges from the works of academic theologians and lawyers and other sources - from Italian merchants' writings to vernacular poetry, Parliamentary legislation, and manorial court rolls. It raises a number of questions based on the Aristotelian idea of the mean, the balance and harmony underlying justice, as applied by medieval thinkers to the changing economy. How could private ownership of property be reconciled with God's gift of the earth to all in common? How could charity balance resources between rich and poor? What was money? What were the just price and the just wage? How was a balance to be achieved between lender and borrower and how did the idea of usury change to reflect this? The answers emerge from a wide variety of ecclesiastical and secular sources.
Tracing the evolution of economic ideas in the context of the economic history and economic policy issues in Greece, this book examines the history of modern Greek economic thought from the War of Independence from Ottoman rule in 1821 until the present. The book explores how native, religious-oriented economic thought was secularized and merged with different economic discourses during successive historical periods. It traces how the dissemination of French and German economic thought in the 19th century was followed by British and US influences in the 20th century. The institutionalization of economics as a discipline in the 1920s and its internationalization after 1971, with their effects on the emergence of modern mainstream and heterodox thought, are also discussed. Finally, reference is made to contemporary Greek economic thought in the frame of European Union economic thinking. This book will be of interest to readers in the history of economic thought, economic history, intellectual history, Greek history, and modern European history more broadly.
This book is a collection of papers on the origins of economic thought discovered in the writings of some prominent Islamic scholars, during the five centuries prior to the Latin Scholastics, who include St. Thomas Aquinas. This period of time was labelled by Joseph Schumpeter as representing the 'great gap' in economic history. Unfortunately, this 'gap' is well embedded in most relevant literature. However, during this period the Islamic civilization was one of the most fertile grounds for intellectual developments in various disciplines, including economics, and this book attempts to fill that blind-spot in the history of economic thought.
On March 17, 2015, Brill was informed that the article by Francisco Gómez Camacho S. J., "Later Scholastics: Spanish Economic Thought in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries," in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice, ed. S. Todd Lowry and Barry Gordon (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 503-561 suffers from serious citation problems and that in some cases the original sources are never mentioned at all. It goes without saying that Brill strongly disapproves of such practices, which represent a serious breach of publication integrity. Brill condemns any violation of the authors' rights and the copyrights of the publishers, and distances itself from these practices. As a result Brill cannot stand behind the noted material as originally contained in this volume and for these reasons formally retracts the article by Francisco Gómez Camacho and also the volume. The volume will no longer be available in its current form. (Blurb: 13 scholars contribute to this survey of past discussions of the workings of economic structures and of justice in interpersonal relations, cultural institutions and the social order. They investigate the sources in each historic period from the world of the Old Testament and the ancient Greeks through to Spanish scholasticism and its offshoots in the Spanish Americas of the 18th century and relate the ideas of writers from the past to modern discussions.)
This collection of merchant documents is essential reading for any student of economic developments in the Middle Ages who wishes to go beyond the level of textbook summaries. Different aspects of economic life in the Mediterranean world are delineated in the light of a rich variety of articles and other contemporary writings, drawn from Muslim and Christian sources. From commercial contracts, promissory notes, and judicial acts to working manuals of practical geography and philology, this volume of documents provides an unparalleled portrait of the world of medieval commerce.
This work explores the changing place of consumption as a source of investment in production and growth within economic writings from ancient history to the present. This project is carried out with great skill, vigour and originality and will help to bring consumption studies to the mainstream of economic thought.
