First published in 1990, this book presents an original and comprehensive overview of Australian economic thought. The authors stress, by way of introduction, the many important innovative contributions Australian economists have made to thought worldwide. As the argument develops, the work of major figures is discussed in detail in addition to the role of different journals and economic societies.
First published in 1990, this book presents an original and comprehensive overview of Australian economic thought. The authors stress, by way of introduction, the many important innovative contributions Australian economists have made to thought worldwide. As the argument develops, the work of major figures is discussed in detail in addition to the role of different journals and economic societies.
This text provides a history of the post Keynesian approach to economics since 1936. The author locates the origins of these economics in the conflicting interpretations of Keynes' General Theory and in the complementary work of Michael Kalecki.
The marginalist revolution of the late nineteenth century consolidated what Karl Marx and Piero Sraffa called ‘vulgar economy’, bringing with it an emphasis on a scarcity theory that replaced the classical surplus theory. However, the classical political economy of Adam Smith and David Ricardo has been revived within the Cambridge economic tradition. This book looks at how different branches of the Cambridge economic tradition have focused on various aspects of this revival over time. The author shows that classical political economy is distinct from vulgar political economy in terms of its economic, social, and ethical theory, with each difference resting on an issue of ontology. Structured in three parts, the book examines the central contested aspects of these theories, namely the nature of value, the relationship between human beings and social structure, and the nature of human wellbeing. The Cambridge Revival of Political Economy will be relevant to students and researchers within the fields of political economy, history of economic thought, politics and philosophy.
This edited collection, first published in 1991, focuses on the commercial relations, marketing structures and development of consumption that accompanied early industrial expansion. The papers examine aspects of industrial structure and work organisation, including women’s work, and highlight the conflict and compromise between work traditions and the emergence of a market culture. With an overarching introduction providing a background to European manufacturing, this title will be of particular interest to students of social and economic history researching early industrial Europe and the concurrent emergence of a material, consumer culture.
The articles in this edited collection, first published in 1985, consider the competing theories of the nature of development and underdevelopment in Southeast Asia. Each chapter challenges the academic orthodoxies and dominant traditions of Southeast Asian studies, particularly in relation to orientalist history, behaviourist political science and development economics. Overall, the contributions offer an alternative framework for analysis, which considers the structural changes to the political economy of Southeast Asia, as well as the relationship between the state, economy and class at a domestic level. This is a fascinating collection, of value to students and academics with an interest in Southeast Asian politics, economics and history.
First published in 1998, this book introduces a new concept of profitability, called the 'efficiency rate of profit', which is defined as the ratio between the unit net margin and the unit capital requirement and shows how the efficiency rate of profit may be used in the assessment of mechanization and economies of scale. The book also shows how the efficiency rate of profit relates to the financial opportunity cost of investment, thus resolving the long-standing controversy over 'interest as a cost'. Using real-world plant-level data, the book explains fully the process of mechanization, how increasing returns to scale works at the plant level through power rule relating plant or equipment cost to capacity and how and why it is more cost effective to combine mechanization with expanding the scale of production in one combined 'package' of efficiency improvement.
First published in 1991, this book attempts to deal with Mill’s thought as a coherent system and tie some elements of his thoughts together. It seeks to show that he developed a set of ethical principles to underlie government intervention and provide a theory as to how it should intervene — which he then applied to practical politics. The first chapters deal with Mill’s doctrine of improvement and what impact the improvement of man has on the social organisation of society. The third chapter deals with Mill’s theory of economic development. The second part of the book deals with policy issues such as the question of the optimal constitution and Mill’s policy proposals for England.
The thousands uprooted and displaced by the Holocaust had a profound cultural impact on the countries in which they sought refuge, with numerous Holocaust escapees attaining prominence as scientists, writers, filmmakers and artists. But what is less well known is the way in which this refugee diaspora shaped the scholarly culture of their new-found homes and international policy. In this unique work, David Simon explores the pioneering role played by mostly Jewish refugee scholars in the creation of development studies and practice following the Second World War, and what we can learn about the discipline by examining the social and intellectual history of its early practitioners. Through in-depth interviews with key figures and their relatives, Simon considers how the escapees' experiences impacted their scholarship, showing how they played a key role in shaping their belief that ‘development’ really did hold the potential to make a better world, free from the horrors of war, genocide and discrimination they had experienced under Nazi rule. In the process, he casts valuable new light on the origins and evolution of development studies, policy and practice from this formative postwar period to the present.
In Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity: Before the Watershed, Ben Fine offers a selection of his key articles charting the rise of economics imperialism. Each article is accompanied by a preamble that sets the context in which it appeared, with an overall introduction drawing out the overall significance for contemporary scholarship. Ranging over mainstream and heterodox economics, the disputes between them, the relationship between economics and other disciplines, and thinkers as diverse as Kuhn, Becker and Bourdieu, the collection offers a unique and compelling account of how mainstream economics has both changed dramatically whilst its core and narrow principles have remained as sacrosanct as they are invalid. The volume is imperative for those engaging in political economy across the social sciences.
