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Milton Friedman once said that every time capitalism has been tried, it has succeeded; whereas every time socialism has been tried, it has failed. And yet, what do people call [...]

One technology replaces another only when the new technology is better or cheaper (or both) than the old. When an invention reduces the price of an important part of the [...]

This article will contribute to a growing body of writing which is considering the importance of suggestion as a neglected aspect of contemporary technologies of the self. Gabriel Tarde's writings foreground this importance, which was largely repudiated by the anti-mimetic turn that characterized the social sciences at the turn of the last century. The article will discuss the context of this refusal of suggestion, through exploring how early mass and social psychology translated and redistributed Tarde's concepts of invention and imitation. The significance of this re-distribution is discussed in relation to the question of what suggestion could and might become if it is not inserted into a contrast between will and compliance. Keywords: Gabriel Tarde; suggestion; suggestibility; affect; governmentality; social and mass psychology.

This article revitalizes the notion of crowds and emphasizes its value for economic sociology. The relationship between crowds and economic life is examined both semantically and theoretically. From a semantic point of view, there is a long history of conceiving financial speculation and financial markets in crowd terminology. Even current analyses in sociology and economics suggest that financial markets are characterized by a crowd syndrome. While economic theory asserts that this crowd syndrome is mainly to be identified in fluctuating markets, the article contends that a reinterpretation of the basic assumption in early crowd theory, the idea of suggestion, improves our understanding also of everyday economic processes. Specifically, it argues that suggestion refers to a semiconscious state, a state between purposive and affective action. This notion of the semiconscious is contrasted with the embeddedness approach in recent economic sociology. Keywords: embeddedness; financial speculation; Le Bon; semiconscious suggestion; Tarde.

Long after the party was over, the luckless President Herbert Hoover, who had suffered the consequences occasioned by its ending, reflected: In the large sense the primary cause of the [...]

The structure of the Turkish economy was similar to that of the late Ottoman economy in the 1920s. (1) Commercial agriculture and trade were the main economic activities. Coastal regions [...]

In Rival Enlightenments Ian Hunter argues convincingly that there was not one comprehensive German Enlightenment, represented by Kant, but two irreducible and rival enlightenments: the metaphysical Enlightenment of Leibniz and Kant and the non-transcendental, civil Enlightenment of Pufendorf and Thomasius. Hunter's study frees us from a dominant way of taking up the question, 'What is Enlightenment?', and enables us to see that there is a plurality of possible answers. Keywords: German Enlightenment; enlightenment; modernity; state; sovereignty; popular sovereignty; liberty; natural law; law, early modern political philosophy; Kant; Leibniz; Pufendorf; Thomasius.

The efforts of U.S. Presidents George Bush (senior) and Bill Clinton to develop globalization have been largely wiped out by the following: George W. Bush's overriding concern with combating terrorism; the 1997 financial crisis in Thailand; how the IMF responded to the Thailand problem; and how financial industries responded to the above.

As documented in actions by Abraham Lincoln, national economic development depended upon improved and uninterrupted flow of traffic. However, equally important was the abolition of slavery, and changes to trade and tariff regulations were also critical. Lessons from these developments could be utilized in developing a globalization blueprint.

The author of 'How Economics Became a Mathematical Science' responds to four papers for a symposium on his book. The author argues that there is no privileged perspective from which to view the past and there is no right way to write history in more or less interesting ways.

The implications of the evolution of, mathematical economics ideas presented in Weintraub's 'How Economics Became a Mathematical Science' are discussed. One major issue, is of the nature of formalism and astomatization in mathematical economics, and how this evolution impacts the developments in economics.

We present a new monthly wholesale price index for Canada, 1840-71, comparing fluctuations in the Canadian macroeconomy with fluctuations in similar U.S. and British indexes. Canadian prices move through distinct phases: the 1840s rise in prices and the decline in the depression of 1848-49; the mid-century economic boom and the 1857 depression; U.S. Civil War inflation and apparent Canadian price insulation through a flexible exchange rate created by U.S. withdrawal from gold; and the non-inflationary boom following Confederation. After adjustment for the U.S. greenback issue, a broad coherence of Canadian, U.S., and British indexes suggests highly integrated commodity markets. JEL Classification: N20, N21, E31

Differences in the philosophies of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes are discussed.

This article discusses economic historians' approach to John F. Muth's theory of rational expectations, which was largely dismissed during the 1960s and not revived until the failure of Keynesian economics in the 1970s. The author discusses the contributions of rational choice theory, including the assertion that agents learn from their mistakes, and compares it to bounded rationality theory which suggests that people are unable to reach optimal decisions because of limited knowledge and computation capacities.

In this article the author responds to commentaries on his research into the history of economic anthropology. Issues raised which he addresses include the use of psychology as a leitmotiv for ethnological inquiry and the history of ethnological economics, his decision to end his paper in 1945 and not include economic anthropoligical research since then, and the charges that he chastises latter-day anthropology and economics for their estrangement.

The history of political economic thought in Russia since the 19th century is examined. Topics include course offerings at the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1803, how the mentality of scholars mirrors the mentality of the general populace, the influence of Western European scholars, agrarian economics, and how the unique history of Russia is reflected in its political economic thought.

Issues concerning the Russian school of economic thought, as it developed in the 19th and 20th centuries, and how it differs from other schools of thought, are examined. Topics include the role of national economic schools, traditions in Russian civilization, distinctive features of Russian economic thought, and the influence of and confrontation with Western modes of economics.

This article examines growth in societies, journals and research in the history of economics. The author provides an overview in developments and suggests information resources and organizations for researchers in this economic sub-discipline.

This article examines the 1950s development of alternate models of endogenous expectations formations, focusing on the implicit model and on the history of rational expectations. The authors survey these developments, reactions to them during the period of their initial dissemination and their early utilization.

This article traces the history of prices and wages in Europe from the 14th to the early 20th centuries. The authors reveal that the divergence in real incomes from the mid-19th century was produced from 1500 to 1750 as incomes in most European cities fell but were maintained, although not increased, by economic leaders.

This article provides a critique of Heath Pearson's assertion that there was not a German school of economics by asserting that there is enough historical evidence to suggest that there was. The author states that Pearson's general claims are basically uncontroversial but questions the implications of his conclusion calling for further homogenization and aggregation by historians discussing this school, which suggests an amalgamation of historical economists; this author find this to be oversimplified and ultimately unproductive.

This article provides a response to criticism of the author's paper questioning the existence of an historical German school of economics. Issues addressed include historical studies of political economics and scholary research in this feild, and reasons for his amalgamation of schools of traditional economic theories.

This article discusses C.W. Mixter's revival of interest over the works of John Rae in the early 20th-century, based on a series of articles and an edited edition of Rae's 'New Principles on the Subject of Political Economiy' which he renamed 'The Sociological Theory of Capital' and reorganized by switching the chapters, paragraphs and sentence, and placing nearly half the text in an appendix, while adding critical commentaries of his own in footnotes. The author explores Mixter's motivations for changing the text to such an extent, asserting that his attitude towards Rae vis-a-vis Adam Smith changed as did his position on topics addressed in their works.

This article examines demand theory from an historical-institution perspective by focusing on the case of joint supply, which occurs when more than one product such as beef and hide result from the production process, creating the foundation for theoretical adaptations to real world supply and demand. The authors attempt to provide an account of the history and development of the theory of joint supply/noncompeting consumption, to refute the pure internalist view regarding ecomonic anlysis' development through illustrating the technological and institutional changes affected by this branch of economic theory, to demonstrate the confusion created by uncritical applications of this theory, and to show how it exposes the strengths and limitations of static neoclassical analysis as traditionally practiced.

'Poverty is the desire of ascetics, and this is not an ascetic age.' --Anthony Trollope, Phoebe Junior (174) Grant Allen's 1894 description of the shift from 'the old asceticism [which] [...]

This article discusses Italian economist Francesco Ferrara's contributions to the theory of value, by examining his works written in the 1850s. The author asserts that Ferrara applied his ideas to various fields in economics and anticipated methodological individualism, equilibrium theory and the theory of capital goods.

Issues concerning the impact of privatization on capital markets and the economic consequences of political intervention in private ownership are discussed.

This article examines economist Paul Samuelson's use of provocative mannerisms and self-promotion in his writing. The author attempts to explain these paradoxes by exploring Samuelson's persona and overindulging vanity, and applying 'intelligence-vanity' maxim to him, finding this duality to be a driving force in his work and concluding that the professions tolerance for this behavior is a sign of its lacklustre condition.

This article examines Paul Samuelson's work on the generalization of non-substitution theorem. The author asserts that given the rate of interest and just one non-produced input in the system the prices of goods are determined by conditions of production, illustrating that demand does not play a role in determining prices under commonly assumed conditions.

This article examines Achylle-Nicolas Isnard's critique of Francois Quesnay's 'Tableau Economique,' in order to illustrate the novelty and greatness of Quesnay's work. Isnard's employment of Quesnay's views of circularity and his emphasis on productivity in all sectors of the economy are discussed and the author provides a mathematical presentation to show that Isnard's work is relevant to the interpretation of circular-flow type models, including input-output models.

The author attempts to explain some of the contractions in the works of economic historian Charles Beard, focusing on his approach to U.S. foreign relations before and after the Second World War. Issues addressed include Beard's pacifism and his criticism of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's method of entering the war, in light of Beard's rejection of his own economic model for continued U.S. isolationism.

Pericles' use of economic terminology in the Funeral Oration is discussed as evidence of knowledge of economic principles among the Greeks in the 5th century BC. 'Axiosis,' meaning 'worth' or 'value' is used by Pericles as a metaphor for 'arete' ('honor') in a definition of friendship.

In France the latter half of the 16th century saw an expert, specialized, and increasingly systematic tradition of ways to regard money. This concept informed how most Europeans distinguished their territory from the Americas, where the indigenous people traded gold and other treasures but not as Europeans used money.

The authors discuss the theory of the optimal tariff vector proposed by Jan de Graaf in 1949, which asserts that free trade is the most advantageous commercial policy when there are no distorting elements or threats of retaliation from trading partners. A return to the previous economic belief that one country with market power to control markets and tariffs will exercise that power and abandon free trade, is suggested.

Hong Kong's return to China in 1997 has demonstrated the interdependence between the Hong Kong dollar and the Chinese Renminbi. The circulation of the Hong Kong dollar outside Hong Kong, begun in 1940s, required preventive mechanisms to avoid crisis between Chinese and British interests.

Problems in the interpretation of chapter five of Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' are discussed, with a focus on the connecting principle provided by Smith's attack on the mercantile system. Topics include 'incompatible utterances' in Smith's work, the corn-commanded proxy, mercantilism and the problem of the price relative, wheat as an 'invariable standard,' a price index, the problem of the corn bounty, and a measure of capacity.

The underlying theme of this lecture deals with the preeminent position of the United States in the Twentieth Century and represents the period as having 3 distinct parts: 1900-1933, a time influenced by the international gold standard and its eventual breakdown; 1934-1971, an era of the devalued dollar that eventually was removed from the gold standard; 1972-1999, started with the use of flexible exchange rates, went through stagnation and massive inflation, and ended in monetary stability.