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This collection brings together fifteen essays published between 1994 and 2008 which all look into the contribution of a remarkable group of economists known as the "Cambridge school" or the "Cambridge Keynesians". The people involved are better defined as a "group" rather than a "school", to denote not adhesion to a common body of doctrine but rather the idea of both cohesion and sharing. This collection focuses on Keynes, Kahn, J. Robinson and Sraffa, who all shared in the physical space and lifestyle of the University of Cambridge. The bond between th

In this article, I discuss the approach favoured by Bharadwaj, in the tradition of classical political economy and of Sraffa, where the focus is on those factors that are observed as opposed to the subjective factors that are neither observable nor measurable. Unlike neoclassical theory, with this approach, there is no room for concepts such as 'utility' and the like; insofar as 'expectations' are conceived as subjective, non-observable entities, they are not attributed with an explanatory role in the theory of prices and distribution. Moreover, since expectation formation is seen as the effect rather than cause of behaviour, the focus shifts to those social, historical and contingent elements that seem to have a better explanatory force. In this approach, what matters is the persistence of forces leading the system to tend, in the long period, towards a position of rest. JEL Codes: B2, B31

This paper considers the distinction made by David Ricardo between "permanent" and "temporary" causes, which he sometimes refers to also as "stable" and "accidental" causes (seeThe Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo [hereinafter Works]I: 86, 88, 92; VI: 154), to derive implications useful to distinguish his approach from subsequent developments of the notions of short-period and long-period equilibrium. In particular, I trace the change of focus in the concept of "permanent" forces brought about by Alfred Marshall—from whose insights Alfred Kahn and John Maynard Keynes drew inspiration for their short-period analysis—which paved the way to fundamental changes in the method and theory.It is argued that Ricardo's distinction maintains an heuristic value, in particular vis-à-vis the distinction between short and long period, which is part of the common language in standard economics.