Suchergebnisse

These lectures contain a masterful summing-up of Nicholas Kaldor's critique of the foundations of mainstream economic theory. They provide a clear account of his theoretical structures on regional differences, primary producers and manufacturers, and on differing market structures and the likely course of prices and quantities in different markets over time. The first four lectures are concerned with theory, history and explanation; the fifth consists of a detailed set of integrated policy proposals. The book is rounded off with a brilliant biographical essay by Tony Thirlwall

Paul Streeten is recognised as one of the profession's most eminent authorities on economic development. In these lectures he provides a major statement on his approach to the development problem, stressing that human development, not simply income growth, should be the focus of all strategies to eradicate hunger and poverty in the world. His argument assigns an important role to reformed government - both in providing social services and in facilitating the functioning of markets - in opposition to the prevailing idea that minimal government is more often than not the optimal solution. The role of small and larger firms, institutions, central and local government is also carefully examined. Streeten outlines a normative political economy - how to mobilise reformist alliances, how to use interest group, how to harness coalition - in the pursuit of effective development

Shigeto Tsuru is one of Japan's most respected senior economists. In these lectures, he provides a reappraisal of institutionalism as a school of thought and discusses its relevance for the issues which the economic profession today must tackle. Tsuru reconsiders Marxian political economy as an 'institutionalist school', which provides a context for the following discussion of J. M. Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter and Thorstein Veblen. He goes on to present the four key elements of modern institutionalism - i.e., the open-system character of the economy; the problem of planning; the evolutionary process of modern economics; and the normative character of economics - by way of an examination of three present-day institutionalists, Gunnar Myrdal, John K. Galbraith, and K. William Kapp. Tsuru concludes with an evaluation of modern institutionalism and the future of institutional economics

In this volume, Sir Alan Peacock, one of Britain's most noted public economists, poses the question as to whether the history of economic thought is an essential part of the training of public finance economists. He argues that the perspective gained by studying the origins of public choice analysis can offer an important stimulus to scientific progress. The first lecture analyses the increasing popularity in recent years of the modernist, anti-historical point of view. The second criticises those theories of growth in government expenditure which ignore the political process. The third lecture draws on Adam Smith and David Hume to extend the conventional economic model of bureaucracy. In the final lecture, Peacock considers the problem of controlling public sector growth and points to ways of overcoming them. The book ends with short commentaries by seven public economists

In this volume, Charles Kindleberger makes a powerful case against the idea that any one model could be used to unlock the basic secret of economic history. It is essentially an exercise in methodology, addressed to economists and economic historians alike. He argues that too many economists discover a relationship or a uniformity in economic behaviour, develop a model, and use it to explain more than it is capable of, including, on occasion, all economic behaviour. These lectures discuss four 'laws' in economics to show how uniformities can illuminate economic history in particular aspects. They illustrate the view that the economist or economic historian seeking to test analysis against historical data should have a variety of different models, and not just one. The implication is that however scientific and technical the tools, choosing them carefully to fit particular circumstances is itself an art