Articles
"Textbooks on the Phillips Curve," by James Forder. I consider the representation of theory concerning the relationship between inflation and unemployment, as presented in a sample of economics textbooks from the 1940s to the 1980s. It is argued that they contain nothing to contradict the impression from Forder, Macroeconomics and the Phillips Curve Myth (2014), that the history of the Phillips curve as commonly understood in the 1980s and after is fictitious. Indeed, the study of the textbooks substantially confirms the conclusions there. Among the findings pointing in this direction is that the 1960s editions of the textbooks give no impression of there being a naive faith in the possibility of maintaining low unemployment with excess demand and inflationary policy. Even in cases where later editions of the same textbooks assert very firmly that such views were widespread, their expression is not to be found in the 1960s editions.
"Indian Currency and Finance: John Maynard Keynes's Prismatic View of the International Monetary System," by Filippo Cesarano. John Maynard Keynes put forward a number of proposals to reshape the international monetary system. Although variegated, they do have one characteristic in common—the rejection of freely flexible exchange rates—which, in a sense, is like a prism refracting the different shades of his many reform plans. This is somewhat puzzling insofar as it clashes with Keynes’s call for activist monetary policy. Indian Currency and Finance sheds light on the origins and arguments underlying this peculiar feature and is accordingly most significant in the development of Keynes’s work on the international monetary system.
"Hans Mayer, Last Knight of the Austrian School, Vienna Branch," by Hansjörg Klausinger. Hans Mayer (1879-1955) has been portrayed either as a tragic hero or, more often, as an evil traitor who presided, as the school’s only representative at the University of Vienna, over the decline of the Austrian school in its home country for almost three decades. While from the outset his goal had been to secure the survival of the school in Vienna’s increasingly hostile academic environment, in the course of time he invested most of his energies not in his scientific work but in unending conflicts in the realm of academic politics. Thus for Mayer the school’s defense became more and more an end in itself, justifying any sacrifice on its behalf, even that of his own reputation, for example during the Nazi rule in Austria, 1938-45. This paper tells the story of this strange academic life and its repercussions for the evolution of Austrian economics.
"Keynes and the Psychology of Economic Behavior: From Stout and Sully to The General Theory," by Vincent Barnett. This article examines the potential influence of the work of two psychologists—G. F. Stout and James Sully—on J. M. Keynes’s economic theory. It does so by providing an analysis of aspects of the notes that Keynes made while studying for the Civil Service entrance examination in psychology in 1905-6, and how they related to the source materials on which they were based. It argues that Keynes did “absorb” some of the ideas of these two psychologists while studying for the Civil Service examination, and that they then reappeared in modified form in his later economic writings. Consequently, psychological ideas (and also ideas about physiological evolution) are more important in Keynes’s economic theory than is sometimes recognized.
"Mises and Montaigne: A Note," by Casto Martín Montero Kuscevic and Marco Antonio del Río Rivera. Ludwig von Mises coined the term “Montaigne dogma” to refer to situations in which someone’s gain is someone else’s loss. In this article we show that imputing the dogma to Montaigne is not only unfair but, most importantly, incorrect.
Book Reviews
Reinterpreting the Keynesian Revolution (Routledge, 2013), by Robert Cord (reviewed by Bradley W. Bateman)
Maurice Dobb: Political Economist (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), by Timothy Shenk (reviewed by Jon Cohen)
Keynes and His Contemporaries: Tradition and Enterprise in the Cambridge School of Economics (Routledge, 2014), by Atsushi Komine (reviewed by David Collard)
The Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Economics (Oxford University Press, 2013), edited by Paul Oslington (reviewed by Donald E. Frey)
Torkel Aschehoug and Norwegian Historical Economic Thought: Reconsidering a Forgotten Norwegian Pioneer Economist (Anthem Press, 2013), by Mathilde C. Fasting (reviewed by Gerard M. Koot)
A History of Italian Economic Thought (Routledge, 2014), by Riccardo Faucci (reviewed by Tiziano Raffaelli