Publication Number: 2024-11 Publication Date: November 2024 We trace the origins of the definition of the “quality variable” used in the theory ofproduct differentiation, which states that quality is unanimously appreciated byconsumers, entails a higher… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2024-10 Publication Date: November 2024 I argue that the outbreak of the Great War facilitated a shift in the dominant view of humannature within the Cambridge-Bloomsbury intelligentsia, steering it away from an optimistic viewtoward a… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2024-09 Publication Date: October 2024 We argue in this article that constant-quality models like the one used to derive the Alchian-Allen effect are of very limited use in the analysis of the regulation of repugnant goods (morally… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2024-08 Publication Date: September 2024 This article examines the role of the nomenclature assumption in demand theory, defined as the assumption that the choice set available to economic agents is considered as given, without… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2024-07 Publication Date: September 2024 Money-doctors played a crucial role in establishing and advising central banks in underdeveloped countries in the 20th century. However, the Bretton Woods order transformed the doctors’… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2024-06 Publication Date: September 2024 The Federal Reserve is commonly depicted as an institution set up by domestic actors to fulfill domestic functions that only later took on international and geopolitical dimensions. Yet we have… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2024-05 Publication Date: September 2024 In demand theory, the “characteristics approach” refers to situations where goods are described according to their characteristics. This approach is often contrasted with the “goods are goods”… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2024-04 Publication Date: July 2024 The Coase theorem has been shrouded in ambiguity and confusion throughout its life, this despite the prominent role that it plays in economic and legal analysis. As this paper demonstrates, this is no less… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2024-03 Publication Date: April 2024 The outbreak of the Great War facilitated a shift in the dominant view of human nature within the Bloomsbury-Cambridge intelligentsia, steering it away from an optimistic view toward a pessimistic one. The… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2024-2 Publication Date: March 2024 We examine the relationship between scientific knowledge and the legal system with a focus on the exclusion of expert testimony from trial as ruled by the Daubert standard in the US. We introduce a simple… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2024-01 Publication Date: January 2024 The paper presents Kenneth Arrow’s interpretation of the competitive general equilibrium model, arguing he used it to articulate an ambitious critique of what he called the 'neoclassical theory.' Without… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2023-10 Publication Date: December 2023 In the 1950s, Jacques Rueff’s references to social order seem pretty clear: it is not a spontaneous phenomena. Although Rueff is generally seen as a liberal economist, this has prompted commentators to… read more about this publication »
Publication number 2023-09 Publication Date December 2023 This paper documents an early fork in the development of macroeconomics, by examining a debate between the Dutch economists Jan Tinbergen and Johan Koopmans. In a 1932 paper, Tinbergen argued that two… read more about this publication »
Publication Number 2023-08 Publication Date: August 2023 This paper examines the evolving role played by the Coase theorem over the several editions of Richard Posner’s Economic Analysis of Law. In doing so, the paper shows both the grounding of Posner’s… read more about this publication »
Publication Number 2023-07 Publication Date: November 2023 Founded fifty years ago, the History of Economics Society served in its early years to support scholarship and teaching in the history of economic thought. But the decades long removal of history from… read more about this publication »
Publication Number 2023-06 Publication Date: November 2023 Wassily Leontief met with decades of success for the development of input-output analysis, and yet he remained a staunch critic of the economics profession throughout his life. To understand his success,… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2023-05 Publication Date: November 2023 John Maynard Keynes’s philosophical outlook evolved from the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 up until the publication of his A Treatise on Probability in 1921. The evolution of Keynes’s philosophical… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2023-04 Publication Date: June 2023 The explicit concepts of a central bank and monetary policy were not fully articulated until the 20th century, although, with some degree of circumspection, they can be used retrospectively in regard to… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2022-09 Publication Date: Revised May 2023 Public expenditure theory is a late-comer to the field of public finance, despite laments over the lack of such a theory dating to the late 1800s. This paper documents and attempts to explain this… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2023-03 Publication Date: May 2023 This paper revisits the path by which Coase developed the result now known as the Coase theorem, including the famous meeting at the home of Aaron Director during which Coase ‘converted’ a group of Chicago… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2023-02 Publication Date: March 6, 2023 In the early 1950s, the drive to find a practical solution to European antagonisms led to the construction of the first Common Market at the European scale, between Belgium, France, Germany, Italy,… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2023-01 Publication Date: January 2023 In a letter to the editors of the Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Jean-Marc Ginoux and Franck Jovanovic claim that my work on Ragnar Frisch is “useless” and has “no merit” (p.8). I will gladly… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2022-15 Publication Date: December 28, 2022 Both Friedrich Hayek and Carl Schmitt are critical of the role of economic interest groups in modern democracies. This paper begins by comparing their descriptions of how such groups attempt to… read more about this publication »
Publication Number: 2022-14 Publication Date: December 2022 As economic planners sought to rebuild Europe in the unstable postwar period, economic expertise was called upon to help in the drawing of national budgets and to inform economic and planning policies. A… read more about this publication »