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A Soaring Eagle: Alfred Marshall, 1842-1924
... In a detailed examination of Marshall's personal and intellectual life, Groenewegen (1995) identifies much of the inspiration for Marshall's analysis of industrial processes. Groenewegen describes how Marshall first noted economies of scale after visiting a number of factories which were, for their day, extremely large. ...
... Marshall was interested in policy, and offered insights into how the community's welfare might be improved. Groenewegen (1995) notes that Marshall exhibited some socialist tendencies early in his career, and that he later was concerned about how to achieve utilitarian outcomes and preserve personal liberty. Marshall's specific policy prescriptions have, however, been the subject of some debate. ...
This paper explores the early discussion of external economies in the work of Alfred Marshall and Arthur Pigou. Marshall emphasized external economies as a positive aspect of the market process. Pigou's interpretation of externalities has become the standard public finance argument on the existence of market failure, and provides the rationale for proposed policy solutions. An examination of the differences between the two perspectives is subsequently used as the base for a discussion of the modern analysis of research and development, and of the difficulties inherent in the standard Pigovian view. A final substantive section of the paper reconsiders the Marshallian perspective, identifying recent contributions to economic theory that have begun a return to Marshall's original interpretation. The conclusion considers the significance of this Marshallian tradition for industrial policy.
... Marshall perceived Brentano's foreword to the German edition of his Principles as very flattering, and to be sure Brentano was strongly recommending that his pupils read Marshall's Principles. Thus, for example, Adolph Lowe (1893-1995, who later was one of the few German professors of economics in the Weimar Republic who used Marshall's Principles in his lectures at the Universities of Kiel and Frankfurt, had started to study economics with Brentano in Munich in 1911-12. However, a careful reading of Brentano's foreword reveals that it is not without a certain ambivalence. ...
Schmoller. Schmoller and his followers found Marshallian doctrines as outdated as those of Ricardo and the old British school. A typical case of the self-complacency is the short review of vol. 1 of the second edition of Marshall's Principles by Schäffle who could not discover anything "which would have transcended the state of research beyond the old classical and the new historical school in a substantial way" (Schäffle 1892: 177; my translation). According to Schäffle Marshall's "great words as Marginal Use, Marginal Return, Consumers Rent, Quasi-Rent, Law of Substitution etc. are indeed new terms, however at closer sight not in the least the expression of new discoveries … At some places they cover the bareness of comfortably recited trivialities" (Ibid.; my translation). On the Austrian side the reception of Marshallian economics was not much better. The Austrians disliked Marshall's attempt to reconcile the new marginal approach with the old Ricardian school, and in particular they rejected Marshall's concept of real costs of production. However there are notable exceptions as, e.g., Robert Zuckerkandl, who in his long review essay comes to the conclusion that Marshall's Principles are the best attempt "to work up the results of modern research, with consideration of the most recent economic development, to a theoretical system" (Zuckerkandl 1891: 53; my translation). The two main exceptions in Germany were Adolph Wagner and Lujo Brentano. Wagner wrote a very favourable review of Marshall's Principles in the Harvard-based Quarterly Journal of Economics using the opportunity to hit at Schmoller and other members of the historical school in pointing out that not all German economists "approve of the patronizing and pretentious attitude towards English writers, and especially those of the classic school, which is taken by some of the extreme German representatives of the historical school" (Wagner 1891: 319-20). In contrast to Schmoller et al., Wagner, who welcomed Marshall's Principles as a refined version of Ricardo's theory and referred to Marshall in the third edition of his Foundations (Wagner 1892-93) no less than 16 times, and his student Heinrich Dietzel highly appreciated Marshall's Principles. Schumpeter, who later succeeded Dietzel on his chair at the University of Bonn in 1925 had a more mixed relationship with Marshall (Hagemann 2010). The other notable exception was Lujo Brentano (1840-1931), 1 Wagner's long-time enemy and Schmoller's lifelong friend, who was the most liberal and Anglophile member of the younger historical school. Brentano had been in close contact with Marshall over many decades. 2 When problems with the translation of Marshall's 1 For the following discussion on Brentano's reception of Marshall, including the footnotes, see Hagemann and Rösch (2012: 111-2). 2 The Brentano papers at the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz contain correspondence between Brentano and Marshall between 1880 and 1912 mainly on the social question and on the labour movement.
... The content of these works reveals proximity to Marshall's methodological approach to theory, history and policy, an approach that became dominant in Cambridge after his election to the Chair of Political Economy in December 1884. 13 Marshall described this approach in the Inaugural Lecture he gave in February 1885 (see Marshall 1885;Groenewegen 1995Groenewegen , 1997Hodgson 2005). He stated that, like other sciences, political economy must identify general principles that 'will no doubt be presented as a perfectly pure or 12 For a description of the events that occurred between the publication of the article in the Manchester Guardian Commercial in December 1922 and the start of his teaching activity at the University of Perugia in November 1923, see Pasinetti (1979Pasinetti ( , 1985, Roncaglia (1984), Naldi (1998) and Panico (1988aPanico ( , 2001. ...
Panico examines how Sraffa’s “objectivist” approach can correlate with his analysis on the role of money in the theory of distribution. He delineates how Sraffa linked theoretical work with that on history and policy, moving in accordance with the academic tradition, headed by Marshall, which dominated in Cambridge before WW2. Panico also discusses the implications of Sraffa’s interpretation of the objectivist approach and of historical materialism for the study of the role of money in the theory of distribution. Finally, Panico compares the evolution of Keynes’ and Sraffa’s work on the role of money in the theory of value and distribution, underscoring the existence of close cooperation between the two.
... approach to theory, history and policy, an approach that became dominant in Cambridge after his election to the Chair of Political Economy in December 1884. 14 Marshall described this approach in the Inaugural Lecture he gave in February 1885 (see Marshall, 1885;Groenewegen, 1995Groenewegen, , 1997Hodgson, 2005). He stated that, like other sciences, political economy must identify general principles that 'will no doubt be presented as a perfectly pure or abstract theory' (Marshall, 1885, reprinted in Hodgson, 2005. ...
The essay examines how Sraffa’s “objectivist” approach can correlate with his analysis on the role of money in the theory of distribution. He delineates how Sraffa linked theoretical work with that on history and policy, moving in accordance with the academic tradition, headed by Marshall, which dominated in Cambridge before WW2. The essay also discusses the implications of Sraffa’s interpretation of the objectivist approach and of historical materialism for the study of the role of money in the theory of distribution. In this analysis the role of the institutional organisation of financial markets and of the monetary authorities is highlighted. Finally, the paper compares the evolution of Keynes’ and Sraffa’s work on the role of money in the theory of value and distribution, underscoring the existence of close cooperation between the two.
... Even more surprising is the third omission: the history of economic thought itself. Millmow ignores Peter Groenewegen's magisterial intellectual biography of Alfred Marshall (Groenewegen, 1995) and has nothing to say about the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia, which for all its faults has managed to run a conference every year since the early 1980s and also to publish a journal, History of Economics Review, which is more than its British counterpart has ever achieved. ...
... However, Marshall had already recognised the possibility of a conjunction between contemporary associationist psychology and Darwin's ideas (which, as has been noted, owed much to Smith's emphasis on the advantages of differentiation), and in the process provided a physical equivalent of Smith's cognitive theory. Marshall's encounter with the problems of knowledge has been explored by Butler (1991), Groenewegen (1995), and ; it may be sufficient to note here that this encounter was prompted by a major intellectual controversy about the possibility of demonstrating religious truths, which coincided with Marshall's own religious doubts. ...
... 7 Coase (1994: 120, 123-5, 128-9, 145, 148, 168) has made the point effectively that Marshall's fear of mistakes, criticism and controversy can be traced back to his father who was a despotic tyrant much given to severe physical chastisement, and that it was from the maternal side of his family that he apparently drew the inner strength necessary to oppose his father in his choice of career and university. 8 Groenewegen (1995: 150-1, 156-8, 162, 776-8) has argued that Marshall, in fact, did not have a marginal utility theory before reading Jevons's book, an argument that puts Marshall's review of Jevons's work in an entirely different light! 9 On Marshall's lecturing style, see also Groenewegen (1995: 313-7) 10 A telling indication of what Keynes meant by the 'tenuous world of bright ideas' is given by his footnote to this phrase: 'How disappointing are the fruits, now that we have them, of the bright idea of reducing Economics to a mathematical application of the hedonistic calculus of Bentham!' (184n5). 11 This is an instance of the central theme of O'Donnell (2004). ...
This paper investigates Keynes's writings in the 1920s and 30s to uncover his views on the writing of economics, especially the writing of innovative or path-breaking works. His ideas were mainly presented in comments on other economists (particularly Marshall, Jevons and Malthus), and in reflections on his own experiences (chiefly in his 1932-33 lectures and a 1934 draft preface to the General Theory). These ideas are converted into five underlying principles, the implications of which are discussed in terms of their impact on the clarity and interpretation of his writings and of their relevance to all writings in economics.
... Porém, contrariando a linha argumentativa seguida por esses autores, encontramos em Foss (1991Foss ( , 1994, Hammond (1991) e Loasby (1986 (Keynes, 1924, p.323). Groenewegen (1995) também nos dá evidências de que Mar shall tinha profundo interesse pelos tra balhos de Spencer: (Groenewegen, 1995, p. 167). Aspers (1999) é categórico: ...
Starting from a comparative study of the theoretical views of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer on the processes of change, this paper seeks to understand how the genesis of these ideas about evolution influenced the economic thought of Alfred Marshall. In this sense, we first present how Darwin and Spencer built completely different and irreconcilable approaches to understanding the phenomena of change in complex systems. Subsequently, we try to understand how Marshall absorbed these Victorians elaborations about evolution within his own theoretical construct. Thus, focusing our investigation on Principles (1890) and working with the ideas contained therein about change, progress, equilibrium and representative firm, we seek to show that Marshall followed a code of science characteristically Spencerian, where his approach, often interpreted as "evolutionary," presents no contradiction or incompatibility with a perspective based on neoclassical essentialism.
... Given the claims of Pigou's misogyny, and the misogyny in Cambridge of the day more generally(Aslanbeigui 1997), it is uncertain whether Marshall's reference here to 'men' extends to both genders. Indeed, Chapter 14 of A Soaring Eagle(Groenewegen 1995) lends weight to the view that the reference did not extend to women, at least not if it involved extended participation in important economic and social institutions to women. ...
This study reports on the light that documents stored in the Archive Centre at King’s College Cambridge shed on A. C. Pigou’s fellowship theses. Particular consideration is given to Walter Raleigh’s and Brooke Foss Westcott’s assessments of Pigou’s first, and unsuccessful, fellowship thesis on Robert Browning as a Religious Teacher and to Alfred Marshall’s and Herbert Foxwell’s assessments of Pigou’s second, and successful, fellowship thesis on The Causes and Effects of Change in the Relative Values of Agricultural Produce in the United Kingdom during the last Fifty Years. The principal findings of the study are that: Pigou’s first thesis is more important to his subsequent and famous studies on wealth and welfare than is generally appreciated; and the assessors’ diverse reactions to his second thesis largely reflect their different views on the scope for economic theory to be used by scholars to shed light on economic history.
... It was, therefore, natural for me to have been interested in, and absorbed by, Targetti (Groenewegen, 1995), and added that 'it was in the great tradition broached by Gårdlund'. His response was: 'Gårdlund' 1933) to Lucas (1987) and Kydland & Prescott (1982), one that would provide the base from which to teach the nonlinear, endogenous, theory of the trade cycle, I would still choose this wonderful chapter by Targetti. ...
... He was explicit about the ethical motivations and intentions of his work as were Weber and Veblen. He entered the field of economics because of an ethical concern and motivation to learn how to improve the lives of ordinary working class people (Groenewegen 1995). He also studied mathematics because he thought that the joining of mathematics with economics could improve the power of economics as a social science for helping realize his ethical concern about improving the lives of ordinary working class people. ...
Organizational ethics and institutional theories are extended by recovering Weberian and Pre-Weberian theorizing that emphasized the joining of ethics and institutional theories. Understanding how ethics and institutional systems influence each other can advance our understanding of the nature and causes of structural organizational ethics issues and help guide potential reforms. We consider the interplay of these elements during the recession of 2008–2009, highlighting how structural ethics problems may have to be addressed at the institutional levels and not solely the individual or organizational levels.
W. E. Johnson (1858-1931) has long been recognized as a great Cambridge figure and has often been portrayed as the source of the view of probability as a logical relation. Yet Johnson and his influence are elusive and this paper tries to assemble what is known of the man, his circumstances and of his contribution to probability.
For most economists at Chicago, Marshall was simply an input, the supplier of an approach to economic analysis. For Ronald Coase, however, Marshall was much more than this—a subject of fascination and, at times, almost a reverence and obsession. Trained in the late 1920s and early 1930s at the London School of Economics, where indifference and even antipathy toward Marshall was widespread, and a member of the LSE faculty from 1935 until his departure for the United States in 1951, Coase would not have ranked high on the list of those expected to become Marshall’s first biographer—a project that Coase finally abandoned only late in life—let alone one who drew on Marshall’s methodological approach to castigate both modern economics generally and certain of his (“Marshallian”) Chicago colleagues in particular. Coase’s affinity for Marshall, whom he considered both a “great economist” and a “flawed human being,” requires some explanation, clues toward which can be found both in his published writings and in the voluminous materials from his researches on Marshall now available in Coase’s archives. This paper examines Coase’s biographical work on Marshall and his discussions of Marshall’s economics for clues as to the sources of Coase’s affinity for Marshall. The evidence suggests explanations that are at once personal and professional.
During their lives and careers, both Marshall and Keynes visited the United States and expressed views on American capitalism. Marshall visited the US in 1875, before the advent of the trust question, and then followed the development of the American industrial world, on which he gave his final word in Industry and Trade. Meanwhile, Keynes had begun to develop his own personal relationship with America, which became very close after his visits during the 1930s, when Keynes began to invest in Wall Street on a large scale. In this paper, we argue that there is “a family resemblance” in Marshall’s and Keynes’s views on America, as they shared a common appreciation of American trusts, weighting the advantages of a large industrial organization more than the loss of competitive edge. In 1875, Marshall was struck by the deliberateness and adaptability of the American people, and even though he expressed some scepticism about the future of trusts and big business during the 1890s, his confidence in the leaders of American industry and their dynamism resurfaced in Industry and Trade, where he described the leaders of big business in America as inspired by the same spirit of innovation he had observed in 1875. The ideas that Keynes expressed about Roosevelt and the New Deal, and his choices as an investor in the US market during the 1930s, seem to reflect a similar view. While we see no direct link connecting Keynes’s views on America during the 1930s with his apprenticeship with Marshall in 1905, we see this latter episode as the starting point of a longer process, in which Keynes could observe the evolution of Marshall’s opinions on America, possibly being influenced by it.
This study reflects on Arthur Cecil Pigou’s role in public debate during the initial phase of the First World War over whether Britain should negotiate a peace treaty with Germany. Its main goal is to provide evidence that the “Cambridge Professor” framed his approach to this highly controversial issue from theoretical propositions on trade, industrial peace, and welfare that he had developed in previous works. After reviewing his contributions on these subjects, Pigou’s letter to The Nation in early 1915, suggesting an open move by the Allies towards an honorable peace with Germany, is presented along with his more elaborate thoughts on this same theme put down in a private manuscript. The negative reactions to Pigou’s letter are then scrutinized, particularly the fierce editorial published by The Morning Post. A subsequent version of Pigou’s plea for peace, delivered in his London speech late in 1915, is detailed, listing the essential conditions for a successful conclusion of the conflict. To come full circle, the paper recapitulates Pigou’s postwar considerations on diplomacy, free trade, and colonialism. The concluding remarks bring together the theoretical and applied branches of Pigou’s thoughts on war and peace.
The paper contends that neoclassical ideology stems, to a great extent, from mathematical analysis. It is suggested that mainstream economic thought can be comprehensively revisited if both histories of mathematical and economic thought are to be taken collaboratively into account. Ideology is understood as a 'social construction of reality' that prevents us from evaluating our own standpoint, and impedes us from realising our value judgments as well as our theories of society and nature. However, the mid-19 th century's intellectual controversies about the validity of mathematical thought, truth and knowledge can procure new interesting insights concerning the ideological stance of the first marginalists. In this respect, the methodological categories of analysis and synthesis serve as the basis for the crucial distinction between old geometry and mathematical analysis, indicating that the discipline of mathematics has its own history of fundamentally unresolved disputes. Lastly, this may also shed some light on Alfred Marshall's peculiarly reluctant attitude towards the use of mathematical analysis in his work.
This study takes its bearings from the proposition that the supply-and-demand apparatus of what came to be called the “Marshallian cross” is an unsatisfactory representation of actual supply and demand forces, which are better characterised in the manner of the classical economists. From that point of departure it then enquires into how that representation nevertheless arose in the period from 1838 to 1890, notwithstanding its lack of robustness as economic theory – via consideration of the economics of five key contributors prior to Marshall. The investigation confirms that there is no plausible basis for a general presumption in favour of the conventional rising supply function – other than the marginal productivity theory of factor pricing, which is itself unsatisfactory.
Did Marshall assume a compensated or an uncompensated demand curve? I argue that it was neither: I show that the Marshallian demand curve is a willingness-to-pay curve derived under the assumption that all prices and income are held constant. This curve approximates both compensated and uncompensated demand curves only if expenditure on the good in question represents a negligible part of the consumer budget. I argue that my interpretation, highlighting the approximate character of Marshall’s approach, provides a more accurate account of the Marshallian demand curve than do alternative interpretations that rely on the utility-maximization framework and mathematical exactness.
The collected papers of Sir Austin Robinson held in Cambridge’s Marshall Library contain documents including correspondence that reveal Robinson’s steadfast opposition to the empirical work undertaken by the Oxford Economists’ Research Group (OERG) beginning in the 1930s. Robinson particularly took exception to the OERG’s flawed research methodology thereby casting doubt on the credibility of their findings that challenged traditional price theory. The collected papers of P. W. S. Andrews and Elizabeth Brunner held in the LSE’s Robbins Library contain lectures that reveal Andrews’s steadfast defence of the OERG’s work including his signature Manufacturing Business wherein he proffered his alternative normal cost theory. It is rather curious that two dedicated Marshallian industrial economists would maintain such adamant opposition until the end of their lives. Perhaps, it is a case of arguing at cross purposes? A neglected article by Alfred Marshall may offer some insight that disentangles both an ontological and epistemological difference between Robinson and Andrews.
The narrative that follows is a review essay of Alex Millmow’s A History of Australasian Economic Thought (2017). The chief finding is that Millmow fails to devote sufficient attention to the history of economic theory in the last decades of the twentieth century because of his preoccupation with the history of economic policy. This is demonstrated, in part, by considering the extent to which Millmow appraises the work of those prominent modern economists who are identified in an informal survey of ten respondents.
This study argues that the supply-and-demand apparatus of the ‘Marshallian cross’ is an unsatisfactory representation of actual supply and demand forces, which are better characterized in the manner of the classical economists. Most particularly the rising supply function but also the conventional demand function, are shown to have no compelling general theoretical justification. There is no plausible basis for a presumption in favour of the former—other than the marginal productivity theory of factor pricing, which is itself unsatisfactory. Multiple reasons are suggested for the rise of the apparatus of supply-and-demand functions, notwithstanding its intrinsic implausibility. The classical conception of supply-and-demand is restated and reaffirmed.
The richness François Perroux's economic theories have allowed the literature to highlight several connections between him and other authors. Among the names mentioned in the literature, one economist is conspicuous by his absence: Alfred Marshall. However, the relations between Marshall and Perroux are manifold and are far from accidental: not only because Perroux was a careful reader of Marshall but also and moreover because they both have an important common ground, which affected their perspectives. The main aim of this paper is to inquire into the aspects that characterise Marshall's and Perroux's approaches, stressing their affinities and underlining their common roots.
This chapter reports on the emergence of Cambridge theories of welfare economics from the 1870s to the mid-twentieth century. In regard to welfare ideas developed in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, consideration is given to Sidgwick’s concept of social costs, Foxwell’s suggestions for the organization of a free market system, Marshall’s notion of consumer surplus, as complemented by his views on public education and self-help as means of improving society’s welfare, and Neville Keynes’s views on the relationship between ethics and positive economics. With respect to welfare ideas developed in the early twentieth century, consideration is given to Pigou’s definitive characterization of the economics of welfare and Maynard Keynes’s broad contributions to welfare, centred on his theory of effective demand. Lastly, Robertson’s mid-twentieth century defence of cardinal utility, as the most suitable approach to a practical welfare policy, is reviewed.
This chapter gives an overview of Herbert Somerton Foxwell’s contribution to economics. First, it provides some biographical notes on his academic and book-collecting activities, with an emphasis on his assembling of what became known as the Goldsmiths’ Library. It also reviews Foxwell’s association with the historicist movement and his opposition to classical economics. Three sections then provide an assessment of Foxwell’s intellectual contributions to the economics of banking, industrial fluctuations, and the history of economic thought. The chapter ends with some final remarks on the strengths and limitations of Foxwell’s participation in the economic controversies of his time.
This chapter explores explicit contributions to economic methodology originating in Cambridge. These contributions were not all consistent with each other, the tensions being most evident in Marshall. Neville Keynes proved to be a major influence on the development of mainstream methodology. But there has been a more consistent methodological thread within Cambridge in the form of a ‘middle way’ (between inductivism and deductivism). This thread is traced from Newton, with a detour via Hume and Smith, through the development of economic methodology in Cambridge right up to the critical realism of the present day. Among the key figures considered here are Malthus, Marshall, and Maynard Keynes.
This chapter examines the interactions that occurred between economics and psychology in Cambridge from the last quarter of the nineteenth century up until the Second World War. It does so by examining the work of four Cambridge economists (Henry Sidgwick, Alfred Marshall, A.C. Pigou and John Maynard Keynes) and three Cambridge psychologists (James Ward, G.F. Stout and Charles Myers) in parallel, in order to detect any similarity of approach or theme in their work. The first section of the chapter documents the influence of the three psychologists at Cambridge, and the second section examines how the four Cambridge economists utilized concepts from psychology in their economic theory. Some concerns common to both Cambridge economists and psychologists are detected, and some significant differences in how psychology was used by the four economists are outlined.
This article examines on the foundations of innovation in economic and business theory. After a brief review of the main problems that economic theory faces in its attempt to fit innovation into its mechanical and biologist models, the need for a more robust epistemology and anthropology comes to light for understanding the practical character of human action and its free and social nature. To this end, we undertake an anthropological approach to quintes-sentially human manifestations –language and working order to recover the meaning of innovation and overcome its tension with tradition, which is an expression of the struggle that occurs between nature and history when using a reductive theory of knowledge and a false anthropology.
This chapter provides an overview of Arthur C. Pigou’s life and works, evaluating his general contribution to economics. Firstly, some aspects of Pigou’s biography are sketched in order to track his trajectory as an academic within the establishment of Cambridge University, and also to depict the main fields of scientific inquiry to which he dedicated his life. Secondly, it summarizes Pigou’s main ideas on welfare economics, industrial fluctuations, employment and applied economics. After that, in order to assess Pigou’s standing within the international community of economists, the paper retrieves the contemporary reviews of some of his most famous books such as Wealth and Welfare, The Theory of Unemployment and Lapses from Full Employment. Finally, the analytical disputes centred on Pigou’s theories about utility comparisons, and the determinants of employment are presented, along with a survey of the most recent appraisals of his work. In the end, a brief comment on Pigou’s intellectual career is offered.
Herbert Spencer, William Hearn and Alfred Marshall on social evolution and spatial patterns of the Economy. In contemporary regional economics and economic geography, Alfred Marshall is appreciated as the first economist who described and theorized economic clusters. However, his work has been one-sidedly reduced to his economic rational explorations of the emergence and success of industrial districts. Delving deeper reveals that Marshall was deeply influenced by evolutionary thinking. For him, districts were an organizational pattern arising out of human evolution. Marshall was also influenced by two other earlier scholars: Spencer and Hearn. The founder of socio-evolutionary theory, Herbert Spencer, had already used the spatial allocation of production activities as a important criteria to characterize societal development. William Hearn had integrated the socio-evolutionary terms of organization into economics in order to describe the macro-economy. Alfred Marshall borrowed their concepts and worked them into the wider framework of social science. Due to this, he gained insights into the contingency and the path dependency of spatial processes.
The chapter interprets Marshall's so-called 'rehabilitation of Ricardo' as an operation dictated by political concerns rather than philological accuracy.
Marshall’s recipe for mathematical economics can be described as generous doses of the imagery (‘language’) of mathematics
combined with as little space as possible for its demonstrative methods (‘reasonings’). In other words, use the semantics
of mathematics, but be wary of its syntax. The article traces the origins of this recipe in the broadly defined ‘intuitionist’
philosophy of mathematics which marked the reformed Cambridge Mathematical Tripos during the mid-nineteenth century. Marshall’s
early philosophical papers reveal that he meditated and reconstructed this philosophy in terms of his own. His later approach
to mathematical economics can be accounted for as an adaptation of this intuitionist background to the needs of economic theory
as he perceived them.
This article explores economic justice in the writings of the Cambridge authors G. L. Dickinson, G. Shove, R. Hawtrey, D.
H. Robertson, H.O. Meredith, J. H. Bell and F. Ramsey, who were either members of the Apostles’ discussion society or, like
Hugh Dalton, ‘lay’ followers of its philosophical leader, G. E. Moore. The article challenges the prevalent view depicting
the Apostles as uninterested in social problems. Their analyses of economic inequality are reviewed in connection with the
Marshallian tradition, the impact of Fabianism and J. M. Keynes’s views of social justice. Special attention is paid to some
neglected aspects of Moore’s Principia Ethica, which were debated in the Society and influenced the Apostles’ social awareness. They believed that large inequalities were
both unjust and inefficient, and, as Moore’s disciples, they rejected the hedonistic perspective and considered justice not
as an end in itself but as a means to the Good.
Before The General Theory (1936), John Maynard Keynes’ two most successful books had been The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) and The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill (1925). Both books used the rhetorical device of a ‘whipping boy’ — in the first book there were three (US President Woodrow Wilson, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau), and the second book was devoted to just one.1 All those whipping boys were politicians pursuing objectives that Keynes regarded as inept and shortsighted.2 Keynes was not a petty person: he sought to mobilize public opinion in opposition to what he regarded as disastrous policy blunders that were bound to undermine civilization.
According to Keynes, politics should aim at three different targets : economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty. The first part of the paper analyses the meaning of each target and their combination. Economic efficiency is related to utilitarianism. Keynes is considered as utilitarian because he accepted the two following ideas : 1) the good is related to pleasures and utility, even if it cannot be strictly defined by these two words - 2) an action is right when it increases the happiness of the community. Besides, the second point, the principle of utility, insures that resources shall be efficiently used. Social justice bears on the reduction of unequalities. Unequalities are acceptable only if they contribute to economic development and to the improvement of the whole population. Finally, economic liberties appear as a cause of efficiency as well as a component of personal liberties.
The three targets have different degrees of priority. As long as the stage of abundancy is not reached, efficiency comes first, liberty second and social justice third. Full-employment matters, evidently, but is considered more as instrumental for the three preceeding goals rather than a goal in itself.
The second part deal with means. In The End of Laisser-Faire, Keynes defines the sphere of intervention of the State in terms of the collective goods. The list of the Agenda of the State may be found in other texts. After 1930 they include « moderate planning », a concept which fits in Keynes' general scheme of « liberal socialism ». In the long run, Keynes believed that « a somewhat comprehensive socialization of investment » and the « euthanasia of the rentier » - which refer to a much more radical socialism - would become unevitable.
The informal institutional structure embraces the social norms and moral values of a particular society and together with the formal institutional frame they compose the social environment. Social norms and values, congealed into customary rules of behaviour, provide a stable and enduring context to economic life that acts positively or negatively on economic activity. Despite their methodological and theoretical differences, Mill and Marshall have both suggested that individual economic decisions are fully embedded in their social environment. Thus, in order to explain the economic phenomena, from simple transaction processes to long term development, they adopted a broader perspective by including the social frame inside which economic choices are made, divulging the role of custom, yet in a quite distinctive way.
The aim of this essay is to examine economists' views about the relationship between Marshallian and Walrasian theory. Are they complementary, as is usually believed, or do they constitute alternative research programs? I compare two viewpoints on this matter, the conciliatory and the antagonistic. After describing these, I present my own standpoint: I believe that there is a Marshall-Walras divide, but I have serious objections to the way in which the argument for this divide is usually made. In the last part of the paper, I examine the view held by several authors that an embryonic general equilibrium model is to be found in Marshall's Principles.
This paper traces the genesis of the consumers surplus in Alfred Marshall’s work, focusing on its analytical change : first regarded as a monetary gain, the surplus gradually becomes a utility gain. This inquiry allows re-appraising the question of Marshall’s intellectual debt. In this perspective, Cournot’s influence seems to have to be restricted to the birth of the concept of surplus, while the critical assessment of Jevons Theory of Political Economy appears to have played a decisive role in the evolution of Marshall’s problematic. However, the idea of an influence from Dupuit or Jenkin seems to have to be ruled out.
The roots of modern 'Economics' are deeply buried in the moral and political philosophy of the ancient philosophers. The journey of an economist from the pedestal of a 'moral philosopher' to a state of 'poor economist' is rather long. Through the Middle Ages the 'natural law' approach to economics and sociology held firm. The 'socio-economic rationalism' of the Stoics helped this approach to develop into a 'social science' that later took the form of 'moral philosophy' of the 18 th century philosophers. Since then Economics has been enriched by scientific thought of many. While Marshall and his Principles made the study of Economics popular at universities, Keynes provided a theoretical platform to the governments for their full employment policies ensuring an unprecedented economic growth for a quarter century during the post-war years. For more than a century now Economics has witnessed tremendous progress in methods and contents. Unfortunately, over the last two decades it has come under fire. Is there a new transformation underway or Economics has lost its lustre? This short essay tries to address some of such issues.
Various explanations have been put forward as to why the "Keynesian. Revolution occurred. Some of these point to the temporal relevance of the General Theory while others highlight the importance of more anecdotal evidence, such as Keynes.s relations with the Cambridge "Circus.. However, no systematic effort has been made to bring together these and other factors under one recognised framework of analysis. This thesis attempts to fill this gap by making use of a well-established tradition of work within the history of science literature devoted to identifying the factors which help to explain why certain research schools are successful and why others fail. This body of work is based primarily on the ideas of Jack Morrell and Gerald Geison. More specifically, Morrell and Geison make use of a combination of 14 intellectual, technical, institutional, psychological and financial factors which, they argue, help determine the relative performance of research schools.
We apply the research school approach to the development very specifically of macroeconomics in the 1930s and 1940s. Our findings suggest that it does indeed provide a reasonably coherent explanation as to why the revolution in macroeconomics witnessed during this period was specifically labelled "Keynesian., this despite the fact that Keynes was far from being the only economist attempting to gain dominance for his ideas. Thus, as well as Keynes, we apply the same research school analysis to the cases of Hayek and Kalecki and use it to explain why they were overshadowed by Keynes. On a final note, although it is clear that Keynes independently possessed a number of the attributes necessary to establish a successful and sustainable research school, the thesis also identifies the theories and activities of Marshall as providing an important foundation from which Keynes was able to mount his own revolution.
The relationship between the economy and wider social structures and the extent to which these could be studied independently were important issues for both Marshall and Schumpeter. Marshall had clear views on the issue. As noted in the chapters by Arena, Hodgson, and Nishizawa, for Marshall, economics was concerned with the study of mankind in the ordinary business of life. Marshall warned against the separation of the study of economics from other social phenomena although he remained skeptical about the extent to which a comprehensive social science was possible.
Despite the new interest shown by many economists, social scientists and observers of the changes of the modern socio-economical reality for the concept of the industrial district - ID - (or for analogous and related notions like clusters, industrial milieux, etc.) the analysis of this particular form of industrial structure is quite old, and dates back to the early studies of Alfred Marshall (1860s). Industrial district has become nowadays a conceptual category which can be contrasted to the idea of the large hierarchical firm which dominated the economic scene in the Fordist era, but it is also a modality of resource coordination which has been developed historically in many organisational "territorial variants" which include a diverse interplay of small and large firms. This was observed by Marshall himself when he wrote that an industrial district can be made either of large or small firms, even though the latter get more important advantages. Our analysis tracks back the development of the concept of ID along an historical perspective that considers not just Marshall's but also the contribution of Sargant Florence with his "discovery" of the efficiency of "highly localised industries", passing through the "evolution of localised industry" of others British economists belonging to the "old Cambridge school", like Chapman and Robertson, since it will encounter the modern interpretative economic reflections on the clustering of economic activity.
In The Economics of Welfare, Pigou develops the idea of what will be widely known as 'Pigouvian tax'. Together with the concept of externality, they constituted two of the most important founding elements of modern welfare economics. Many have suggested that, on the way he treated externalities, Pigou might have drawn from his master, Alfred Marshall (see the proposal for a 'fresh air rate'). The aim of this paper is to inquire into the features of the original proposals made both by Marshall and Pigou, underline the differences between the two and challenge the hypothesis of 'continuity'.
Amartya Sen's enlarged conception of freedom has augmented the scope of economic analysis but it also has had the surprising effect of being more supportive of the free market than conventional welfare economics. It is argued here that a comparison of Sen's position with that of the American institutionalist, J R Commons, highlights some problems with Sen's approach and points to possible ways in which they might be addressed.
The purpose of this article is to analyze Alfred Marshall's concept of class. Marshall's concept of class is not well-studied. His idea of class is different from what Weber and Marx have proposed. In contrast to many other economists, he has a discussion of class that is developed. It is shown that Marshall sees classes as made up of people whose work offers similar chances of developing their higher faculties. An integrated idea is that different class positions are associated with different discount rates of future outcomes. Marshall's class theory combines physical and mental components.
The purpose of this article is to analyze Alfred Marshall's concept of class. Marshall's concept of class is not well-studied. His idea of class is different from what Weber and Marx have proposed. In contrast to many other economists, he has a discussion of class that is developed. It is shown that Marshall sees classes as made up of people whose work offers similar chances of developing their higher faculties. An integrated idea is that different class positions are associated with different discount rates of future outcomes. Marshall's class theory combines physical and mental components. Copyright © 2010 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc..
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