I offer a comment on a paper by Prof David Andrews, ‘Adam Smith’s Natural Prices, the Gravitation Metaphor, and the Purposes of Nature’, 2014, published in Economic Thought, 3.1, pp. 42-55, which takes a philosophical view of Adam Smith’s use …
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Posted for review 20 Jun 2014
Published
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6 comments
Following the recent debates in the New Neoclassical Synthesis, the theory of monetary policy had been renewed. The method that prevails, illustrated by Woodford’s Interest and Prices, is a Dynamic General Stochastic Equilibrium Model (DGSE) in which the old LM …
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Posted for review 21 Jan 2014
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2 comments
If “well-being” is to be the key concept in political economy, then economists are placed, from a methodological viewpoint, in an uncomfortable position. A well-being approach requires consideration of several non-economic dimensions strongly interrelated with the economic process, and failure …
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Posted for review 1 Nov 2013
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This paper gives an account of the debate between F.A. Hayek and J.M. Keynes in the 1930s written for the common reader. The purpose for this is twofold. First to provide the general reader with a narrative of what happened, …
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Posted for review 1 Nov 2013
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An integrated system of economic theory and policy allowed for the free market price of land to cyclically go down to zero and facilitated the restitution of the land to the original possessor on the year of the Jubilee. A …
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Posted for review 18 Sep 2013
Unpublished
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There are three main claims in this paper: First, there is sufficient evidence for affirming that Ricardo adhered to Smith’s productivity theory; second, Ricardo’s original demonstration of the comparative-advantage proposition is indeed compatible and complementary with respect to the latter; …
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Posted for review 5 Sep 2013
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Adam Smith’s “natural price” has long been interpreted as a “normal price” or “center of gravitation price” based on the famous gravitation metaphor of the Wealth of Nations I.vii, natural in the sense that it is the price that would …
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Posted for review 22 Jul 2013
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The paper briefly summarizes the historical evolution of TNCs and their activities. It then introduced the major theories developed to explain the TNC. There is an attempt to place the theories historically, within the context of the socio-economic conditions and …
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Posted for review 4 Jul 2013
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2 comments
This paper identifies the major failings of mainstream economics and the rational choice theory it relies upon. These failures were identified by the four figures mentioned in the title: economics treats agents as rational fools; by the time the long …
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Posted for review 3 Jul 2013
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The mainstream view about the irrelevance of the history of economic thought (HET) is illustrated, and the reasons for it are indicated in the hidden assumption of a positivist idea about the cumulative growth of knowledge. HET is however very …
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Posted for review 1 Jul 2013
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3 comments
The paper analyzes Robert Heilbroner’s philosophy of economics through the lens of Max Weber’s philosophy of science. Specifically, Heilbroner’s position on vision, ideology and value-freedom is examined by contextualizing it within a framework of Weberian science. Doing so leads to …
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Posted for review 22 Feb 2013
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4 comments
This paper submits that while David Hume and Adam Smith are presumed to be founders of modernism in philosophy and economics they already were what now would be deemed post-modern. It outlines Hume’s concept of ‘the reflexive mind’ and to …
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Posted for review 29 Jan 2013
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Due to a precise definition of comparative advantage and a deeper understanding of the logical interrelationships between this proposition and the two other main elements in David Ricardo’s famous numerical example in the Principles – the classical rule of specialization …
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Posted for review 29 Jan 2013
Unpublished
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It is, I think, interesting to compare the views of E. F. Schumacher and J. M. Keynes on the ethical aspects of economics – both the economic systems of which they were a part and economics as a subject. Both …
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Posted for review 18 Dec 2012
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Adam Smith takes a stand that clearly differs from that of the doctrinaire liberalism that would take shape in the first third of the 19th Century. He does not imagine that social life takes place in a neutral, politically aseptic …
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Posted for review 17 Dec 2012
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This paper shows that Marshall’s theory is generally equivalent to Walras’s one. It shows that Walras used two types of demand functions: (1) the original (ordinary) demand curve (function); and (2) the derived (general) demand function. Marshall also used both …
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Posted for review 14 Nov 2012
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2 comments
Adam Smith rejected Mandeville’s invisible-hand doctrine of ‘private vices, publick benefits’. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments his model of the ‘impartial spectator’ is driven by not by sympathy for other people, but by their approbation. Approbation needs to be …
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Posted for review 6 Sep 2012
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For much economics research, ethics committee approval is not required. This is seen by some as indicating that there are no ethical issues in economics research. However, ethical research requires more than simply meeting regulatory requirements. If economics research has …
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Posted for review 6 Sep 2012
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Within the discussion of ethics and economics some have considered designing a code of ethics for economists. But the idea of such a code is potentially problematic from a pluralist standpoint. Some possibilities are discussed here to show that any …
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Posted for review 6 Sep 2012
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This paper is the written version of a verbal presentation to the 2011 conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics, held at Nottingham Trent University, 6‐9 July 2011. It presents the case for the ethical scrutiny of the economics profession, …
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Posted for review 6 Sep 2012
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