The present essay investigates F.A. Hayek’s epistemology and his methodology of sciences of complex phenomena for implications relevant to an explanation of Hayek’s own so- called “epistemic turn.” The thesis defended here is that Hayek’s dissatisfaction with his technical economics...

Combining concrete policy-oriented modeling strategies of World War II with what was received as traditional neoclassical theory, in 1956 Robert Solow constructed a simple, clean, and smooth-functioning “design” model that served many different purposes. As a working object it enabled...

Samuelson and Solow in their 1960 paper in the American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings were among the first economists to engage with Phillips’ famous unemployment/wage-inflation analysis, now referred to as the Phillips curve. They addressed the question of the relevance of...

Modern growth theory derives mostly from Robert Solow’s “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth” (1956). Solow’s own interpretation locates the origins of his “Contribution” in his view that the growth model of Roy Harrod implied a tendency toward progressive collapse of the...

The paper presents the history of the contribution of two American economists to a radical cause: the establishment of a socialist and politically united Africa. The setting is 1960s Ghana which under Kwame Nkrumah, the man who led the country to independence from British colonial rule, emerged...

Ben Bernanke researched monetary policy for over 25 years prior to becoming a policymaker, and his two-term career as Chairman of the Federal Reserve featured a severe recession coupled with a nancial crisis, a chief subject of Bernanke's research. His reaction to economic events is noteworthy...

This paper examines the relationship of the monetary economics of James Tobin to modern monetary theory, which has diverged in many ways from the directions taken by Tobin and his associates (for example, moving away from multi-asset models of financial market equilibrium and from monetary...

Milton Friedman was the leading public proponent for an all-volunteer military. This chapter traces his influence upon the national debate over conscription, which culminated in Friedman’s service on the Gates Commission. Friedman’s argument relied on economic reasoning and appeal to...

Paolo Sylos Labini’s Oligopoly Theory and Technical Progress (1957) is considered one of the major contributions to entry-prevention models, especially after Franco Modigliani’s famous formalization. Nonetheless, Modigliani neglected Sylos Labini’s major aim when reviewing his work (1958),...

The Pigou effect was conceived to counter Keynes’s argument that a competitive economy could remain in the state of high unemployment. Before he introduced this idea, Pigou had debated with Keynes the same question of whether an economy has the tendency to recover full employment. He lost in...