This paper examines Adam Smith's understanding of the philosophy and science, the motivations that lead us to investigate nature and society, and the proper methods of investigation and exposition. The paper also criticizes those authors that interpret Smith's work as an example of the...

A new comprehension of Adam Smith's writings arose in the last years. These studies emphasized the political and ethical dimensions of his work and its connection with the eighteenth-century context. This article reviews the historical reception of Smith's works and discusses the recent...

We investigate the existence of national styles of political economy and suggest the characteristics and determinants of the German, Austrian, French, and English styles. Some methodological implications for the history economic thought are outlined.

This essay argues that Adam Smith's thought should be interpreted within the intellectual context of the Scottish enlightenment. It discusses the origins and the specific nature of the enlightenment in Scotland in order to highlight the differences between the social theory of the Scottish...

This paper investigates the emergence in the Modernity of an economic discourse intended to be autonomous from moral and political philosophy. The article demonstrates that the existence of economics as separated field of knowledge is recent and its creation related to the appearance of market...

One important question that has been discussed in the literature about regional economics is the relevance of local productive networks (clusters) for the regional development. It is possible to find a huge number of case studies that discuss many aspects of this kind of network: cooperation,...

The Japanese catch up between 1868 and 1974 holds important lessons for underdeveloped countries. This paper evaluates the Japanese experience including strategic and geopolitical considerations. Successful industrial policies implemented might have been shaped under the influence of those...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the long turn economic impacts of tariff review policy of the Brazilian rail freight sector, as well as explore some analytic potential of the dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model which captures some forms of market imperfections (such as...

The Brazilian federal government has recently set out plans encompassing detailed public expenditure programs and targets on infra-structure investment (PAC, Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento). We investigate the sectoral, regional and national economic consequences of the PAC in Minas...

This article examines the impact of climate change in the Northeast from estimates of the availability of land suitable for agricultural activity in a range of cultures. This information, based on global warming scenarios from the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), are introduced in...