This paper has two purposes: first, to survey existing quantitative analyses of economics and the economics profession; and, second, to suggest that a more rigorous quantitative approach towards certain aspects of the subject will not be possible until historians of economic thought take fuller...

The FMP model exemplifies the Keynesian models later criticized by Lucas, Sargent and others as conceptually flawed. For economists in the 1960s such models were “big science”, posing organizational as well as theoretical and empirical problems. It was part of an even larger industry in...

It is widely accepted that economics has changed significantly since the 1970s with the development of new data sources, new methods of analysis and the computer. This paper argues that this transformation of the discipline involves more than just a rise of empirical work: it involves a new...

This paper covers the history of secular stagnation from Alvin's Hansen's AEA Presidential address in 1938 to the recent re-discovery of the idea by Lawrence Summers. It is argued that the story of secular stagnation is more complicated than the simple version usually told: the theory changed in...

In the early years of the Great Depression, many economists explained the disaster by arguing that was the result of competition having broken down and market power becoming too concentrated. This paper show how that view was eventually displaced by a view that attributed mass unemployment to a...

This note reviews the changes Samuelson made to the family tree of economics between the 4th and 11th editions of his textbook Economics in relation to the book's changing coverage of the history of economic thought. Of particular interest are the development from "neoclassical synthesis" to...

After reviewing Samuelson's use of the term "neoclassical synthesis" in relation to both Foundations of Economic Analysis, and his introductory textbook, the paper argues that the use of the term changed as it was taken up by heterodox economists seeking a term to represent the orthodoxy against...

This paper explores Samuelson's concept of the neoclassical synthesis. It is argued that his two main books hold out different types of synthesis. Foundations offered a synthesis based on common mathematical structures and presages the attempts to synthesize economics by Don Patinkin and Robert...