The rhetoric of positivism had a profound effect on the worldview and practice of economists in the middle of the last century. Though this influence has greatly diminished, it still may be found in the attitude of many economists towards the history of their discipline. This paper traces the...

The Great Recession and the financial crisis of 2007-09 prompted ca lls for fundamental reforms of economic theory. The role of theory in economics and in recent economic events is considered in light of two recen t books: the sociologist Richard Swedberg's The Art of Social Theory and the...

This essay reviews new histories of the role of game theory and rational decision-making in shaping the social sciences, economics among them, in the post war period. The recent books The World the Game Theorists Made by Paul Erickson and How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind by Paul Erickson, Judy...

A transcription of a 2019 conversation with Duke historian E. Roy Weintraub on his intellectual development over the 1980s from mathematician to economist to historian. The conversation also explored Weintraub's early and continuing attempts to forge new ways to study the history of contemporary...

Among American news magazines Newsweek holds the distinction of having hosted some of the most authoritative interpretation of economic events. Its cast of columnists included two of the most acclaimed academic economists and some of the most widely read business journalists of the late...

Martin Bronfenbrenner (1914-1997) was an American economist who was conversant with Japanese counterparts and well informed in Japan's economics and economy. This paper aims to examine how he managed to communicate with Japanese economists when he visited Japan (three times) during the period...

This paper explores the four decades of intellectual relationship between the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) and two major representatives of German ordoliberalism, Walter Eucken (1891-1950) and Wilhelm Röpke (1899-1966). The timespan covered starts in the early 1920s...

This paper constitutes the start of a project dedicated to Austrian economist and economic sociologist Friedrich von Wieser (1851-1926). Its central claim is that especially in recent decades, Wieser has become a disproportionately underresearched scholar, and the paper provides a set of...

Max Weber's relationship to economics in general and to the Austrian School in particular has received more attention recently. However, this literature as conducted by Weber scholars and by Austrian economists exhibits two major deficiencies. First, the studies are often either purely...

The leadership structure of the American Economics Association is documented using a biographical database covering every officer and losing candidate for AEA offices from 1950 to 2019. The analysis focuses on institutional affiliations by education and employment. The structure is strongly...