The work of Raúl Prebisch is typically summarized by two of his important contributions to development economics: the center-periphery paradigm together with his diagnosis of Latin America's development struggles. Recent investigations have, however, shed light on the nature of Prebisch's early...

I argue that the outbreak of the Great War facilitated a shift in the dominant view of human nature within the Cambridge-Bloomsbury intelligentsia, steering it away from an optimistic view toward a pessimistic one. The conceptualization of human reason and rationality within this group, however,...

Standard histories of economics usually treat the "marginal revolution" of the midnineteenth century as both supplanting the "classical" economics of Smith and Ricardo and as advancing the idea of economics as a mathematical science. The marginalists - especially Jevons and Walras - viewed...

In 1982 my book Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the Twentieth Century was published. At the 2017 History of Economics society meeting, a session was held to mark the 35th anniversary of that event. Papers by Wade Hands, Kevin Hoover, Tony Lawson, and the trio Peter Boettke, Solomon...

The role of traveling as a source of discovery and development of new ideas has been controversial in the history of economics. Despite their protective attitude toward established theory, economists have traveled widely and gained new insights or asked new questions as a result of their...

This paper is an exploration of the genesis of Paul Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947) from the perspective of his commitment to Edwin B. Wilson's mathematics. The paper sheds new lights on Samuelson's Foundations at two levels. First, Wilson's foundational ideas, embodied in...

Through this paper I try to join the lively debate around mainstream economics with a view to calling attention to some methodological aspects. It is aimed at outlining an interpretation based on Max Weber's traditional neoclassical methodology that can help us to find the adequate territory of...

The concept of 'the core' originates in cooperative game theory and its introduction to economics in the 1960s as a basis for proofs of existence of general equilibrium is one of the earliest attempts to use game theory to address big questions in economics. Discovery of the core was met with...

This working paper - like its companion, Caldwell and Klausinger 2021 - grew out of the authors' joint work on Hayek: A Life, 1899-1950 (Caldwell and Klausinger 2022) and it contains material supplementing it. This paper draws to a large extent on Friedrich Hayek's own investigations into the...

This article--designed to give readers unfamiliar with public choice a historical overview and flavor for the kinds of problems considered--is divided into three main sections, "historical origins," the "modern founders of MPE," and a brief description of some "current issues" studied by public...