Production prices are those exchange-values which, if adopted, put each industry in the conditions to repeat its production process. In this sense they appear as necessary prices. This notion is here compared with that of ‘just’ price, studied by the older moral philosophers (more so than by...

This paper deals with unemployment crises linked to the so-called general glut problem studied in classical economic theory. Its aim is to compare the main authors who analyzed the issue in order to highlight the differences in their approaches. On the one hand, some economists, such as Ricardo...

This paper is focused on an often neglected aspect of Proudhon’s thought: his rich confrontation with the theoretical legacy of the Enlightenment authors (Rousseau, Diderot, A. Smith, Condorcet, etc.) about the nature of ‘‘commercial society’’ and the idea of social progress. Through...

Maurice Potron (1872-1942) is a French Jesuit and a talented mathematician. A recent rediscovery of his economic model, which was left unnoticed in his times, lets Potron appear as a pioneer, both for the framework he conceived and the mathematical methods he used. Moreover, there are hints that...

The article discusses Keynes's proposal contained in "The Question of High Wages" (1930) and Pagni's criticism against it. In the article there emerges the author's aversion to Pagni's thesis: wage rises reduce firms' self-financing margins, and, more in general, the savings of entrepreneurs...

The definition of capitalism is the focus of a wide-ranging debate raised by W. Sombart. The author indicates his own definition according to which capitalism is a system characterized by ‘‘free choice of activity for economic subjects; private property of the means of production...

The article is based on Johan Akerman’s monograph Some Lessons of the World Depression (Stockholm 1931), and maintains that in order to understand the crisis, it is essential to use the framework of the Austrian school as refined by K. Wicksell. The crisis derives from the lack of an...

The author offers an overview and an overall interpretation of the various policy measures and programs composing in the New Deal launched by the newly appointed American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A theoretical basis and clear objectives underlie the New Deal economic policies in their...

This introduction aims to offer a preliminary reading to the collection of essays presented in the volume. It describes how the Great Depression of the 1930s was interpreted by the group of young Italian economists connected with the Catholic University of Milan and its periodical the Rivista...

The article discusses Schumpeter’s theses about the entrepreneur’s role and his market power. Schumpeter’s theory of profit and business enterprise is positively surveyed. Limits are set to the possibility of bank credit creation and of forced saving to provide entrepreneurs with an...