The premise on which this paper builds is that modern economists unduly neglect history. The paper aims to support the argument that this is undesirable by looking at past episodes in the development of economic thought where economics has benefited from a historical approach. The first example...

There is evidence of growing plurality in economic theory, alongside an increasing degree of homogenisation at the level of methodology. The purpose of this paper is to explore these developments in the light of the methodological literature on pluralism, regarding meaning of plurality, and the...

This paper considers the signalling aspect of monetary policy. We introduce a heuristic framework for the study of signal uncertainty, and use this to analyses the signal uncertainty implicit in the communications of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). Our findings suggest...

With the increasing attention to how monetary policy is communicated has come a focus on the scope for diverse messages to arise from the committee making the decisions. While the existing literature sees the source of such diversity in relation to a 'correct' decision based on one 'true' model,...

The purpose of the paper is to consider Adam Smith's ideas on rhetoric in relation to his philosophy and his economics, against the background of the Scottish Enlightenment. For Smith, communication was important partly as a vehicle for persuasion in the absence of scope for argument by...

Robert Skidelsky, author of a key biography of Keynes, notes in this biography that Keynes’s relationship to modernism is crucial to the understanding of his work, yet difficult to grasp historiographically. This may be true if one seeks to uncover influences from modernism as as a...

This paper reflects on the contributions of Adam Smith and Joseph Schumpeter on our understanding of economic development, routines and cognition. It distinguishes between two conceptions of economic analysis, one Cartesian in nature, the other following an developmental perspective that resists...

The experience of monetary policy making in an uncertain environment has encouraged increased attention to the concept of model uncertainty, that is, uncertainty as to which is the best model. A particular difficulty has been the need to operationalise the concept in order to yield definitive...

Exploring knowledge in monetary policy process stands to benefit by departing from conceptualizing knowledge as an objective depiction of reality, a neutral language of science underpinning technocratic policy-making. This paper proposes a postpositivist perspective, approaching knowledge...