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 the 1870s and 1880s, the scientist, logician, and pragmatist philosopher Charles S. Peirce possessed an advanced knowledge of mathematical economics, having mastered and criticized Cournot as early as 1871. In 1884 he engaged in a multi-round debate with the editors of The Nation over the...

James Buchanan has argued that not only the study of public choice, but also property-rights economics as well as law and economics can be directly traced to the work of scholars associated with the Thomas Jefferson Center for Studies in Political Economy and Social Philosophy (TJC) at the...

Our focus in this chapter will be on the methodological role that Stigler played in validating what he regarded as the science of economics that he had inherited from his own teacher, Frank Knight, and how this affected his understanding not only of economic theory but also public policy....

In this introduction sketch the architecture of Mises' economics and political economy. Mises' overarching program is one of examining exchange (economic science) and the institutions within which exchange takes place (political economy). In recent years the economics profession has moved...

William J. Baumol's “Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive” has become a modern classic in development economics and political economy. With the publication of his paper, Baumol forced the economic profession to pay closer attention to the institutional structure within...

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 –...

Throughout his career, James Buchanan displayed a remarkable consistency regarding the didactic role of the properly trained economist. As he would say, it takes varied iterations to force alien concepts upon reluctant minds. What he regarded as the role of the properly trained economist is just...

This paper contextualizes the contribution of Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit to the development of economic theory in the 20th century. Our argument in this paper is twofold. First, we contend that this book embodied what had been the common knowledge of early neoclassical economics prior to...