Die moderne Volkswirtschaftslehre als wissenschaftliche Disziplin ist einerseits durch große Uneinheitlichkeit geprägt, die andererseits selbst in Zeiten der Krise der Theorie anscheinend nicht nachhaltig in ein öffentliches Bewusstsein vordringen konnte. Nach wie vor wird die Ökonomik...

In February 1933, Edward Chamberlin published The Theory of Monopolistic Competition. Joan Robinson's The Economics of Imperfect Competition followed in the spring. A disciplinary consensus quickly formed, holding that the two books represented simultaneous discoveries of the same theoretical...

In 1930, Richard Kahn became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, on the basis of his book-length dissertation 'The Economics of the Short Period.' It was finally published in the 1980s. Why did he not publish his thesis in the 1930s, when it would have made a substantial impact? We present...

How to understand the current crisis at the World level? Following Joan Robinson, we present the definition of “new mercantilism”, and explain how mercantilist practices have supported what we commonly call globalization. The current economic crisis can be linked with mercantilist practices:...

The paper analyses the evolution of the financial crisis as it spread throughout the real economy during 2009. It is argued that public funding of failed banks and financial institutions does not represent a path to a more stable financial system. It is also pointed out that structural...

Joan Robinson is the rebel with a cause par excellence. She has been at the forefront of most major developments, some of them revolutionary, in modern economic theory since the late 1920s. Joan Robinson has always believed passionately in her subject as a force for enlightenment and she has...

One of the rude awakenings for economists from the current recession is an emerging understanding that economics has gone wild with its highbrow mathematical models that bear little resemblance to reality. The failure of economics to predict and solve the current global recession, has restored...

This paper reconstructs the academic figure of Sraffa at the University of Cambridge as it emerges from his papers, his correspondence with the economists with whom he had special relations, and the official documents of the University, in particular in connection with his role in the Faculty of...