In this article, the author offers a discussion of the evidential role of the Galilean constant in the history of physics. The author argues that measurable constants help theories constrain data. Theories are engines for research, and this helps explain why the Duhem-Quine thesis does not...

There is a long-negligent defect in Friedman's monetary framework. Friedman overlooked the common wisdom that, in the long run, along with the institution and technology changes, the velocity of money would be accelerated substantially. If no corrective factors to cancel the impact of the...

This paper outlines the development of Hayek's account of the working of decentralised economies, focusing in particular on his move away from using the notion of economic equilibrium towards an emphasis on the notion of 'order'

F. A. Hayek took two trips to Chile, the first in 1977, the second in 1981. The visits were controversial. On the first trip he met with General Augusto Pinochet, who had led a coup that overthrew Salvador Allende in 1973. During his 1981 visit, Hayek gave interviews that were published in the...

In this review essay of Medema's and Waterman's collection of some of Samuelson's writings in the history of economics, the author argues that Samuelson's claim to have written “Whig History” is spurious. Moreover the author argues that Samuelson's own writings on modern economics are,...

This paper suggests that there exists a neglected third branch of Chicago price theory, which includes Armen Alchian (1914-2013), James Buchanan (1919-2013), and Ronald Coase (1910-2013). While this branch shares characteristics that are common to the other branches of Chicago price theory,...

This paper is a concatenation of the penultimate versions of the first and last chapters of the book Contemporary Historiography of Economics, edited by Düppe and Weintraub, to be published by Routledge Press in late 2018. The volume itself collects commissioned essays on recently developed...

The rhetoric of positivism had a profound effect on the worldview and practice of economists in the middle of the last century. Though this influence has greatly diminished, it still may be found in the attitude of many economists towards the history of their discipline. This paper traces the...

The 1933 “Mock Trial of the Economists” is occasionally noticed and then interpreted as popular discontent with economists's “crime” of “conspiracy to spread mental fog” at evidenced by the dueling letters from the Oxbridge economists (Keynes, Pigou, et al.) and the LSE economists...

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,...