This paper examines Mark Blaug's position on the normative character of Paretian welfare economics: in general, and specifically with respect to his debate with Pieter Hennipman over this question during the 1990s. The paper also clarifies some of the confusions that emerged within the context...

This paper briefly presents the life of Abram Bergson (Burk). It summarizes its most important contributions to economic theory: microeconomics, welfare economics, comparative economics and sovietology. The role of value judgments in the construction of social indexes or in the comparison of...

Robert Neild (born 1924) has made a major contribution to economics and to peace studies. This paper provides a brief sketch of Neild's life and work. While noting his research in economic policy and peace studies, this essay devotes more attention to his largely-unnoticed contributions to...

This paper describes James M. Buchanan’s analysis of human capital concepts in a class paper that he wrote in 1946 titled “Federalism: One Barrier to Labor Mobility.” The paper described how federal financing of human capital investments impeded labor mobility and formed the basis for his...

Ronald Coase (1910-2013), who sadly died at the remarkable age of 102, made significant contributions to economics based on common sense and the detailed study of his topics. Coase was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1991 “for his discovery and clarification of the significance...

This is the result of an interview conducted by email exchange during the period from July 2017 to February 2018, with minor adjustments later in 2018. Apart from some personal history, topics discussed include: (i) social choice, especially with interpersonal comparisons of utility; (ii)...

The role of first principles in economics is examined through the lens of dominant methodological approaches of the classical and neoclassical periods. First principles are most clearly displayed in pure deductive systems. The tension between first principles as the basis for deductivist...

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 Genera l 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...

The roots of the feminist economics which has come, the 1990s, to be widely recognized as in a distinct field of economics are to be found in theoretical developments in both neoclassical economics and in feminist theory from around the 1960s. The aims of this paper are to (1) delineate and...

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...