The paper reconstructs the origins of the quantity theory of money and its applications. Against the background of the history of money, it is shown that the theory was flexible enough to adapt to institutional change and thus succeeded in maintaining its relevance. To this day, it is useful as...

This paper, based on the introductory remarks made at the two-day conference on “The State of the Economy, the State of the World,” is an idiosyncratic stocktaking of the trajectory of economics from Adam Smith to contemporary times, with special attention to the rise of development...

This book profiles the lives and ideas of some of the leading thinkers on individual liberty - from ancient times to the present day - and sheds light on the key elements of liberal thought and those who shaped it across the centuries. The book identifies their common goals, but also highlights...

In den Wirtschaftswissenschaften lassen sich zwei Theorietypen unterscheiden: Die "idealistische Ökonomie" geht von einem Idealzustand aus und untersucht die Bedingungen, unter denen dieser erreicht werden kann wie die Eigenschaften des "homo oeconomicus". Die "realistische Ökonomie" geht vom...

In the modern lexicon, money is pure instrumentality, a colorless medium that transparently expresses real value. Contrary to that trope, however, we can get “inside” money: we can reconnoiter it as a structure entailing value that is engineered by certain societies. Taking a...

After World War II the continent of Europe was devastated both structurally and economically by the war. George C. Marshall is the man who can be considered the father of outsourcing and foreign aid, because of his military skills and training he was able to devise a foreign policy plan as an...

This paper is a contribution to the elaboration of a narrative of the international economic disorder that followed the demise of the Bretton Woods regime. It therefore revisits some key episodes of the recent history of the world economy – the Washington Consensus saga and the widening of...

Economists have occasionally noticed the appearance of economists in cartoons produced for public amusement during crises. Yet the message behind such images has been less than fully appreciated. This paper provides evidence of such inattention in the context of the eighteenth century...