The title of this paper – “Why Economists Disagree” – takes its name from Fritz Machlup's speech before the American Philosophical Society on November 12, 1964, five months after the fourth Bellagio Group conference of thirty-two non-governmental economists, convened by Machlup to...

This paper explores the links between the re-opening of the Italian and other European economies, their balance of payments, and the choice of a strategy for economic reconstruction at the end of World War II, through an analysis of the work and activities of the Italian economist Bresciani...

Robert Lucas is rightfully credited with having changed the course of macroeconomic theory. The aim of this paper is to document his transformation from a potential contributor to Keynesian macroeconomics to the master builder of an alternative paradigm, equilibrium macroeconomics. I reconstruct...

I examine two competing proposals for reforming and reviving confidence in the international monetary regime. Robert Triffin introduced and championed the proposal for centralized reserves. Fritz Machlup championed the proposal for flexible rates originally introduced by Milton Friedman. Triffin...

The paper offers a reconstruction of the “conversation” between Irving Fisher and Knut Wicksell on money as shown by references they made to each other's works. The first phase corresponded largely to the period between 1897 and 1911, when they proposed different explanations of the...

This paper explores the influence of Fritz Machlup and the Bellagio Group on world monetary reform. After an examination of the literature, the paper addresses research into MachlupÕs framing of the problem of world monetary reform, his method, his selection of economists to join the Bellagio...

The transcript of a panel discussion marking the fiftieth anniversary of John Muth's “Rational Expectations and the Theory of Price Movements” (Econometrica 1961). The panel consists of Michael Lovell, Robert Lucas, Dale Mortensen, Robert Shiller, and Neil Wallace. The discussion is...

This paper discusses the development of Keynes's ideas about monetary theory in the context of the consequences of Britain's return to the gold standard (opposed by Keynes) in 1925 and his initial unsuccessful attempt to develop a comprehensive theory of macroeconomic fluctuations in his...

Robert Triffin became famous with his trenchant analyses of the vulnerabilities of the Bretton Woods system. These are still at the center of many discussions today. This paper argues that there is a remarkable continuity in Triffin's work. From his earliest writings, Triffin developed a vision...

In 1912 Guillermo Subercaseaux (1872-1959), a professor of economics at the University of Chile, published El Papel Moneda, translated into French in 1920 as Le Papier-Monnaie. Subercaseaux's book was reviewed in North-American and European economic journals, and was regarded by Knut Wicksell...