The role of “errors in time” (Fanno, 1933) or “disappointment of expectations” (Hicks, 1933) was a major object of analysis in the years of high theory when it contributed to the replacement of the paradigm of General Equilibrium Theory by the new paradigm of the Economics of Uncertainty...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the terms “working” and “circulating” capital are two different terms for the same concept; or whether they should be considered two different terms for two different concepts. This purpose will be carried out in two steps. The first is...

The “machinery question” was developed by the economist David Ricardo (1772–1823) in the chapter “On Machinery” added to the third edition of his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821). This question related, in his words, to the “influence of machinery on the interests...

The wage-profit relationship is usually linked up with Ricardo and his notion of “proportional wages” (Principles, Chapters I, VI and passim). This relationship is based on Ricardo’s theory of value and supports his diminishing-returns-to-agriculture theory of the falling rate of profit. A...

This paper is concerned with chapters 25-35 of Part V, The Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise, of Volume 3 of Capital. These chapters may be properly grouped in an ideal Part to be possibly titled "Credit and Crises, or Money Capital and Fictitious Capital" and is referred...

This paper is focused on the notion of wealth as used by different authors in different periods of time. The paper deals with the contrast between the notion of wealth shared by all major classical economists, particularly by Adam Smith, and the notion previously held by the Mercantilists (by...

This book contains twelve essays on some important Italian economists whose works were mostly published in the 20th century. The essays are written mostlty by non-Italian authors and deal with Vilfredo Pareto (by A. Kirman), Maffeo Pantaleoni (Peter Groenewegen), Enrico Barone (P. C. Dooley),...

The distinction between ‘value’ and ‘riches’ was first highlighted by Ricardo in Chapter XX, ‘Value and Riches, their distinctive Properties’, of his Principles (1821). Ricardo’s aim was to clear up Smith’s famous statement that “every man is rich or poor according to the...

This paper is focused on the macroeconomic aspects of Shackle’s theory of decisions under uncertainty and, more particularly, of his theory of capital and interest. The paper starts by arguing that Shackle’s general approach stems from the identification of, and conflict between, two...

The Austrian notion of stages of production and the related principle of the greater productivity of roundabout methods plus the neo-Austrian notions of vertical integration and vertical division of labour are utilized in this paper in an attempt to reconstruct Smith’s convoluted arguments on...