It is traditionally claimed that the State has three main categories of policies to implement: allocation, distribution and stabilization policies. In the present chapter we will be concerned only with stabilization policies or, more generally, with the role public policies may have in...

The theme of academic anti-Semitism has been much discussed recently in histories of the interwar period of the University of Vienna, in particular its Faculty of Law and Policy Sciences. This paper complements these studies by focusing in this regard on the economics chairs at this faculty and,...

This note discusses some ideas in regards to the character, method, and identity of historians of economic thought. They may be considered “generalist” economists, who hold knowledge of general theories. This knowledge allows them to establish links between different fields of specialization...

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), considered the first institutionalist author, tried to formulate, in the passage of the 19th century to the 20th, an original system of political economy that was alternative to classical, neoclassical, historicist and marxist thoughts. In this paper, this system of...

This paper interprets the discussion on entrepreneurship and economic development that started off with Weber's papers on the Protestant Ethic. Weber sought the reason for the relatively rapid growth of the Occident in the rational, Calvinist attitude to life. Calvinism - in his view - exactly...

This paper provides a comparison between Adam Smith and David Ricardo’s treatments of poverty in a capitalist society. The comparison focus on the different arguments they use to relate poverty to inequality and institutional realities. The discussion points out the life experiences of each...

Amidst the economists that are concerned about the method, it is common to make reference on the subject of a new economic methodology. It was from the deception and the abandon of the search toward a unique criterion to give scientific status to research programmes that this new movement came...

ABSTRACT Phillip Wicksteed’s ideas played an important role in the history of economic methodology. This is because of two reasons: The first was that his views represent the starting point of the deliberate attempt to expel normative issues from marginalist economic analysis. The second...

The introduction describes the relationship between Rossi-Doria and the United States in the period preceding his first American trip, made in October 1951. In the 1930s Rossi-Doria was already engaged in detailed research on American agriculture; in the postwar period he looked to the United...