This paper concerns a neglected aspect of Lucas's work: his methodological writings, published and unpublished. Particular attention is paid to his views on the relationship between theory and ideology. I start by setting out Lucas's non-standard conception of theory: to him, a theory and a...

Samuelson kept optimization-based problems separated from macroeconomic dynamics in his Foundations, where dynamics were defined in terms of difference and differential equations. Despite some criticism of his "correspondence principle" of stability analysis by D.F. Gordon, D. Patinkin and...

It is generally accepted that F.A. Hayek gave up the business cycle as an object of theoretical investigation following the publication of 1941's The Pure Theory of Capital. The present paper aims to cast a shade of doubt upon this received view. Many of Hayek's philosophical writings bear...

My paper reconstructs the path of German economist Friedrich A. Lutz (1901−1975) to American economics. The correspondence with his former teacherWalter Eucken, the founder of the Freiburg School, constitutes a crucial and yet unexplored source for the paper. Through Lutz's case, I demonstrate...

Lawrence R. Klein was the father of macro-econometric modeling, the scientific practice that dominated macroeconomics throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Therefore, understanding how Klein developed his identity as a macro-econometrician and how he conceived and forged...

The model of Homo economicus has often been criticized as unrealistic. In particular, it has been found lacking for allegedly assuming that people are selfish, an assumption which is contradicted by both introspection and empirical evidence. The aim of this paper is to show that never in the...

Solow has repeatedly called for the development of models that combine equilibrium and out-of equilibrium outcomes or what he called a macro-economics of the medium-run. This paper recounts the history of Solow's different attempts to address this issue. It starts in early 1950s when Solow...