This paper puts John Maynard Keynes' "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" into its historical context, both in terms of economic history and in terms of the history of economics. It discusses the post-World War I period as background to the General Theory, looks at the...

The article investigates Wicksell's change of mind about the machinery question between 1890 and 1900/1901. Wicksell at first sided with the so-called “compensation theory” that workers are not harmed by the introduction of machinery. In his lecture notes of April 1900, made available here...

Many commentators claim Adam Smith failed to realize that no objective standard of value exists. Instead, he adhered to the labor theory of value. Like others, we argue that in the The Wealth of Nations Smith discussed the “early and rude state” in which the labor theory of value made some...

This paper offers a critical comment on the interpretation that Adam Smith's lsquo;real measure of exchangeable value' was addressed, at least in part, to the index number problem of estimating intertemporal changes in general purchasing power. It is argued that the lsquo;real measure' is...

Lewis argued that his 1954 model of economic development in a dual economy was based on the classical framework originally advanced by Smith, Malthus, Ricardo and Marx. The present paper provides a detailed investigation of how Lewis adopted and adapted classical concepts such as...

Neoclassical economists of the current era frequently pay lip service to Adam Smith’s theories to certify the validity of natural-laws-based, laissez-faire policies. However, neoclassical theories are fundamentally disconnected from Adam Smith’s notion of value, his understanding of the...

The article investigates Wicksell's change of mind about the machinery question between 1890 and 1900/1901. Wicksell at first sided with the so-called "compensation theory" that workers are not harmed by the introduction of machinery. In his lecture notes of April 1900, made available here for...

This paper challenges the commonly held view that Smith's moral theory is a subjectivist theory. Smith's test for goodness and rightness - for propriety - is not the approbation of an impartial spectator, but the warranted approbation of such a spectator. Something is right or good not because...

Between J-B. Say and R. Malthus an important debate took place, witnessed by a number of letters and quotations, mainly concerning the débouchés problem. Quite surprisingly, the respective theories of values are never under discussion in their correspondence, nor quotations on them can be...

John Elliott Cairnes (1823-1875) is best known for his defense of the wages fund doctrine after Mill’s abandonment of it. This essay argues that Cairnes’ ideas represented a substantive advance in classical political economy, in that his ideas were more coherent than those of his...