Classical Economic Theory And The Modern Economy

Economic theory reached its zenith of analytical power and depth of understanding in the middle of the nineteenth century among John Stuart Mill and his contemporaries. This book explains what took place in the ensuing Marginal Revolution and Keynesian Revolution that left economists less able to understand how economies operate. It explores the false mythology that has obscured the arguments of classical economists, providing a pathway into the theory they developed.

Economic theory reached its highest level of analytical power and depth in the middle of the nineteenth century among John Stuart Mill and his contemporaries. This book explains classical economics when it was at its height, followed by an analysis of what took place as a result of the ensuing Marginal and Keynesian Revolutions that have left economists less able to understand how economies operate.Chapters explore the false mythology that has obscured the arguments of classical economists, clouding to the point of near invisibility the theories they had developed. Steven Kates offers a thorough understanding of the operation of an economy within a classical framework, providing a new perspective for viewing modern economic theory from the outside. This provocative book not only explains the meaning of Say's Law in an accessible way, but also the origins of the Keynesian revolution and Keynes's pathway in writing The General Theory. It provides a new look at the classical theory of value at its height that was not based, as so many now wrongly believe, on the labour theory of value.A crucial read for economic policy-makers seeking to understand the operation of a market economy, this book should also be of keen interest to economists generally as well as scholars in the history of economic thought.

Economic theory reached its highest level of analytical power and depth in the middle of the nineteenth century among John Stuart Mill and his contemporaries. This book explains classical economics when it was at its height, followed by an analysis of what took place as a result of the ensuing Marginal and Keynesian Revolutions that have left economists less able to understand how economies operate. The chapters explore the false mythology that has obscured the arguments of classical economists, clouding to the point of near invisibility the theories they had developed. Steven Kates offers a thorough understanding of the operation of an economy within a classical framework, providing a new perspective for viewing modern economic theory from the outside. This provocative book not only explains the meaning of Say's Law in an accessible way, but also the origins of the Keynesian revolution and Keynes's pathway in writing The General Theory. It provides a new look at the classical theory of value at its height that was not based, as so many now wrongly believe, on the labour theory of value. A crucial read for economic policy makers seeking to understand the operation of a market economy, this book should also be of keen interest to economists generally as well as scholars in the history of economic thought.

The well known economists Kurz and Salvadori cover original findings and new vistas on old problems including alternative interpretations of classical economics, new groth theory, Sraffian theory and Von Neumann and the treatment of capital.

This book presents an in-depth, novel, and mathematically rigorous treatment of the modern classical theory of value based on the spectral analysis of the price–profit–wage rate system. The classical theory is also subjected to empirical testing to show its logical consistency and explanatory content with respect to observed phenomena and key economic policy issues related to various multiplier processes. In this context, there is an examination of the trajectories of relative prices when the distributive variables change, both theoretically and empirically, using actual input–output data from a number of quite divers e economies. It is suggested that the actual economies do not behave like the parable of a one-commodity world of the traditional neoclassical theory, which theorizes the relative scarcities of “goods and production factors” as the fundamental determinants of relative prices and their movement. By contrast, the results of the empirical analysis are fully consistent with the modern classical theory, which makes the intersectoral structure of production and the way in which net output is distributed amongst its claimants the fundamental determinants of price magnitudes. At the same time, however, these results indicate that only a few vertically integrated industries (“industry core” or “hyper-basic industries”) are enough to shape the behaviour of the entire economy in the case of a disturbance. This fact is reduced to the skew distribution of the eigenvalues of the matrices of vertically integrated technical coefficients and reveals that, across countries and over time, the effective dimensions of actual economies are surprisingly low. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE />

The long paper which gives the title to this collection and which has never before been published as paperback was initially an attempt to promote international academic understanding. The Economics Department at the London School of Economics had arranged a colloquy between two groups of Russian and British economists; and where the author asked to contribute a general survey of the present state of economic theory as taught in Western centers. For reasons, which are explained in the opening section, the author decided to adopt an historical approach; and the notes on which the present paper is based were the result.The remainders of the papers have as their common denominator a continuing interest in the history of economic thought. Beginning with a lengthy critique of Schumpeter's magisterial History of Economic Analysis, they range from an appraisal of Bentham's continuing relevance to a review of Robertson's Lectures on Economic Principles, with some special attention to John Stuart Mill both as a human being and as an economist. They have been written at various times in the last thirty-five years; and minute scrutiny, if such were thought to be worthwhile--which of course it is not--might detect some variations of emphasis, particularly perhaps in the implicit valuations of Marshall and his contribution, in the papers on Wicksteed and Schumpeter's History respectively. But in spite of a certain shift of perspective here, the author thought it worthwhile to attempt substantial redrafting.Apart from the correction of obvious inelegances or actual errors, the excision of some duplicating quotations and, in a few cases, the addition of supplementary material and references, the papers are reproduced as originally written. In each instance the author has given footnote acknowledgements of the place of original publication.