Economics continues to draw inspiration from the ideas of past economists. This series provides an arena for current debate in the study of the history of economics. Adhering to no single methodology, it includes volumes which explore the ideas of individual economists, major schools of thought, and the evolution of key ideas and theories within economic analysis.
By Simona Pisanelli
August 16, 2024
Atlantic slavery represents one of the blackest pages of human history. European powers not only colonised American lands, but also brought African men and women to work as slaves on plantations. Intellectuals did not remain indifferent to this practice and – from the second half of the eighteenth ...
By Vitantonio Gioia
April 02, 2024
Arthur Spiethoff (1873–1957), an economist of the German Historical School of Economics, is best known for his theory of the business cycle. Despite Spiethoff calling for a unified reading of his work, his epistemological thinking has received less attention. This book addresses that gap by ...
Edited
By John Eatwell, Pasquale Commendatore, Neri Salvadori
January 29, 2024
Classical Economics, Keynes and Money casts new light on an approach to economic theory and policy that combines the modern classical theory of prices and income distribution with a Keynesian analysis of money and finance. Structured in four parts, the work considers issues within classical ...
By Samuel Hollander
January 29, 2024
Adopting a view of utilitarian ethics in which motivation in the public interest takes on greater weight than is generally appreciated, this book explores the extent to which the philosophy of Immanuel Kant is consistent with this nuanced version of utilitarianism. Kant’s requirement that full ...
By Jeffrey T. Young
December 11, 2023
Ever since the time of his early interpreters, beginning with David Hume, Adam Smith’s theory of value has been the subject of confusion and misunderstanding—including a controversy which still rages over whether Smith held a labour theory of value, and, if so, whether he held to it throughout ...
By Kayoko Misaki
December 04, 2023
This book sheds new light on the general equilibrium theory of Léon Walras (1834–1910) from a historical perspective. Walras's construction of general equilibrium theory marked the dawn of modern economics, and the theory was greatly developed in the 20th century. However, Walras's own intentions ...
Edited
By Jesús Astigarraga, Juan Zabalza
September 25, 2023
Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was the product of the rich tradition of the Scottish Enlightenment but the book’s fame immediately spread across the whole of Europe. This book looks at the long journey of Smith’s ideas from Scotland to peninsular Spain, ...
Edited
By Stavros Drakopoulos, Ioannis Katselidis
March 23, 2023
This book discusses key issues in economic policy in the context of the history of economic thought. Most of the current and past academic controversies in economics are, explicitly or implicitly, centred around the application and form of economic policy. This is particularly evident in the ...
By Claude Roche
January 09, 2023
John Locke was one of the first shareholders of the Bank of England and participated in parliamentary debates surrounding its creation. He had a key role in the monetary reform of 1696. This book examines Locke’s thought in relation to credit, banking regulation, the monetary and financial system, ...
By John Pullen
January 09, 2023
The views of Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) on population, first published in his Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798, continue to be hotly debated, either acclaimed or opposed, as do his views on macroeconomics. There is a widely held view that his macroeconomics lacks coherence and is ...
By Paolo Santori
January 09, 2023
Delving into the history of economic thought, this book presents a picture of the Mediterranean spirit of capitalism, a tradition that has its protagonists in Thomas Aquinas and the eighteenth-century civil economy, and seeks to understand its presence and relevance for contemporary societies. The ...
By Kiichiro Yagi
December 30, 2022
Since the late-19th century, Japan has made remarkable strides in industrialization. Beginning with the economic vision of Miura Baien in the 18th century, and employing a detailed comparison with the West, this book delves into the economic thought of the scholars who played a pivotal role in ...