269 research outputs found
Review of “Irving Fisher” by Robert W. Dimand
No full textReview of “Irving Fisher” by Robert W. Diman
Risk and uncertainty
No full textUncertainty, as unquantifiable risk, was central to Keynes’s philosophy and economics, and continues to be relevant under modern conditions. For Keynes, knowledge is in general uncertain because of the organic nature of the subject matter; quantifiable risk is the special case. He developed a theory of how in practice we can still establish grounds for belief under uncertainty, drawing on weight of argument and multiple strands of reasoning, such that uncertainty is a matter of degree. The degree of uncertainty influences fundamentally the key variable in Keynes’s theory of effective demand: planned investment. Further, money plays a crucial role as the refuge from uncertainty, such that the rate of interest is a monetary rate. Applied to modern institutions and conditions, this theory is shown to explain the recent crisis
Review of “The Routledge Handbook of the History of Women’s Economic Thought” by Kirsten Madden and Robert W. Dimand
No full textBook Review of “The Routledge Handbook of the History of Women’s Economic Thought” by Kirsten Madden and Robert W. Diman
The expertise of James Laurence Laughlin at the service of U.S. monetary and banking unification, 1870-1913. : from the defense of the gold standard to the design of the Federal Reserve Act (1913)
No full textCe travail de thèse est consacré à l’étude de la participation de James Laurence Laughlin (1850-19133) à l’unification monétaire et bancaire américaine de 1870 à 1913. L’histoire des débat monétaires et bancaires américains de la fin du dix-neuvième et du début du vingtième sièclen’accorde pas une place importante à cet auteur pourtant incontournable. Laughlin devient unéconomiste académique réputé en tant que premier Head Professor à l’université de Chicago et en fondant le Journal of Political Economy en 1892. Il s’affirme comme expert économique grâce à son expérience de money doctoring à Saint-Domingue en 1894 puis sa participation à la commission monétaire d’Indianapolis en 1897-98. Le rapport final de cette commission rédigé par Laughlin est utilisé pour l’écriture du Gold Standard Act voté en 1900 qui institue légalement un système d’étalon-or aux États-Unis. Par la suite, il prend part à la conception du Federal Reserve Act de 1913, aux côtés de son ancien étudiant Henry Parker Willis. La théorie monétaire de Laughlin se veut être une critique de la théorie quantitative de la monnaie et une défense de la mise en place d’un système d’étalon-or. Pour ce faire, il mobilise des éléments issus de la théorie des auteurs de la Banking School anglaise. Il explique alors la formation des prix par des déterminants non monétaires et inclut le crédit et la spéculation à sa théorie en distinguant un crédit « normal » et un crédit « anormal ».This Ph.D. dissertation studies James Laurence Laughlin (1850-1913) participation in the American monetary and banking unification. The history of American monetary and banking debates of the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century does not place emphasis on this author while he is unavoidable. He becomes a renowned academic economist by being the first Head Professor of the University of Chicago and the founder of the Journal of Political Economy in 1892. He also acquires the status of economic expert by doing a money doctoring in Santo Domingo in 1894 and by participating in the Indianapolis Monetary Commission in 1897-98. The final report of this commission written by Laughlin had been used to write the Gold Standard Act, passed in 1900 and establishing a gold standard system in the United States. Subsequently, he gets involved in designing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 alongside his former student Henry Parker Willis. Laughlin’s theory is meant to be a critique of the quantity theory of money. He includes elements from the English Banking School authors’ theory. He explains the formation of prices by non-monetary determinants and includes credit and speculation in his theory by distinguishing a “normal” credit and an “abnormal” credit
Early contributions to quantitative business cycle research: An introduction
No full textThis is an introduction to a selection of papers on early contributions to quantitative business cycle theory. The papers, originally presented at a conference in Antwerp in September 2005, are written by Edmond Malinvaud, Olav Bjerkholt, Mauro Boianovsky and Hans-Michael Trautwein, Robert W. Dimand and William Veloce, and Guido Erreygers and Albert Jolink.Business cycle theory, econometrics, mathematical economics,
COMPETING VISIONS FOR THE U.S. MONETARY SYSTEM, 1907-1913: THE QUEST FOR AN ELASTIC CURRENCY AND THE REJECTION OF FISHER'S COMPENSATED DOLLAR RULE FOR PRICE STABILITY
No full textThis paper surveys the banking reform debates in the United States among quantity theorists and their opponents in the years from the banking panic of 1907 through the publication of Irving Fisher's The Purchasing Power of Money (with Harry G. Brown) to the creation of the Federal Reserve System. These debates culminated in the rejection of Fisher's compensated dollar proposal (a price level rule varying the dollar price of gold to stabilize a price index) and the adoption of a very different vision of central banking. Particular attention is paid to the contributions of Fisher, David Kinley, J. L. Laughlin, R. L. Owen, O. M. W. Sprague, and H. Parker Willis.
Trevor Swan And The Neoclassical Growth Model
No full textTrevor Swan independently developed the neoclassical growth model. Swan (1956) was published ten months later than Solow (1956), but included a more complete analysis of technical progress, which Solow treated separately in Solow (1957). Reference is sometimes made to the "Solow-Swan growth model", but more commonly reference is made only to the "Solow growth model". This paper examines the history of Swan’s development of the growth model, the similarities and differences between the approaches of Swan and Solow and the reasons why Swan's contribution has been overshadowed. We draw on unpublished work to show that in 1950, Swan was working on a growth model in a verbal format. In 1956, Swan published only a simplified version of his model based on a Cobb-Douglas production function, but Swan's original model (circulated July 1956 and published posthumously in 2002) was much more general. Swan's reluctance to publish was consistent with his perhaps counterproductive modesty and perfectionism. His well known paper, "Longer run problems of the Balance of Payments" was circulated in 1955, eight years before publication in 1963. His pioneering work in 1945, developing the first macroeconomic model of the Australian economy, was published posthumously in 1989.
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