The Role of Comparison in the Development of Economic Theory

1957 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 554-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia L. Thrupp
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Development Of Economic Theory

Our conference today on comparative economic history is in some clanger of rushing into the wide-open spaces of ambiguity, for the term is new, and to agree too quickly on its meaning and implications may not even be desirable. In order to avoid engaging in a mere game of definitions, this paper will deal first with three general types of comparison in relation to their bearing on problems of evidence. It will then review some of the chief uses to which these types of comparison have been put in building up our body of knowledge about Western economic history. The survey will close with particular reference to our own preindustrial stages of economic growth, when western Europe was, in our uncomplimentary phrase, an underdeveloped or backward area.

Mexico's Pre-Revolutionary Reckoning with Railroads

1985 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Randall
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Theory ◽  
Transportation Network ◽  
Underdeveloped Country ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Economic Interpretation ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Railway System ◽  
Economic Considerations

Economic considerations all but dominate recent historical writing in this country about the railroads of Mexico. Technical matters of construction and operation, as well as the role of the state in both, are touched upon, but economic interpretation, whether of the development of a railway system or of its impact on the nation, is the watchword if not catchword of most writing. Probably the leading example of the dominant approach is Growth against Development: The Economic Impact of Railroads in Porfirian Mexico (Northern Illinois University Press, 1981), by John H. Coatsworth, in which the author concludes that, while “the short run contribution of railroads to economic growth was large,” their longrun impact helped “to create the underdeveloped country Mexico has become.” Applying economic theory and measuring, Coatsworth in essence proves with numbers a case argued more elegantly in straight prose early in this century: that the application of a modern transportation network to a staple producing economy will do little more than extend and intensify the production system so as to increase the staple output.

Institutions and the Ottoman Past

2018 ◽  
pp. 55-89
Author(s):  
Şevket Pamuk
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Economic Environment ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Proximate Causes

This chapter looks at the role of institutions in economic development and the evolution of Ottoman institutions before the nineteenth century. It argues that while institutions are not the only things that matter, it is essential to examine their role in order to understand Turkey's experience with economic growth and human development during the last two centuries. The economics and economic history literature has been making a related and important distinction between the proximate and deeper sources of economic growth. The proximate causes refer to the contributions made by the increases in inputs, land, labor, and capital and the productivity increases. The deeper causes refer to the social, political, and economic environment as well as the historical causes that influence the rate at which inputs and productivity grow.

Economy and Society in an Earlier America

1987 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-319
Author(s):  
Stuart Bruchey
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
American History ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Social Variables ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Vertical Mobility

I suggest here that change in a number of social variables, including values, vertical mobility, political and social power, technology and law, appear to be associated with economic growth or decline and that the study of economic history would be enriched by investigations of the nature and timing of those linkages. Illustrative models of the linkages are drawn for the early Middle Ages in Western Europe and for the colonial and antebellum periods of American history.

Discussion

1956 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-481
Author(s):  
Forest G. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Canadian Experience ◽  
Complex Development ◽  
Canadian Economic History ◽  
American Economy

Professor Fowke ably demonstrates the merit of a comparative approach to American and Canadian economic history. His penetrating analysis reveals how relevant the understanding of economic development in Canada is to the study of that in the United States. Of the two, the Canadian national period has been shorter, the essential lines of economic growth simpler, and the role of government clearer and more pronounced. Canadian experience thereby provides a fruitful comparative basis for analyzing the longer, more complex development of the American economy and the more varied, often puzzling, part taken by government.

Introduction to Part II

2021 ◽  
pp. 69-72
Author(s):  
Ryan Walter
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Parliamentary Debate ◽  
Bank Of England ◽  
Abstract Level ◽  
Corn Laws ◽  
Development Of Economic Theory

This Introduction indicates the aim of the two chapters that follow: to illustrate how parliamentary debate provided political economy with its topics of discussion and forms of argument. The particular case studies are the Bullion Controversy and the Corn Laws debate. The first controversy concerned the role of the Bank of England in raising prices through an excessive note issue, and this question came to be examined by writers such as Malthus and Ricardo at an abstract level. But this style of argument was rejected as inappropriate for guiding the deliberations of Parliament in 1810–1811. In relation to the second case, the Corn Laws, c. 1813–1815, the question of whether or not the trade in corn should be free was treated in Parliament as a question requiring casuistical adjudication, a style of argument that Malthus and Ricardo were evidently obliged to adopt, along with other participants. Both topics have traditionally been studied as key moments in the development of economic theory, yet the account developed here suggests that we have typically misread the texts by placing them in unhistorical contexts.

Towards a general theory of socio-economic development. Part 2. Evolution of coordination mechanisms

2018 ◽  
pp. 77-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. M. Polterovich
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Coordination Mechanisms ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
The Welfare State

The second part of the article is devoted to the theory of leading socioeconomic development. It is shown how in Western Europe, as a result of the interaction of culture, institutions, technological progress and the level of welfare, specific forms and combinations of the three main mechanisms of coordination — competition, power and cooperation — emerged at each stage of evolution. I emphasize the importance of ideology and the phenomenon of technical progress in the formation of institutions of economic and political competition that contributed to the emergence of the welfare state. These changes and economic growth created the conditions for further transformation of civil culture: increasing levels of trust, tolerance, altruism and cosmopolitanism, expanding the planned horizon. The decrease in the level of coercion built into the mechanisms of power and competition is demonstrated as well as the expansion of the role of collaboration. A hypothesis is advanced that the speed of this process depends on geographical factors. The idea of welfare world is discussed.

The ideas for future economic growth (To the 110th birth anniversary of academician T. S. Khachaturov)

2016 ◽  
pp. 147-154
Author(s):  
S. Bobylev ◽  
V. Faltsman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Theory ◽  
Environmental Economics ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Growth Efficiency ◽  
Basic Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Investment Efficiency ◽  
Transport Economics ◽  
Development Of Economic Theory

The article analyzes academician T. S. Khachaturov contribution to the development of economic theory and practice. We name the following areas of his pioneering research and applications: the basic theory of economic growth efficiency, investment efficiency, natural resource and environmental economics, transport economics.

Food Surpluses and Deficits in the American Colonies, 1768–1772

1971 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 553-569 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Klingaman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Quantitative Information ◽  
Early American ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Quantitative Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich

Scholars are gradually piecing together the puzzle of the economic development of the American colonies through quantitative studies designed to clarify and measure economic variables having theoretical relevance for the wider process of economic growth and development. Recently, researchers such as Jones, Land, Shepherd, Walton, and Thomas have been helping others to build a base that one day may permit the writing of a comprehensive study of the process of early American economic development which may even include reliable estimates of economic growth and living standards. The data problems for the colonial period of American economic history are severe, and much of the research has tended to concentrate on the important role of international trade, where the extant data sources are capable of yielding rich lodes of quantitative information. Customs 16/1, entitled the Ledger of Imports and Exports for America, 1768–1772, has been the most valuable source of trade data, since it is the only comprehensive document which shows the trade of the American colonies with all parts of the world and not just with the British Isles. Still yet to be mined are the rich sources of data buried in the naval office lists for the various colonies. These sources also give the trade of each colony with all parts of the world although they are more tedious to work with than the better collated Customs 16/1.

The Role of the Railroads in United States Economic Growth

1963 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul H. Cootner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic History ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of

The railroads played an important role in the economic history of the United States. It was an epic role, involving enterprise on a grand scale, evoking heated passions, and rich in anecdote and drama.

Does America Really Need More Infrastructure?: Lessons from the Debate About the Role of the Railroads in the Development of the American West

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic History ◽  
American West ◽  
Gross National Product ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Economic Growth And Development ◽  
Rail Network

This article compares and contrasts two debates about the role of infrastructure in American economic growth and development. The contemporary policy debate revolves around the extent to which the observed decline in public works investment since 1960, measured as a proportion of gross national product, has been a cause of the coincident decline of productivity over the same period. An earlier debate in the economic history field revolved around whether the railroads were “indispensable” to America's economic growth and how the building of a rail network affected the shape of that growth. The comparison reveals that just as the first debate went down many blind alleys, so did the second one. At the same time, however, after a long period of discussion and gestation, some firm conclusions arose in both controversies. In the infrastructure case, the overall consensus is that America is probably investing enough in infrastructure overall but that the question is too broad to be meaningful for policy makers. As a result, the focus has shifted to specific kinds of investments in specific areas.

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