The Relation of Economic History to Economic Theory

Economica ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 13 (50) ◽  
pp. 81 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. S. Ashton
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic History

American Institutional Studies: Present Knowledge and Past Trends

1971 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Soltow
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Present Knowledge ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
The Past

The production of economic history, like that in many fields of scholarly endeavor, increased sharply in the past quarter-century, compared to the rate of output in earlier eras. While the “new” economic history, with its emphasis on economic theory and measurement, has attracted considerable attention during the last decade, “traditional” economic history, written along institutional lines, has continued to be significant, both quantitatively (in terms of numbers of books and articles) and qualitatively (as assessed by contributions to our understanding of economic processes.)

Mercantilism Revisited

1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. C. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Extreme Case ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
The Status

The intention of this paper is to look at some of the problems which arise in attempts to provide ‘explanations’ of mercantilism and especially its English manifestations. By ‘explanations’ I mean the efforts which some writers have made causally to relate the historical appearance of sets of economic notions or general recommendations on economic policy or even acts of economic policy by the state to particular long-term phenomena of, or trends in, economic history. Historians of economic thought have not generally made such attempts. With a few exceptions they have normally concerned themselves with tracing and analysing the contributions to economic theory made by those labelled as mercantilists. The most extreme case of non-explanation is provided by Eli Heckscher's reiterated contention in his two massive volumes that mercantilism was not to be explained by reference to the economic circumstances of the time; mercantilist policy was not to be seen as ‘the outcome of the economic situation’; mercantilist writers did not construct their system ‘out of any knowledge of reality however derived’. So strongly held an antideterminist fortress, however congenial a haven for some historians of ideas, has given no comfort to other historians – economic or political, Marxist or non-Marxist – who obstinately exhibit empiricist tendencies. Some forays against the fortress have been made. Barry Supple's analysis of English commerce in the early seventeenth century and the resulting presentation of mercantilist thought and policy as ‘the economics of depression’ has passed into the textbooks and achieved the status of an orthodoxy.

From Relevant to in Demand?

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Andrey Shastitko
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Institutional Economic ◽  
Production Relations ◽  
Key Aspects

The article offers a survey of some of the ideas of Karl Marx in the context of the subsequent development of the new institutional economic theory in the 20th - early 21st centuries. It discusses various aspects of the unity of the historical and the logical in Marx’s Capital in the light of various ways of combining the historical and the theoretical in economic research, including a new economic history. The article considers the issues of the linkages between the problems of import and transplantation of institutes and the export of production relations, as well as the interaction of institutes and technologies, but in the context of the contradiction between productive forces and production relations, and possible parallels between the initial ideas of transaction costs and costs of circulation in the second volume of Marx’s Capital. It discusses the fundamental question of the absolute law of capital accumulation in the context of two key aspects of institutes - coordination and distribution.

Wie viel Geschichte braucht die Ökonomie? Das Verhältnis von Theorie und Geschichte in evolutionstheoretischer Interpretation

2009 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Dopfer
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
The Body ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Communication Link ◽  
Evolutionary Ontology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Element

AbstractEconomic History and History of Economic Thought haven been relegated increasingly from the teaching and research curricula of economics in recent years. The paper starts off arguing that this trend is due to the mechanistic ontology of mainstream economics, and it continues setting out an alternative evolutionary ontology expounding how the historical element must and can be integrated into the body of economic theory. Centre stage is a lingua franca composed of analytical terms that are designed to bridge the domains of theoretical and of historical economic analysis. Economists are viewed in their status as observers whose cognitive dispositions as well as social behaviour co-evolve with the environment they inhabit. Further advances in economic theory are seen as being critically dependent on employing an evolutionary approach and on establishing a communication link to economic history and the history of economic thought which likewise may get essential inspirations from applying that approach.

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.

scholarly journals Essays in Applied Labor Economics, Including Analysis of Economic History and Laws & Economics

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
James Edward Curtis Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Labor Economics ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Empirical Analyses

In this paper, James Edward Curtis, Jr. (2018) compiles essays on applied labor economics, economic history,and laws & economics to address economic issues. James Edward Curtis, Jr. (2018) considers economic theory,summary empirical analyses, and government & social constru

Institutional Economics

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Zehra Doğan Çalışkan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Inductive Method ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Historical School ◽  
Classical Economics ◽  
New Perspective

Since the mid-19th century, the thinkers of historical school challenged the deductive, abstractive, and decisive methods of neo-classical economics. According to historical school, social terms have been changed within space and time. Therefore, they defended that the economic theories could not be universal but could only be relative. Instead of professing laws with universal validity, it is more important to reveal the changing structure of society with the extensive studies of economic history. The inductive method of German historical school brought a new perspective into economic theory with theorems such as to consider society as an organism beyond the individuals who would only seek their benefits and the necessity of historical followings in the economic events. From this point of view, it is possible to observe the traces of historical school in the old institutional economics literature.

In the current stream

2021 ◽  
pp. 309-345
Author(s):  
Michael Peneder ◽  
Andreas Resch
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Venture Capital ◽  
Central Bank ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Financial Crises ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Hyman Minsky ◽  
Intellectual Environment

While the previous chapter highlighted the resurgence of Schumpeter’s concept of money in economic theory, this chapter focuses on three examples from recent economic history in which the interdependence of finance and innovation invokes a deliberate Schumpeterian interpretation. The first example is about the striking rise of modern venture capital in Schumpeter’s immediate geographical and intellectual environment during his years at Harvard, to which he contributed a consistent intellectual frame (also through his personal ties with people like David Rockefeller, Frank Taussig, or George Doriot). The second example addresses the recurrent instances of financial crises, in particular the Great Recession of 2008-09, and invokes a Schumpeterian interpretation mainly via the instability theorem of his student Hyman Minsky. Finally, we turn to the stream of innovations that relate to the increasing digitalisation of money ranging from cryptocoins to central bank digital currencies (CBDC).

Rome and the Economics of Ancient Law I

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Parsons Miller
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Ancient Economy ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Economic Methods ◽  
Ancient Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter serves as an introduction to the essays in this collection by exploring the ways in which contemporary economic theory can be used to ask new questions about the law and economies of ancient societies. The chapter begins with a review of the importance of Roman law as an academic discipline to legal historians. It then introduces the overall theme of the collection by reviewing the ways in which historians of the ancient economy and of ancient law have made use of economic theory to understand better the relationship between law and the economy in the Roman world. The chapter then goes on to discuss the individual chapters in this volume. It focuses in particular on the ways in which economic theory informs the approaches that the authors, both legal and economic historians, take in their essays. The chapter will thus set the individual chapters in a broader scholarly perspective and will seek to explain why economic methods are a fruitful way to understand Roman Law and Roman economic history.

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