The book presents a new theoretical approach to the description of economic phenomena over time. A realistic and meaningful description of economic phenomena over time is one of the basic preconditions for the success of any economic theory. The presented theoretical solution or proposal has two main characteristics. The first is a modification of the theory of subjective value in the form of the claim that one perceives the satisfaction of one's needs in the context of one's overall individual portfolio of goods. The causal relationship of the "old" theory in the form of "need is satisfied by good" is modified in terms of "sum of needs is satisfied by portfolio of goods (sum of goods)". This is a small modification, which, however, brings several important elements to the description of economic phenomena over time. The old theoretical approach did not enable us to operate over time because of different value context of goods which is changing over time. However, the portfolio of goods is, in fact, a formally-logical homogeneous construction of the mind, which is applicable over time. The second characteristic is the anchoring of this modification of the theory of subjective value in evolutionary (intersubjective) apriorism. The book will be of interest to any Austrian and Mainstream Economists who deal with problems of description of economic phenomena in time. Also, for those involved in topics such as estimating of future, why entrepreneurs are successful or the problem of social ordering or equilibration and those who are interested in the new evolutionary approach to the emergence of criteria for rational decision-making.

This book, set out over three-volumes, provides a comprehensive history of economic thought in the 20th century with special attention to the cultural and historical background in the development of theories, to the leading or the peripheral research communities and their interactions, and finally to an assessment and critical appreciation of economic theories. Volume II addresses economic theory in the period between the two world wars in which the economic theory went through a process of criticism of old mainstream, deconstruction and reconstruction and theoretical ferment which involved the intellectual communities of economists emphasizing their nature of evolving interacting entities. This work provides a significant and original contribution to the history of economic thought and gives insight to the thinking of some of the major international figures in economics. It will appeal to students, scholars and the more informed reader wishing to further their understanding of the history of the discipline.

This book develops new balance of payments statistics for the United States from 1790 to 1919, before official statistics were kept. Part I of this book justifies construction of a new balance of payments table, and Chapter 1 surveys existing tables from that standpoint. Chapter 2 shows how this book overcomes the limitations of Office of Business Economics and its North-Simon-Goldsmith foundation. Specific features are highlighted, including measurement decisions, improvement of OBE series, development of new series, and derived implications for the structure of the US economy and for the importance of individual sectors that loom large at various times: slave trade, shipping, manufacturing, and travel. The book then generates new time series of the movement of people, the movement of goods, the movement of funds, and the provision of services. Part VI puts the new balance of payments table to use in several ways: aggregates and balances within the table, structure of the US economy, and specific sectors of the economy (slave trade, shipping, manufacturing, travel). Finally, Part VII provides concluding comments.

This book explores the vital role of merchants within early modern China. Unlike European merchants, their Sino-colleagues have long been regarded as certain social pariahs after pre-Qin period, despite the fortune they made. The key mission of this monograph is to investigate whether the standing of merchants in the Ming Empire has been improved compared with their predecessors. Generally, their status is reflected in state-merchant relationship and their role in the market, which can be found in miscellaneous economic activities such as market monopoly, commercial taxation, international trade, and consumption. This book aims to be of relevance to students and researchers interested in early modern history, eastern commerce, Ming merchants, and contemporary global affairs.

Lombard Street is Walter Bagehot's famous explanation of the England central banking system established during the 19th century. At the time Bagehot wrote, the United Kingdom was at the peak of its influence. The Bank of England in London, was one of the most powerful institutions in the world. Working as an economist at the time, Walter Bagehot sets about explaining how the British government and the Bank of England interact. Leading on from this, he explains how the Bank of England and other banks - the Joint-Stock and Private banking companies - do the business of finance. Bagehot is not afraid to admit that life at the bank is usually quite boring, albeit punctuated by short periods of sudden excitement. The sudden boom of a market, or sudden fluctuations in the credit system, can create an excited demand for money. The eruption of an economic depression, which Bagehot aptly notes is rapidly contagious around different sectors of the economy, can also make working in the bank a lot less tedious.

A major book from one of the most influential and well-known economists of the 20th century, who coined the term 'creative destruction' His students include famous economists such as Robert Solow and the former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan and The Economist magazine even had a column called 'Schumpter' for many years Schumpeter launched the idea of the 'business cycle' in this book, which has become a permanent feature of thousands of curricula in business and economics Includes a new foreword by Richard Swedberg

The United Nations declared 2012 the year of cooperatives, emphasizing that there is an alternative to privately owned firms. While greed and mismanagement have caused world financial and economic crises, co-ops offer another type of business for economic activities that is less exposed to aggressive capitalism. This book provides a problem-oriented overview of the development of cooperatives over the last fifty years. The global study addresses the major challenges cooperatives face, such as the organizational innovations introduced to acquire necessary risk-capital and implement growth-related strategies, the wave of demutualization in developed nations and their ability to construct an original consumer politics. The contributors to this volume discuss the successes and failures of the cooperatives and ask whether they are an outdated model of enterprise. They document a wave of foundations of new co-ops, new forms of collaboration between them and a growing trend toward globalization.

This collection of essays explores the impact that nationalism, capitalism and socialism had on economics during the first half of the twentieth century. Focusing on Central Europe, contributors examine the role that businesspeople and enterprises played in Germany's and Austria's paths to the catastrophe of Nazism. Based on new archival research, the essays gathered here ask how the business community became involved in the political process and describes the consequences arising from that involvement. Particular attention is given to the responses of individual businesspeople to changing political circumstances and their efforts to balance the demands of their consciences with the pursuit for profit.

This book, the first of two volumes, examines ancient civilizations to explore the ethical foundations of modern economic systems. The origin of ethical values is analyzed from a historical context and, through investigating the spread of the Aryan civilization from India into the rest of the world, the links between ancient Russia, India, Japan, and Greece are highlighted. By examining the business management in these societies, the development of an ethical system is explained. This book aims to highlight how trust is fundamental to transactions within an exchange economy. It will be relevant to those interested in economics, development studies, international relations, and global politics.

This book presents a multi-sited ethnographic study of the global development of the Taiwanese Buddhist order Fo Guang Shan. It explores the order's modern Buddhist social engagements by examining three globally dispersed field sites: Los Angeles in the United States of America, Bronkhorstspruit in South Africa, and Yixing in the People's Republic of China. The data collected at these field sites is embedded within the context of broader theoretical discussions on Buddhism, modernity, globalization, and the nation-state. By examining how one particular modern Buddhist religiosity that developed in a specific place moves into a global context, the book provides a fresh view of what constitutes both modern and contemporary Buddhism while also exploring the social, cultural, and religious fabrics that underlie the spatial configurations of globalization.

'This wise and lucid guide to pluralism in economics embodies the values of its cause. Generous, open-minded, fair, accurate and accessible: John Harvey's new book is a fine achievement that every economics major should read.' - James K. Galbraith, The University of Texas at Austin, USJohn Harvey's accessible book provides a non-technical yet rigorous introduction to various schools of thought in economics. Premised on the idea that economic thinking has been stunted by the almost complete rejection of anything outside the mainstream, the author hopes that this volume will open readers' minds and lead them in new and productive directions. In his exploration of Neoclassical, Marxist, Austrian, Post Keynesian, Institutionalist, New Institutionalist and Feminist schools of thought, unique features of each approach are highlighted, complemented by discussions of methodology, world views, popular themes, and current activities. Accurate and impartial, every chapter covering a heterodox school of thought has been vetted by an acknowledged expert in that field. Though written for use in undergraduate courses, this guide will no doubt offer a great deal to any scholar wishing to gain a fresh perspective and greater understanding of the variety and breadth of current economic thinking.

This volume studies information as an economic resource in the Roman World. Information asymmetry is a distinguishing phenomenon of any human relationship. From an economic perspective, private or hidden information, opposed to publicly observable information, generates advantages and inequalities; at the same time, it is a source of profit, legal and illegal, and of transaction costs. The contributions that make up the present book aim to deepen our understanding of the economy of Ancient Rome by identifying and analysing formal and informal systems of knowledge and institutions that contributed to control, manage, restrict and enhance information. The chapters scrutinize the impact of information asymmetries on specific economic sectors, such as the labour market and the market of real estate, as well as the world of professional associations and trading networks. It further discusses structures and institutions that facilitated and regulated economic information in the public and the private spheres, such as market places, auctions, financial mechanisms and instruments, state treasures and archives. Managing Asymmetric Information in the Roman Economy invites the reader to evaluate economic activities within a larger collective mental, social, and political framework, and aims ultimately to test the applicability of tools and ideas from theoretical frameworks such as the Economics of Information to ancient and comparative historical research.

This is the history of the East India Company and its enduring legacy as a corporation, dealing in exploitation and violence. The English East India Company was the mother of the modern multinational. Its trading empire encircled the globe, importing Asian luxuries such as spices, textiles and teas. But it also conquered much of India with its private army and broke open China's markets with opium. The Company's practices shocked its contemporaries and still reverberate today. This expanded edition explores how the four forces of scale, technology, finance and regulation drove its spectacular rise and fall. This story provides vital lessons on both the role of corporations in world history and the steps required to make global business accountable today.

Literary Representations of Precarious Work, 1840 to the Present sheds new light on literary representations of precarious labor from 1840 until the present. With contributions by experts in American, British, French, German and Swedish culture, this book examines how literature has shaped the understanding of socio-economic precarity, a concept that is mostly used to describe living and working conditions in our contemporary neoliberal and platform economy. This volume shows that authors tried to develop new poetic tools and literary techniques to translate the experience of social regression and insecurity to readers. While some authors critically engage with normative models of work by zooming in on the physical and affective backlash of being a precarious worker, others even find inspiration in their own situations as writers trying to survive. Furthermore, this volume shows that precarity is not an exclusively contemporary phenomenon and that literature has always been a central medium to (critically) register forms of social insecurity. By retrieving parts of that archive, this volume paves the way to a historically nuanced view on contemporary regimes of precarious work.

This open access book provides a readable narrative of the bubbles and the banking crisis Japan experienced during the two decades between the late 1980s and the early 2000s. Japan, which was a leading competitor in the world's manufacturing sector, tried to transform itself into an economy with domestic demand-led mature growth, but the ensuing bubbles and crisis instead made the country suffer from chronicle deflation and stagnation. The book analyses why the Japanese authorities could not avoid making choices that led to this outcome. The chapters are based on the lectures to regulators from emerging economies delivered at the Global Financial Partnership Center of the Financial Services Agency of Japan.

Securing the World Economy explains how efforts to support global capitalism became a core objective of the League of Nations. Based on new research drawn together from archives on three continents, it explores how the world's first ever inter-governmental organization sought to understand and shape the powerful forces that influenced the global economy, and the prospects for peace. It traces how the League was drawn into economics and finance by the exigencies of the slump and hyperinflation after the First World War, when it provided essential financial support to Austria, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, and Estonia and, thereby, established the founding principles of financial intervention, international oversight, and the twentieth-century notion of international 'development'. But it is the impact of the Great Depression after 1929 that lies at the heart of this history. Patricia Clavin traces how the League of Nations sought to combat economic nationalism and promote economic and monetary co-operation in a variety of, sometimes contradictory, ways. Many of the economists, bureaucrats, and policy-advisors who worked for it played a seminal role in the history of international relations and social science, and their efforts did not end with the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1940 the League established an economic mission in the United States, where it contributed to the creation of organizations for the post-war world - the United Nations Organization, the IMF, the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization - as well as to plans for European reconstruction and co-operation. It is a history that resonates deeply with challenges that face the Twenty-First Century world.

Business Statistics of the United States is a comprehensive and practical collection of data from as early as 1913 that reflects the nation's economic performance. It provides several years of annual, quarterly, and monthly data in industrial and demographic detail including key indicators such as: gross domestic product, personal income, spending, saving, employment, unemployment, the capital stock, and more. Business Statistics of the United States is the best place to find historical perspectives on the U.S. economy. Of equal importance to the data are the introductory highlights, extensive notes, and figures for each chapter that help users to understand the data, use them appropriately, and, if desired, seek additional information from the source agencies. Business Statistics of the United States provides a rich and deep picture of the American economy and contains approximately 3,500 time series in all. The data are predominately from federal government sources including: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System Bureau of Economic Analysis Bureau of Labor Statistics Census Bureau Employment and Training Administration Energy Information Administration Federal Housing Finance Agency U.S. Department of the Treasury

On the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the 20th century's most accomplished and controversial economists, scholars from around the world reflect on the legacy of Joan Robinson's work. Addressing Robinsonian themes in growth, money, trade and methodology, their essays provide fresh perspectives on old questions. Joan Robinson's first priority was not theoretical perfection or abstract rigor. The arcane debates of the profession had little practical relevance and became increasingly tedious to her. Ironically, much of current economic theory embraces the realism she was striving toward. Indeed, as the essays in this volume show, she was in many ways ahead of her time. The volume begins by tracing the intellectual contours of her work and discussing the people and events that shaped her thinking. The succeeding chapters address her theories on accumulation, capital, and equilibrium, her interpretation of Marx, as well as the influence of Piero Sraffa. Several chapters analyze and extend her theory of growth, illustrating the wide applicability of her approach. A compelling exploration of Joan Robinson's contributions, this volume will be of great interest to scholars interested in growth, income distribution, post-Keynesian economics, macroeconomics, history of thought, money, capital theory, international trade and finance.

In The Political Economy and Feasibility of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies Spencer J. Pack brings his authority as a scholar and advisor to this study of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies from the perspective of the history of economic thought. Major theorists analyzed in depth include Aristotle, Smith, Law, Marx, Keynes, Rothbard and Hayek, and the book draws extensively upon the ideas of Schumpeter, Galbraith and Sraffa. The book argues for reconceptualization of the basic microeconomic categories into rental, sale and financial asset prices along with a reconsideration of Keynes' general theory to his special theory and Rothbard's relationship to Rousseau. The author posits that intense theoretical and practical struggles will continue over who should control the quantity of money, the cause of the capitalist economy's instability, and who or what is more dangerous: concentrated centers of private wealth and private enterprises or the contemporary state. He concludes that in terms of the quality of money, the cryptocurrency community is probably correct, with new forms of money potentially being better than sovereign fiat currency. The book's relevance will appeal to members of the history of economic thought community, economic theorists, and political science and political theory scholars as well as to policy makers and members of the cryptocurrency community.

Economic archaeology and ancient economic history have boomed the past decades. The former thanks to greatly enhanced techniques to identify, collect, and interpret material remains as proxies for economic interactions and performance; the latter by embracing the frameworks of new institutional economics. Both disciplines, however, still have great difficulty talking with each other. There is no reliable method to convert ancient proxy-data into the economic indicators used in economic history. In turn, the shared cultural belief-systems underlying institutions and the symbolic ways in which these are reproduced remain invisible in the material record. This book explores ways to bring both disciplines closer together by building a theoretical and methodological framework to evaluate and integrate archaeological proxy-data in economic history research. Rather than the linear interpretations offered by neoclassical or neomalthusian models, we argue that complexity economics, based on system theory, offers a promising way forward.