Since economies are dynamic processes driven by creativity, social norms, and emotions as well as rational calculation, why do economists largely study them using static equilibrium models and narrow rationalistic assumptions? Economic activity is as much a function of imagination and social sentiments as of the rational optimisation of given preferences and goods. In this 2009 book, Richard Bronk argues that economists can best model and explain these creative and social aspects of markets by using new structuring assumptions and metaphors derived from the poetry and philosophy of the Romantics. By bridging the divide between literature and science, and between Romanticism and narrow forms of Rationalism, economists can access grounding assumptions, models, and research methods suitable for comprehending the creativity and social dimensions of economic activity. This is a guide to how economists and other social scientists can broaden their analytical repertoire to encompass the vital role of sentiments, language, and imagination.

Providing an in-depth case study on the emergence of social impact investing in the UK, this book develops a new perspective on financialization processes that highlights the roles of non-financial actors. In contrast to the common view that impact investing gears finance toward the solution of social problems, the author analyzes how these investments create new problems and inequalities. To explain how social impact investing became popular in British social policy despite its unclear effectiveness, the author focuses on cooperative relations between institutional entrepreneurs from finance and various non-financial actors. Drawing on field theory, he shows how seemingly unrelated social transformations - such as HM Treasury's expanding role in public service reform - may act as resonance spaces for the spread of finance. Opening up a new perspective on financialization processes in the terrain of public policy, this book invites readers to refocus scholarship on capitalist dynamics to the meso-level. Based on this analysis, the author also proposes ways to transform social impact investing to increase its potential for reducing global inequalities.

One of the most striking phenomena in all of economics is the absence of a deep tradition of criticism focused on Keynesian economic theory. There have been critics but they are few and far between, even though Keynesian demand management has been at the centre of some of the worst economic outcomes in history, from the great stagflation of the 1970s to the twenty-year 'lost decade' in Japan that has been ongoing since the 1990s, and now, once again, the dismal recoveries that have followed the Global Financial Crisis. This book brings together some of the most vocal critics of Keynesian economics of the present time. Each author attempts to explain what is wrong with Keynesian theory for those seeking guidance on where to turn for a more accurate explanation of the business cycle and what to do when recessions occur. The contributions are by scholars from a wide number of schools of economics, include but are not restricted to Austrian, monetarist and classical perspectives. Written not just for economists, this accessible book is one of the few anti-Keynesian texts available and explains the inability of public spending and lower interest rates to have restored robust economic growth and full employment after the GFC. The collection offers an antidote to contemporary macroeconomic theory. It is an essential text for anyone wishing to understand why no stimulus has been able to bring recovery to any economy in which it has been tried. Contributors include: P.Boettke, P.L. Bylund, T. Congdon, R.M. Ebeling, R.W. Garrison, S. Horwitz, S. Kates, A. Kling, A.B. Laffer, P. Newman, G. Reisman, D. Simpson, M. Skousen, P. Smith

This book analyses decision-making in dynamic economic environments. By applying a wide range of methodological approaches, combining both analytical and computational methods, the contributors examine various aspects of optimal firm behaviour and relevant policy areas. Topics covered include optimal control, dynamic games, economic decision-making, and applications in finance and economics, as well as policy implications in areas such as pollution regulation. This book is dedicated to Christophe Deissenberg, a well-known and distinguished scholar of economic dynamics and computational economics. It appeals to academics in the areas of optimal control, dynamic games and computational economics as well as to decision-makers working in policy domains such as environmental policy.

This volume focuses on the theme of the dual aspects of method in the development of economic thought. It contains new papers that address methodological issues, and others that deal with the evolution of analytic techniques and the social or personal milieux in which ideas emerged and the extent to which they became part of the body of literature we call political economy.

This volume includes essays by prominent economists and psychologists working at the frontiers of economic psychology. A number of essays probe beliefs and expectations about rationality, consumer behaviour and expectations, and others assess psychological explanations of economic behaviour and the contribution of experimental economics. The book should be essential reading for both psychologists and economists with an interest in the most recent research in economic psychology.

Kenneth Boulding has, in the course of a long and distinguished career, made a seminal contribution to many branches of economics. This major book presents in one volume a selection of his most important recent papers and essays. In the first part of the book, Professor Boulding pushes economics towards a more evolutionary type of theory, towards a greater interest in the real world and towards some fairly specific theoretical positions. He stresses the importance of positive-feedback as well as equilibrium processes. The second part focuses on the grants economy, that is the study of the economics of one-way transfers. In part three, he turns his attention to international economic relations particularly the economics of conflict in unilateral national defence. The final part is on ecological systems, stressing that economies are essentially an eco-system of commodities, part of the total eco-system of the world, which is undergoing a constant and irreversible evolutionary change.

This book argues that the coordination problem lies at the heart of Keynes's economics. It shows how Keynes's message got lost in the post-War period and develops a more fruitful extension of Keynes's ideas within a general equilibrium framework and alternative frameworks such as post Keynesian and Austrian economics. It is demonstrated that in the absence of a coordinating device like the Walrasian auctioneer or in the presence of uncertainty, coordination can no longer be superimposed. This ultimately implies that apart from some notable exceptions, the Keynesian revolution was in fact stifled at birth because the validity of the central concepts of microeconomics have never been challenged.This lively and fascinating book is likely to provoke debate amongst economists and policymakers. Its conclusions place a question mark over the development of economic theory since the Second World War.

Wicksteed's classic work, The Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution, has a central place within the development of marginal productivity theory. It claimed to explain all 'factor returns' on a unified basis and to show how 'marginal productivity factor pricing' just exhausted the total product. It is presented here with a long introduction by the editor, Ian Steedman, who provides both a careful analysis of the text and an assessment of Wicksteed's place within the development of modern economics. This important new edition will make The Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution accessible to a fresh generation of economists.

Modelling trends and cycles in economic time series has a long history, with the use of linear trends and moving averages forming the basic tool kit of economists until the 1970s. Several developments in econometrics then led to an overhaul of the techniques used to extract trends and cycles from time series. In this second edition, Terence Mills expands on the research in the area of trends and cycles over the last (almost) two decades, to highlight to students and researchers the variety of techniques and the considerations that underpin their choice for modelling trends and cycles.

Dynamic programming (DP) has a relevant history as a powerful and flexible optimization principle, but has a bad reputation as a computationally impractical tool. This book fills a gap between the statement of DP principles and their actual software implementation. Using MATLAB throughout, this tutorial gently gets the reader acquainted with DP and its potential applications, offering the possibility of actual experimentation and hands-on experience. The book assumes basic familiarity with probability and optimization, and is suitable to both practitioners and graduate students in engineering, applied mathematics, management, finance and economics.

The principles of game theory apply to a wide range of topics in biology. This book presents the central concepts in evolutionary game theory and provides an authoritative and up-to-date account. The focus is on concepts that are important for biologists in their attempts to explain observations. This strong connection between concepts and applications is a recurrent theme throughout the book which incorporates recent and traditional ideas from animal psychology, neuroscience, and machine learning that provide a mechanistic basis for behaviours shown by players of a game. The approaches taken to modelling games often rest on idealized and unrealistic assumptions whose limitations and consequences are not always appreciated. The authors provide a novel reassessment of the field, highlighting how to overcome limitations and identifying future directions. Game Theory in Biology is an advanced textbook suitable for graduate level students as well as professional researchers (both empiricists and theoreticians) in the fields of behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology. It will also be of relevance to a broader interdisciplinary audience including psychologists and neuroscientists.

This book paints a portrait of social life in America by providing an accessible discussion of empirical economics research on issues such as illegal immigration, health care and climate change. All the studies in this book use the same data source: individual responses to the American Community Survey (ACS), the nation's largest household survey. The author identifies studies that clearly illustrate core econometric methods (such as regression control and difference-in-differences), replicates key statistics from the studies, and helps the reader to carefully interpret the statistics. This book has a companion website with replication files in R and Stata format. The Appendix to this book contains a guide to using the free R software, downloading the ACS and other public-use microdata, and running the replication files, which assumes no background knowledge on the part of the reader beyond introductory statistics. By opening up the hood on how top scholars use core econometric methods to analyze large data sets, a motivated reader with a decent computer and Internet connection can use this book to learn not only how to replicate published research, but also to extend the analysis to create new knowledge about important social phenomena. A more casual reader can skip the online supplements and still gain data-driven insights into social and economic behavior. The book concludes by describing how careful empirical estimates can guide decision making, through cost-benefit analysis, to find public policies that lead to greater happiness while accounting for environmental, public health and other impacts. With its accessible discussion, glossary, detailed learning goals, end of chapter review questions and companion resources, this book is ideal for use as a supplementary volume in introductory econometrics or research methods courses.

The Economics of Restructuring and Intervention carries forward the work of Marx, Kalecki, Keynes and Kaldor in analysing questions of growth, distribution and government intervention. It will be essential reading for all those wishing to understand the massive economic and political shifts as we enter the 1990s - the globalization of markets and production, continued growth of the Third World and East European debt, the emerging digital economy. Political debates thrown up by these economic, industrial and technological developments are subject to rigorous scrutiny and critique - from the employment effects of wage cuts to the calls for 'supply side socialism'.

This textbook builds a bridge between the economic principles which form the basis of most introductory textbooks and the issues that students see discussed incessantly in the media. Contemporary Issues in Applied Economics shows how even the most elementary economic analysis can shed new light on some of the principal economic problems which face the world today. Although aimed primarily at first year economics students, it will also be of interest to those studying related subjects which require a background knowledge of economics. The lively subject matter coupled with the non-technical nature of the approach means that the book will be of interest not only to economics students but also to non-specialists wishing to keep well informed about current issues of economic policy.

Rethinking Economics is a major contribution to the reconstruction of an economic theory appropriate to the 21st century.Just as major changes are occurring in the world economy, economics itself is on the brink of change. Orthodox economics is now widely criticized for its sterility and its limited applicability to real-world economic problems. Standard theoretical tools such as general equilibrium theory are now regarded, even by their leading practitioners, as highly limited and problematic. New ideas from chaos theory, evolutionary modelling and institutional theory point to new, non-reductionist approaches in which there are units of analysis other than the atomistic individual. This work addresses core economic concepts, such as individual choice, prices, markets, production, industries, technology, innovation and economic growth in the light of these developments. This unique, up-to-date volume makes a seminal contribution at the frontiers of economic theory.

Patrick Minford has been a close adviser to Mrs Thatcher during the last decade. He has made an important contribution to the ideas of Thatcherism and Britain's monetarist/supply side programme in the 1980s.This book brings together, for the first time, essays written as a contribution to the supply side revolution in Britain. Some focus on monetary and fiscal policy, while others deal with the principles and mechanisms for supply side reform. Taken together, they represent an invaluable source book and reference point on the political philosophy and economic strategy of the Thatcher era. The essays were all written for a wide audience and will be essential reading for both economists and non-economists alike.

Patrick Minford has been a close adviser to Mrs Thatcher during the last decade. He has made an important contribution to the ideas of Thatcherism and Britain's monetarist/supply side programme in the 1980s.This book brings together, for the first time, essays written as a contribution to the supply side revolution in Britain. Some focus on monetary and fiscal policy, while others deal with the principles and mechanisms for supply side reform. Taken together, they represent an invaluable source book and reference point on the political philosophy and economic strategy of the Thatcher era. The essays were all written for a wide audience and will be essential reading for both economists and non-economists alike.

Herbert Giersch's contribution to economics has ranged widely over international economics, European integration and the economics of entrepreneurship. This book presents in one volume a selection of some of his most important essays and papers. It encompasses the gradual evolution of his work from its beginnings to his most recent contributions to the debate on the future of the European Economic Community. It contains some of his most significant work during the last 30 years and includes material that is not widely available. It will be an essential reference point for all economists concerned with entrepreneurship, the world economy and Europe.

This is a major contribution to post-Keynesian thought. With studies of the key pioneers - Keynes himself, Kalecki, Kahn, Goodwin, Kaldor, Joan Robinson, Sraffa and Pasinetti - G. C. Harcourt emphasizes their positive contributions to theories of distribution, pricing, accumulation, endogenous money and growth. The propositions of earlier chapters are brought together in an integrated narrative and interpretation of the major episodes in advanced capitalist economics in the post-war period, leading to a discussion of the relevance of post-Keynesian ideas to both our understanding of economics and to policy-making. The appendices include biographical sketches of the pioneers and analysis of the conceptual core of their discontent with orthodox theories. Drawing on the author's experience of teaching and researching over fifty years, this book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students interested in alternative approaches to theoretical, applied and policy issues in economics, as well as to teachers and researchers in economics.

This book develops a unified treatment of the income distribution-capital-value problems with respect to actual economies, and then gradually turns to the issues of effective demand and capitalist accumulation fluctuations from both political economy and economic policy perspectives. That treatment, on the one hand, places produced means of production, positive profits, and capital accumulation at the centre of the analysis and, on the other hand, is analytically based on the modern control theory. Hence, the authors' investigation is concerned with input-output representations of actual single and joint production, heterogeneous labour, and open economies; zeroes in on the characteristic value distributions of the system matrices; and, finally, derives meaningful theoretical results consistent with the empirical evidence, and vice versa. The main topics addressed are the uncontrollable/unobservable aspects of the real-world economies, the powerful low-order spectral approximations and reconstructions of the inter-industry structure of production-value-distributive variables relationships, the critical-constructive appraisal of both "mainstream" and "radical" theories of value, the matrix demand multipliers and demand-switching policies in heterogeneous capital worlds, and the circular inter-actions amongst income distribution, effective demand, accumulation, and technical conditions of production. Written on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the publication of both Piero Sraffa's Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities and Rudolf E. Kalman's paper "On the general theory of control systems", this book provides a consistent and comprehensive framework for theoretical, empirical, and economic policy research.

Allyn Young (1876-1929) was a deep thinker and achieved fame during his lifetime. His fame owes more to his style and influence as a teacher than his published work. His greatest fame as an author rests on a single economic paper on increasing returns and economic progress but he contributed much more as a mentor to his graduate students such as Frank Knight, Edward Chamberlin, and Lauchlin Currie at Harvard and to the undergraduate Nicholas Kaldor at the London School of Economics. He shot into international fame for his role as a member of the American delegation led by President Woodrow Wilson to negotiate peace at Paris after WWI. However, recent interest in Young is more due to his thought than to his contribution to the economics profession or public service. At the time of his death, he was working on two treatises, one on Money and the other on Economics. The one on Money was at a fairly advanced stage but no trace of either was found in his family's hasty departure from London after his untimely death. There is a general dearth of published material about Young, his thought and his life. His economic thought, apart from his views on growth theory and monetary economics, is relatively unknown. This volume offers a thematic approach to his contributions and biography.

This major two volume work contains a selection of the best papers presented at the annual meeting of the History of Economics Society. They correct errors of interpretation and undertake constructive analyses. They show the importance of studies of the history of economic thought for an understanding of its influence on our conceptions of the world and on economic, social and political behaviour.