In this paper we investigate Werner Stark’s sociology of knowledge approach in the history of economic thought. This paper explores: 1) the strengths and weaknesses of Stark’s approach to historiography, 2) how this can frame an understanding of mercantilist writings, and 3) the development of a link between a pluralist understanding of economics and the sociology of knowledge approach. The reason for developing this link is to extend the sociology of knowledge approach to encompass a pluralist understanding of economic theorizing and, at the same time, clarify the link between context and economic theory. John Maynard Keynes’s practice of building narratives of intellectual traditions as evidenced in The General Theory is used to develop a position between an understanding of history of economic thought as the evolution of abstract and decontextualized economic theorizing and the view of economic theory as relevant only within the social conditions from which it arose.

Hans Karl Emil von Mangoldt (1824-1868) is often cited as making an important contribution to German economic theory in his major work, Grundriss der Volkswirtschaftslehre (1863), which was written as a text for further discussion in classes. Yet the details of his compressed analysis have rarely been given close attention.

This essay was originally read at the conference of the Society of Economists at the Kiev Institute of Commerce on November 14, 1913, to mark the 250th anniversary (in 1912) of the appearance of William Petty's first economic treatise. It was subsequently published in the Student Bulletin of the same institute (1914, Numbers 16, 17, 18).

Publishing this essay in the form of a separate pamphlet I, of course, acknowledge its extreme incompleteness in many respects, but think that the extreme poverty of Russian literature about such a wonderful economist justifies its worth.

I can conceive of few academics presumptuous or foolhardy enough to write an “intellectual autobiography” unless invited to do so. It is no easy assignment. One seeks to protect a core of privacy; there is a residual subjectivity regarding events and persons that cannot be eliminated; one is obliged to tone things down for practical reasons. Even if one can hope to tell the “truth” it will not be the whole truth—certainly not in twenty-two pages. It must also be said that any linkages that might be suggested between character or experience and professional contribution (and an intellectual autobiography of course seeks out such linkages) can never progress beyond the stages of hypothesis; neither necessary nor sufficient causation is at issue. Yet I myself have learned something from this exercise; perhaps my readers will too.

The Latin terms commonly used to signify “risk” are absent from Thomas Aquinas’s economic writings. Instead, Aquinas offers a lexicon of probability, prudence, and danger. This ternary lexicon brings with it a triple universalization of risk: first, a universalization through activity, including the activity of analysis considered as part of economic activity; second, a universalization through the agents, since everyone—the observer, the co-contractors, the prince, and the population—is affected by the risk; and, third, a partial universalization of its definition, since the lexicon indicates a risk that is not yet restricted by calculation, as the modern notion is, although some distinctions are already made by Aquinas. However, the lexicon describes only a risk of loss and does not take into account chance of gain.

This study deals with the debate that took place among Italian economists and statisticians at the turn of the twentieth century on the economic effects of mass emigration. In particular, it is focused on a controversy between Vilfredo Pareto and Alberto Beneduce on the one side, and Francesco Coletti on the other. It analyzes the way these scholars struggled with: (i) the problem of properly elaborating a specific cost-benefit analysis regarding emigration; and (ii), as a consequence, the problem of recognizing a clear set of economic policies designed to manage the complex economic and social processes connected to emigration. The paper demonstrates the enduring character of the problems encountered in the early Italian debates by showing that these questions are similar to those debated in the vast literature developed from the 1950s on the subject of brain drain, and suggests an explanation for the lack of conclusive results in this literature. We think that it is possible to understand this impasse by highlighting that in the analyzed literature, a problem of “fallacy of composition” emerges between the microeconomics and macroeconomics of emigration.

Through his philosophical treatises, John Locke is perceived as the founder of political liberalism. However, from a different perspective, he can also be seen as a mercantilist. To show that there is no complete incompatibility between Locke’s philosophical treatises and his economic essay, I stress the central role of money. Money leads to a conflict, which is usually described as a conflict between “haves” and “have nots” (Macpherson 1962; Vaughn 1980; Caffentzis 1989). I complete this analysis showing that the introduction of money in the state of nature also leads to an uncommon conflict within the owners’ class between “landed men” and “moneyed men.” I also argue that this transition from a state of peace to a state of unrest leads to the establishment of a government whose role is to avoid the escalation of the conflict into a state of war.

In 1901, Correa Moylan Walsh gained renown for writing a groundbreaking monograph on index numbers. His contributions to monetary economics, however, though neglected, transcend his work on index numbers, which was conceived to serve more foundational concerns of his. Therefore, our aim is twofold. First, we want to recover Walsh’s role as an important early twentieth-century economist. Second, we intend to provide a wider account of his incursion into monetary economics. Our argument is that the cornerstone of Walsh’s approach to the science of money is not confined to index numbers but concerns his distinction between different kinds of economic value and the discussion regarding the kind of value that money should measure and store. As such, we identify Walsh’s 1903 book, The Fundamental Problem in Monetary Science, as his archetypical work.

For those readers who are not familiar with the history of Italian economic thought, the Cost of Reproduction Doctrine (CRD) is an interpretation ofthe theory of value developed by the distinguished scholar Francesco Ferrara (1810–1900) around the middle of the nineteenth century. This was a time when many of the flaws of the classical system had been identified but the analytical tools needed for their elimination were not yet available.

In the aftermath of the Great War and the Bolshevik revolution, the years 1920–1925 witnessed a great upsurge of academic writing in Britain on Karl Marx's theory of value. We shall not seek to explain this phenomenon but it may nevertheless be of interest first to sketch, as a contrasting background, the limited interest shown in this topic in the pages of the Economic Journal, 1891–1920. For that journal did indeed, in that period, devote considerable space to matters socialist—taken in a broad sense (see Steedman 1990).

The golden age of road demand modeling began in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s in the face of major road construction needs. These macro models, as well as the econometrics and the data to be processed, were provided mainly by engineers. A division of tasks can be observed between the engineers in charge of estimating the flows within the network and the transport economists in charge of managing these flows once they are on the road network. Yet the inability to explain their decision-making processes and individual drives gave some room to economists to introduce economic analysis, so as to better understand individual or collective decisions between transport alternatives. Economists, in particular Daniel McFadden, began to offer methods to improve the measure of utility linked to transport and to inform the engineering approach. This paper explores the challenges to the boundaries between economics and engineering in road demand analysis.

Wilhelm Krelle (1916–2004) had two careers: one before 1945 as an officer in the German army (Wehrmacht), and a second after 1945 as an economist in West Germany. After retirement, he was honored as the economist who brought modern modeling techniques, Lawrence Klein’s macroeconometrics in particular, from the US to West Germany. After his engagement in the reform of East German economics, however, he was discredited as his early career became public. This essay reconstructs Krelle’s career in his attempt and struggle to maintain moral integrity in and between the various domains of his troubled life as officer, economist, political adviser, father, and husband.