Economic theory reached its zenith of analytical power and depth of understanding in the middle of the nineteenth century among John Stuart Mill and his contemporaries. This book explains what took place in the ensuing Marginal Revolution and Keynesian Revolution that left economists less able to understand how economies operate. It explores the false mythology that has obscured the arguments of classical economists, providing a pathway into the theory they developed.

"Of all the economic bubbles that have been pricked," the editors of The Economist recently observed, "few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself." Indeed, the financial crisis that crested in 2008 destroyed the credibility of the economic thinking that had guided policymakers for a generation. But what will take its place? In How the Economy Works, one of our leading economists provides a jargon-free exploration of the current crisis, offering a powerful argument for how economics must change to get us out of it. Roger E. A. Farmer traces the swings between classical and Keynesian economics since the early twentieth century, gracefully explaining the elements of both theories. During the Great Depression, Keynes challenged the longstanding idea that an economy was a self-correcting mechanism; but his school gave way to a resurgence of classical economics in the 1970s-a rise that ended with the current crisis. Rather than simply allowing the pendulum to swing back, Farmer writes, we must synthesize the two. From classical economics, he takes the idea that a sound theory must explain how individuals behave-how our collective choices shape the economy. From Keynesian economics, he adopts the principle that markets do not always work well, that capitalism needs some guidance. The goal, he writes, is to correct the excesses of a free-market economy without stifling entrepreneurship and instituting central planning. Recent events have shown that we cannot afford to treat economics as an ivory-tower abstraction. It has a direct impact on our lives by guiding regulators and policymakers as they make decisions with far-reaching practical consequences. Written in clear, accessible language, How the Economy Works makes an argument that no one should ignore.

A reexamination of classical economic theory and methods, by a senior economist of international stature Thomas Sowell's many writings on the history of economic thought have appeared in a number of scholarly journals and books, and these writings have been praised, reprinted, and translated in various countries around the world. The classical era in the history of economics is an important part of the history of ideas in general, and its implications reach beyond the bounds of the economics profession. On Classical Economics is a book from which students can learn both history and economics. It is not simply a Cook's tour of colorful personalities of the past but a study of how certain economic concepts and tools of analysis arose, and how their implications were revealed during the controversies that followed. In addition to a general understanding of classical macroeconomics and microeconomics, this book offers special insight into the neglected pioneering work of Sismondi--and why it was neglected--and a detailed look at John Stuart Mill's enigmatic role in the development of economics and the mysteries of Marxian economics. Clear, engaging, and very readable, without being either cute or condescending, On Classical Economics can enable a course on the history of economic thought to make a contribution to students' understanding of economics in general--whether in price theory, monetary theory, or international trade. In short, it is a book about analysis as well as history.

This book presents an in-depth, novel, and mathematically rigorous treatment of the modern classical theory of value based on the spectral analysis of the price–profit–wage rate system. The classical theory is also subjected to empirical testing to show its logical consistency and explanatory content with respect to observed phenomena and key economic policy issues related to various multiplier processes. In this context, there is an examination of the trajectories of relative prices when the distributive variables change, both theoretically and empirically, using actual input–output data from a number of quite divers e economies. It is suggested that the actual economies do not behave like the parable of a one-commodity world of the traditional neoclassical theory, which theorizes the relative scarcities of “goods and production factors” as the fundamental determinants of relative prices and their movement. By contrast, the results of the empirical analysis are fully consistent with the modern classical theory, which makes the intersectoral structure of production and the way in which net output is distributed amongst its claimants the fundamental determinants of price magnitudes. At the same time, however, these results indicate that only a few vertically integrated industries (“industry core” or “hyper-basic industries”) are enough to shape the behaviour of the entire economy in the case of a disturbance. This fact is reduced to the skew distribution of the eigenvalues of the matrices of vertically integrated technical coefficients and reveals that, across countries and over time, the effective dimensions of actual economies are surprisingly low. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE />

This reconsideration of the macroeconomics, microeconomics, methodology, and social philosophy of the classical economists has been a small gem on the history of economic thought, written in a way accessible to students, while having much to teach scholars. The reissue of this book twenty years after its original publication is a tribute to the enduring relevance of the questions raised during the formative period of economics and to the skill with which the author analyzes them.

Textbook on classical economics and economic theories from adam smith to j.e. Cairnes - includes annotated bibliographys and references.

This book promotes an in-depth understanding of the key mechanisms that govern the functioning of capitalist economies, pursuing a Classical Political Economics approach to do so. It explores central theoretical issues addressed by the classical economists Smith and Ricardo, as well as Marx, while also operationalizing more recent theoretical developments inspired by the works of Sraffa and other modern classical economists, using actual data from major economies. On the basis of this approach, the book subsequently provides alternative explanations for various microeconomic issues such as the determination of equilibrium prices and their movement induced by changes in income distribution; the dynamics of competition of firms within and between industries; the law of tendential equalization of interindustry profit rates; and international exchanges and transfers of value; as well as macroeconomic issues concerning capital accumulation and cyclical economic growth. Given its scope, the book will benefit all researchers, students, and policymakers seeking new explanations for observed phenomena and interested in the mechanisms that give rise to surface economic categories, such as prices, profits, the unemployment rate, interest rates, and long economic cycles.