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Richard
N. Langlois is Professor of Economics at the
Fall
2004 MWF 10-12.
322 Monteith |
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Economics 205
History of Economic Thought
Fall 2004
MWF Monteith 221 Course syllabus
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Objectives.
This course examines the history of economic ideas. It is not a history of what actually happened in the past (compare Economics 201, the Economic History of Europe) but rather a history of theories about how the economy works. Nonetheless, we will pay a little attention to economic history, since understanding what was going on in the economy in past times and places helps us to understand how people conceptualized the economy. |
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Textbooks.
I have asked the bookstore to order the following
books. Both are highly readable – even
entertaining. There is some overlap in
the coverage, but their perspectives differ.
Both are inexpensive paperbacks.
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Todd G. Buchholz, New
Ideas from Dead Economists: An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought.
Plume Books, Revised edition, 1999. |
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Robert L. Heilbroner, The
Worldly Philosophers : The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic
Thinkers. Touchstone; 7th Rev edition, 1999. |
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I have also asked the bookstore to order the
following, which is aimed at the “W” part of the course. I don’t expect to make specific assignments
from this book, but I expect you to read it and take its lessons to heart. |
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Deirdre McCloskey, Economical Writing. Waveland Press, 2nd edition, 1999. |
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Internet.
Many primary sources (and some secondary sources)
are now available on the internet. We
will rely heavily on such sources. For copyright reasons, some are accessible
only from the WebCT page for this course. Some links on this syllabus are accessible
only from computers connected to the Internet through the UConn domain. If
you live off campus and are connecting through a private ISP, check with the computer center about something called
a proxy
server. Many articles available on the web are in Adobe
Acrobat (PDF) format. To read them, you will need the Adobe Acrobat reader.
This should already be installed on University microlab computers. But if you
don't have it, you can download it for
free. Useful
links.
The William J. Barber, an
emeritus professor at Wesleyan, has placed his 1967 history of
economic thought text online, and the syllabus below links to the
relevant chapters. |
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Course
Requirements.
Your grade will be based on the following components.
Since this is a “W” course,
half the grade will be based on a writing assignment. Detailed instructions and advice for this
assignment are available here. Since the term paper will
test your ability to synthesize ideas and think creatively, the exams will
concentrate on factual knowledge of what we have covered in class. Along with short essays, they may contain some matching, identification,
multiple-choice, or true/false components.
The final will be cumulative,
but will stress the material covered after the midterm.
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Sequence
of topics.
1. Introduction. Why study the history of economic
thought? Richard N. Langlois, “The Great Question,”
Manuscript 2003. (On WebCT.) Buchholz, chapter 1. 2. Classical and medieval economic thought. EH.Net encyclopedia
entry on the ancient Greek economy. Karl
Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies. Princeton, 1966, vol 1, chapters 6 and
8. (Electronic course reserve – WebCT.) Aristotle,
Politics,
books I and II; Nicomachian
Ethics, book V. Thomas
Aquinas, Summa
Theologica, second part of the second part, questions LXXVII and LXXVIII. 3. Mercantilism. Edward Misselden, Free Trade or,
The Meanes to Make Trade Florish (1622). Gerard de Malynes, The Maintenance of
Free Trade (1622). Thomas Mun, England's
Treasure by Forraign Trade (c. 1630). Adam
Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book IV. 4. The Physiocrats. Richard Cantillon, Essay on
the Nature of Commerce in General (c. 1730). F. A. Hayek, “Richard
Cantillon” (1931). François
Quesnay, Tableau
économique (1758; in
French). A. R. J. Turgot, Reflections on the
Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766). Adam
Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book
IV, chapter ix. Almarin Phillips, "The Tableau
Economique as a Simple Leontief Model," Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 1955. 6. Adam Smith and the Scottish
Enlightenment. John
Locke, Second
Treatise of Government (1690), esp. chapter V. David Hume,
Political Discourses (1752), especially “Of Money,”
“Of the Balance
of Trade,” and “Of the
Jealousy of Trade.”
Buchholz, chapter 2. Heilbroner, chapter 3. William J. Barber, A History of Economic Thought. Penguin, 1967, chapter 1. Adam
Smith, An
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I
(all, though you can skip the lengthy "digression on silver"); Book
II, especially chapters I, III, and V. Nathan Rosenberg, “Some Institutional
Aspects of the Wealth of Nations,” Journal of Political Economy
68(6): 557-570 (December 1960). G. B. Richardson, "Adam Smith on Competition
and Increasing Returns," in Andrew S. Skinner and Thomas Wilson, eds., Essays
on Adam Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975. (Electronic course reserve – WebCT.) 7. T. R. Malthus. Buchholz, chapter 3. Heilbroner, chapter 4. Barber, chapter 2. Thomas Robert
Malthus An
Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). Richard N. Langlois, “The Great Question,”
Manuscript 2003. (On WebCT.) 8. David Ricardo. Buchholz, chapter 4. Heilbroner, chapter 4. Barber, chapter 3. David
Ricardo, The
Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, esp. chapters 1-8,
19-21, 26, 30-31. Robert Dorfman, "Thomas Robert
Malthus and David Ricardo," Journal of Economic Perspectives 3(3):
153-164 (1989). Mark Blaug, “Ricardo’s System,” excerpt from Economic
Theory in Retrospect, Cambridge
University Press, third edition, 1978, pp. 91-95. (On WebCT.) George Stigler, "Ricardo and the
93% Labor Theory of Value," American Economic Review 48(3):
357-367 (June 1958). 9. John Stuart Mill and Classical Economics Buchholz, chapter 5. Barber, chapter 4
and postscript. John
Stuart Mill, Principles
of Political Economy, esp. Book I, chapter 5; Book III, chapters 1-6,
15-16; and Book IV, chapters 1-4. 10.
The reaction to capitalism: conservatives, utopians, socialists. Heilbroner, chapter 5. John Ruskin, Unto
this Last (1860). Thomas
Carlyle page at the David Levy and Sandra Peart, “The Secret
History of the Dismal Science: Economics, Religion, and Race in the 19th
Century” (2001). Robert Owen, A
New View of Society (1813-16). Utopian and socialist
page at the 11.
Karl Marx. Buchholz, chapter 6. Heilbroner, chapter 6. Barber, chapter 5
and postscript. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Communist
Manifesto (1848), Sections 1 and 2 Karl Marx, Capital, volume
1 (1867). Paul Craig Roberts and Matthew Stephenson, Marx’s
Theory of Exchange, Alienation, and Crisis. Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1973. (On WebCT.) 12.
The Marginalist Revolution Barber, chapter 7. Heilbroner, chapter 7. W. S. Jevons, Theory of
Political Economy (1871). Carl Menger, Principles of Economics
(1871) Carl Menger, “On the Origin
of Money,” The Economic Journal 2(6): 239-255 (June 1892). Léon Walras, Elements of Pure Economics,
trans. William Jaffé, Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1954 [1874]. William Jaffé, "Menger, Jevons and Walras
De-Homogenized," Economic Inquiry 14(4):511-24 (1976). (Electronic course reserve – WebCT.) 13.
Alfred Marshall Buchholz, chapter 7. Barber, chapter 6
and postscript. Alfred Marshall, Principles of
Economics, eighth edition, esp. Book I, chapters I and II; Book III;
and Book IV; skim Book V. Brian J. Loasby, 14.
John Maynard Keynes Buchholz, chapters
9, 10, and 12. Heilbroner, chapter
9. Barber, chapter 8 and postscript. J.M. Keynes, "The General Theory of Employment," Quarterly
Journal of Economics 51, May 1937 (section II to the end) Barry Eichengreen, “Still Fettered After All These Years,” Working Paper No. w9276, National Bureau of
Economic Research, October 2002. F. A. Hayek, "The Keynes Centenary: The
Austrian Critique," The Economist,
June 11, 1983, pp. 45-48, reprinted in
Bruce J. Caldwell, ed., The Collected
Works of F. A. Hayek: Volume IX:
Contra Keynes and 15. Veblen, Schumpeter, and
Galbraith. Buchholz, chapter 8. Heilbroner, chapters 8 and 10. Richard N. Langlois, "Schumpeter and the Obsolescence of the Entrepreneur," Advances in Austrian Economics 6:
287-302 (2003). 16.
The socialist calculation debate and modern economics. Buchholz, chapters 11 and 13. F. A. Hayek, "The Use of
Knowledge in Society," American Economic Review 35(4):
519-530 (1945). Bruce Caldwell, “Hayek and
Socialism,” Journal of Economic
Literature 35: 1856-1890
(December 1997). |
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