Search results for ""author roger e. backhouse""

Truth and Progress in Economic Knowledge provides a new perspective on economic methodology, specifically addressing progress in economic knowledge. This important investigation argues that economic methodology is developed through analysing economics, not through imposing a framework developed in other sciences.Roger Backhouse begins his discussion by defending economic methodology both against economists who object to it on practical grounds and post-modern critics who argue that the notion of methodology makes no sense. He then explores the concept of progress, drawing on ideas from Kuhn, the notion of pragmatism and the Popperian tradition. The discussion develops to examine theoretical economics, considering Lakatos's concept of informal mathematics, analysing replication in economics and the use of econometrics and informal empirical methods to test economic theories. The author argues that replication is not simply an econometric problem, but a problem for economics, as it involves both the nature of economic theory and the way in which economists use economic results.This new approach to economic methodology will be of special interest to academics, philosophers with an interest in economics and social sciences, and students of economic methodology.

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The definitive guide to the history of economic thought, fully revised twenty years after first publicationRoger Backhouse's definitive guide takes the story of economic thinking from the ancient world to the present day, with a brand-new chapter on the twenty-first century and updates throughout to reflect the latest scholarship.Covering topics including globalisation, inequality, financial crises and the environment, Backhouse brings his breadth of expertise and a contemporary lens to this original and insightful exploration of economics, revealing how we got to where we are today.

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These volumes gather together a selection of autobiographical essays written by significant economists whose work is generally recognized to be at the forefront of the discipline as we enter the twenty-first century. The essays are largely based on introductions to volumes in the Edward Elgar series Economists of the Twentieth Century (which collects together the key papers of these economists). This volume focuses on leading economists who were born, or have spent the greater part of their lives, in America. The main chapters are accompanied by an introduction in which the editors place the autobiographical essays in a wider context. Economists will be fascinated by: the stories that lie behind familiar names why economists approach problems the way they do how careers develop how economists view what they are doing. These are all points that are invisible to those who simply read the published output of economics, so readers will gain personal insights into the development of the field.The books will be a valuable resource for economists, particularly historians of economic thought, as well as sociologists concerned with the economics profession, and those interested in the creative process and the social and scientific development of economics.

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The Great Recession of 2008 restored John Maynard Keynes to prominence. After decades when the Keynesian revolution seemed to have been forgotten, the great British theorist was suddenly everywhere. The New York Times asked, “What would Keynes have done?” The Financial Times wrote of “the undeniable shift to Keynes.” Le Monde pronounced the economic collapse Keynes’s “revenge.” Two years later, following bank bailouts and Tea Party fundamentalism, Keynesian principles once again seemed misguided or irrelevant to a public focused on ballooning budget deficits. In this readable account, Backhouse and Bateman elaborate the misinformation and caricature that have led to Keynes’s repeated resurrection and interment since his death in 1946.Keynes’s engagement with social and moral philosophy and his membership in the Bloomsbury Group of artists and writers helped to shape his manner of theorizing. Though trained as a mathematician, he designed models based on how specific kinds of people (such as investors and consumers) actually behave—an approach that runs counter to the idealized agents favored by economists at the end of the century.Keynes wanted to create a revolution in the way the world thought about economic problems, but he was more open-minded about capitalism than is commonly believed. He saw capitalism as essential to a society’s well-being but also morally flawed, and he sought a corrective for its main defect: the failure to stabilize investment. Keynes’s nuanced views, the authors suggest, offer an alternative to the polarized rhetoric often evoked by the word “capitalism” in today’s political debates.

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These volumes gather together a selection of autobiographical essays written by significant economists whose work is generally recognized to be at the forefront of the discipline as we enter the twenty-first century. The essays are largely based on introductions to volumes in the Edward Elgar series Economists of the Twentieth Century (which collects together the key papers of these economists). This volume focuses on leading economists who were born, or have spent the greater part of their lives, in America. The main chapters are accompanied by an introduction in which the editors place the autobiographical essays in a wider context. Economists will be fascinated by: the stories that lie behind familiar names why economists approach problems the way they do how careers develop how economists view what they are doing. These are all points that are invisible to those who simply read the published output of economics, so readers will gain personal insights into the development of the field.The books will be a valuable resource for economists, particularly historians of economic thought, as well as sociologists concerned with the economics profession, and those interested in the creative process and the social and scientific development of economics.

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Denis O'Brien has made an outstanding contribution to economics, and the history of economic thought in particular. This selection of original essays, by a distinguished group of contributors, pays tribute to his work in the areas of the history of economic analysis and methodology.The book opens with a preface by R.D. Collison Black which is followed by a biographical introduction to Denis O'Brien's career and his contributions to economics, including a full list of his publications. The authors then explore areas where Denis O'Brien has made an important mark: classical economics, the history of monetary economics, Marshall and microeconomics, and economic methodology.This book will be welcomed by academics and students of economic history, the history of economic thought and methodology.

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