Talk:History of economic thought

Maybe just a little...?

So, according to this article the history of economic thought is entirely dominated by white males. Additionally, the entire history of economic thought originated and developed only in Western Europe and the U.S. Really?

R.R. 22:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.70.143.123 (talk)

Unfortunately, for most of recorded history, women did not write about economics, and if they did, they were not taken seriously. I honestly cannot think of any significant female economist before the 20th century. If you know of any, please make a suggestion. As for non-Western thought, I believe that the article Ancient economic thought has a better discussion of non-Western thinkers. It would be great if you could pull in the appropriate sources from that article. I would like to do it myself, but am quite busy this semester. LK (talk) 09:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Beatrice Webb. Wikidea 18:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Also Joan Robinson after the 20th century, but I noticed the idiots who messed up the article removed her when they savaged the Keynes section. Wikidea 19:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If anyone's interested, this is probably the best revision it got to - there are at the moment lots of other little useful refinements and changes here and there on that revision, but this revision was coherent, readable and followed a logical structure the whole way through (still unfinished, but more than now). Wikidea 19:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

There is substantial economic thinking both in ancient Mesopotamia and China, but good presentations are hard to get by. The Chinese thinkers should get some coverage here. Bjoertvedt (talk) 16:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

...and Amartya Sen, Indian economist who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1997. Contributed originally to thought on Economics and Justice... There were a number of Third World Economists who contributed to global debates during cold war / Non-Aligned Moment year. 139.163.138.11 (talk) 01:57, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

So, according to this article the history of economic thought is entirely dominated by white males. Additionally, the entire history of economic thought originated and developed only in Western Europe and the U.S. Really?

Yes. Why? That's just the way the cookie crumbles. Bluebasket (talk) 12:08, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Joan Robinson redux and section placement

Per above, Mark Blaug's magisterial "Economics" section (10-pages) in Britannica, Macropedia "Social sciences" article, devotes about 40% of a column to the theory of imperfect and monopolistic competition in the 1930s under the title "The critics," which follows "The marginalists" (that is, neoclassicals). Their chief architects were respectively Joan Robinson and Edward H. Chamberlin whose books were each published in 1933. Those are by far their most cited works & with similar orders of citations for R & C. Their influence was great, indexed by chapters in most principles of economics textbooks today on monopoly, monopolistic competition & oligopoly along the lines that they laid out . That should be warrant enough for including a subsection on her, Sraffa, and Chamberlin for that matter, if someone is willing to get around to it. There's an extensive article on her in The New Palgrave (TOC). Yes, she was fierce Keynesian, Sraffian, & radical too. But first things first as to imperfect competition IMO.

The Robinson and Chamberlin books preceded Keynes's General Theory by 3 years. Sraffa's related work, which stimulated Robinson, preceded GT by 10 years (per "Sraffa, Piero," Laws of Returns section (TOC), The New Palgrave). None of them relied on GT. That would suggest locating the section before Keynes, as Blaug does. Sraffa's 1960 magnum opus was an outgrowth of his 1926 work. Far from enhancing Keynes, the current placement & heading ("Keynesian economics") might suggest that Keynes needs an anachronistic prop, which of course he does not. He's looking pretty good today (though not without controversy, as usual). --Thomasmeeks (talk) 17:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC) Minor corrections. 15:12, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

John Law

Please add a John Law section http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Law

John Law —Preceding unsigned comment added by Compinchados (talk • contribs) 11:26, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Arab Islamic Caliphet

These edits added material on (roughly) Islamic economics. I'm going to pull it out. I think it doesn't belong in this article, at least as written, for a few reasons.

• First, and most minor, it clearly doesn't belong where it is in the flow of the article, because it's out of chronology, referring to 20th-century thought mixed in with medieval thought.
• Second, at least some of the sources are insufficient. The piece at allacademic.com appears to be unpublished, instead a conference paper. The piece from tripod.com appears self-published. Neither stands up on WIkipedia as a reliable source.
• Third, and most worth discussion, it doesn't seem like these branches of Islamic economics have been significant in the overall history of economic thought. I admit a lot of ignorance on this matter. I know that Ibn Khaldun is credited with great feats in economics as well as other fields, but if that's to be included, it should be in the older sections, and elaborated on in that way. More modern Islamic economic thoughts don't seem to have influenced the broader field of economics in any significant way. To the extent that Islamic economics is important in the Islamic world, my (admittedly ignorant) understanding is that it's less a matter of different analysis, and more a matter of different practice.

CRETOG8(t/c) 22:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Article lack non-Western POV

I'm adding {{globalize}} tag as this article lacks non-Western POV. Sole Soul (talk) 23:42, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

There's some interesting stuff on the page Ancient economic thought that can be incorporated. As for more modern theories, Leninist and Maoist thought needs some beefing up, but modern economics is pretty much mainstream economics. LK (talk) 04:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

This article certainly needs a more worldwide view, using find there are 20 mentions of america, 11 of england, yet no mention of china one mention of india (in East India Company), this is ridiculous surely there must be some articles from the other language wikis that people with knowledge of both languages can use to round out this western article. 114.76.41.165 (talk) 03:37, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm more in sympathy with LK here as to his practical suggestions. Several Asian or Middle East writers are already mentioned under "Early economic thought." I think the appropriate standard should be "Did they contribute signifantly to the thread of later economic thought?" Possibly a section on "20th (or "Later" per Marx) socialist economics" would work. But I don't think that its absence is crucial. I do think that W. Arthur Lewis would be a worthy addition, although he might not "count", b/c he was from the Caribbean.

There are 4 living economists discussed in the article (the estimable Arrow, Coase, Krugman, Sen, and Stiglitz. One of them is of Asian origin and education.

For the 20th century, what should matter is contribution to history of economics, not history of economic thought before "economic thought" became political economy/economics and not economic history. The latter qualification is an argument against inclusion Lenin and Mao, although a reasonable case might be made either way.

In sum, I don't think that tweaking per the above would be hard to do, or that article is much deficient in that regard. Emphasis in any case should be foremost on quality maintenance per the previous section, not only by requests here. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 17:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC) Light edit of previous last post added. P.S. May I take this opportunity to welcome the previous discussant. -- TM 18:29, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Practically speaking this page is the History of Western economic thought

I'm just saying. And certainly not as a criticism. Perhaps the page title should reflect this reality. Bluebasket (talk) 11:58, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

1st paragraph of "Mathematical analysis" section: citation needed

So, why have a new section here just for the above heading subject? For one thing, some of the same points may apply elsewhere, the better to improve those spots similarly. Most careful readers will be able to spot other places where related remarks might apply. All this, despite quite a number of footnotes in the article already.

The following was moved from end on the 1st paragraph of "Mathematical analysis" section: of the article:[1]

Rather than using the persuasive language of classical economists like Mill, the Pareto efficient curve could be represented with a precise mathematical formula:$P(Y)=\{y^{\prime }\in Y:\;\{y^{\prime \prime }\in Y:\;y^{\prime \prime }\succ y^{\prime },y^{\prime \prime }\neq y^{\prime }\;\}=\emptyset \}$.

1. It reads like it is based on a secondary course, but no such source is cited. The formula did not come out of thin air, but there is no citation. It reads also like a comment by a heterodox economic writer or a satirical postmodernist critique of mainstream economics as to its alleged incomprehensibility -- the more so because there is no verbal explanation of what the notation refers to. Nothing necessarily wrong with that as such except in an encyclopedia article on history of economic thought, in which it violates WP:NPOV. Perhaps I've got it wrong and that's the notation of Pareto or a later interpreter Pareto using contemporary (that is, post-Pareto) notation. In that case, a simple citation should suffice. But anachronistic notation would, however, be esp, out of place in this article.
2. A dated notation was made for 1st paragraph on Pareto, which purports to explain a Pareto graph that sounds suspiciously like an Edgeworth box, such as here:

But that's not Pareto. So, what's the source? I'm making such a big deal of all this, because IMO a knowledgeable reader might consider the article tainted by its presence & have stayed away from it for that reason. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 17:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC) --Thomasmeeks (talk) 15:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

• I agree the paragraph seems both odd and oddly placed. I think I have some sources about the period of Edgeworth, Pareto and Marshall which can more appropriately make the same point about transitioning from a discursive to a mathematical discipline. I also think we should steer clear of using an Edgeworth box in that section, given that I don't think the box itself became a common tool for graphical explanation until Bowley reused/discovered it some 20 years after Edgeworth started publishing (it is related to the subject matter, but not great if we want to keep a chronology going). More comments to come. Protonk (talk) 21:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

• Some possible citations or clarifications. I would turn first to Mirowski--though not an unbiased voice he is a pretty voluminous source on late 19th century mathematical economics. Rather than recommend More Heat than Light which is about 700 pages, you can look at his 1991 JEP article The When, the How and the Why of Mathematical Expression in the History of Economics Analysis, particularly pp. 146-148. the latter pages are devoted to the 1930s which is a bit out of scope for this paragraph. A counter-argument for the chronology can be delegated to none other than Irving Fisher in the QJE (Jan 1898), detailing the very same process of stepping away from discursive reasoning to mathematical reasoning in Cournot's 1838 book. Some care has to be taken in interpreting the timeline, as information transmission between French, British and American economists was far from perfect and indeed was characterized by quite a bit of nationalism. Fischer does note Pareto as being in the Cournot's school so to speak (see p. 133, p. 136). Even more troubling is the notion (not really fleshed out in the mathematical econ article or the article on Pareto optimality) that Pareto efficiency was basically left fallow for a few decades and rediscovered by mathematicians cum economists in the 20s and thirties. See "No History of Ideas, Please, We're Economists" in the 2001 JEP p. 148. Protonk (talk) 00:48, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Nice source, that last. In retrospect, I'm afraid I was too cautious at (1) above. To go beyond it, an accessible, brief treatment of Pareto is "Pareto, Vilfredo (1848–1923)," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, section: Efficiency or ‘Pareto optimality'. Pareto improves on Edgeworth in including production, not merely exchange. Pareto's notion of efficiency is described there as having had the greatest impact of all his contributions. For describing that, the first paragraph of the "Mathematical analysis" section (on the Edgeworth-Bowley box) might be replaced. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 00:06, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I did a minimal Edit to try to fix the above problem,[2] stimulated by the thought how easy it might be considering how difficult I might have made it appear. --TM 02:28, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

filling in the gap

This source Backhaus, Jürgen Georg (2011-11-12). Handbook of the History of Economic Thought: Insights on the Founders of Modern Economics. Springer. ISBN 9781441983350. Retrieved 2 July 2012. also An Outline of the History of Economic Thought By Ernesto Screpanti, Stefano Zamagni [3] For some (not much) non western views free History of Economic Thought: A Critical Account of the Origin and Development of the Economic Theories of the Leading Thinkers in the Leading Nations By Lewis H. Haney (old but free at questia ) [4] The first one listed is the best for wikipedia I think. If any one is interested I could look around for more. J8079s (talk) 18:51, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Physiocrats and Henry George

Physiocrats and Henry George

Doesn't the school of the importance of land value and it's control belong somewhere in here? 68.48.204.94 (talk) 16:04, 17 September 2012 (UTC)