scholarly journals Theory Without Measurement or Some Finishing Touches on The Creative Portrait of Douglass North

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 071-090
Author(s):  
Alexander Maltsev ◽  
◽  
Natalia Rozinskaya ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Douglass North

The article examines some of the key features of the scientific work of Douglass North. It is argued that the popular image of North as an adherent of this or that school of economic thought is not highly relevant. The authors believe that one of the key features of North's research style is his "theory-centricity". The article demonstrates that the most important milestones in North's career (fling with Marxism in his youth, participation in the Сliometrics revolution, the transition from neoclassical economist to one of the founders of neo-institutionalism, a turn towards cognitive science), despite the seeming lack of continuity served as kind of steps of the ladder along which North went to the creation of a comprehensive theory of social development. Based on the results of qualitative content analysis of North's works of the 1950s and 60s, the authors show that even in the years of his affinity for quantitative economic history, the economist always put the ability to theorize above the skills of quantitative analysis. This feature, combined with the recent empirical turn in economics, which raised the prestige of empirical work to unprecedented heights, made it difficult for modern mainstream economists to perceive the ideas of the "late" North. The authors' analysis of the citation structure of North's last major book, "Violence and Social Orders. Conceptual framework for the interpretation of the written history of mankind" confirms this trend. This book generates greater interest among heterodox economists, historians, and political scientists than among representatives of mainstream economics. In the article's conclusion, the authors speculate about the prospects of the Northian theory-driven style of doing economic research in the face of the progressive "empirization" of modern economics.

Introduction to ideas of development

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Toye
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Student Demands ◽  
Active Policy

The 2008 financial crisis has sparked student demands to rewrite the economics curriculum, giving more space to economic history and the history of economic thought. This can be done within a survey of the main narratives of socioeconomic development. Pre-18th-century discussions of improvement were narratives of linear social progress, however. Once the moderns triumphed over the ancients, the term ‘development’ became common in English. The alternative ‘civilization’ proved to be too ambiguous and too controversial. The development concept bifurcated into ‘organic and constructive versions’, the first with passive (evolutionary) and the latter with active (policy) implications. All development narratives stem from one or the other of these two strands.

The Early History of Financial Economics, 1478–1776. By Geoffrey Poitras. Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2000. Pp. x, 522.

2002 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 268-269
Author(s):  
Larry Neal
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Financial Analysis ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Financial History ◽  
X 522 ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Simon Fraser University

Economic historians usually have to explain to their economist colleagues the difference between economic history, which focuses on facts, and history of economic thought, which focuses on ideas. Our colleagues in finance departments, typically fascinated by episodes in financial history treated by economic historians, are bound to be disappointed in the lack of attention given to the development of ideas in finance by historians of economic thought. Geoffrey Poitras, a professor of finance at Simon Fraser University, makes a valiant effort to remedy these oversights in his collection of vignettes that highlight the sophistication of financial instruments and analysts of financial markets well before the time of Adam Smith. Starting in 1478 with the publication of the Treviso Arithmetic, a typical textbook of commercial arithmetic for Italian merchants, and ending with brief snippets from the Wealth of Nations, Poitras treats the reader to a fascinating potpourri of excerpts from various manuals, brief biographies of pioneers in financial analysis, and historical discursions on foreign-exchange and stock markets.

The Catholic Recusancy of the Yorkshire Fairfaxes. Part I.

1956 ◽  
Vol 3 (02) ◽  
pp. 68-114
Author(s):  
Hugh Aveling
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Personal Choice ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Landed Gentry

In the middle ages the Fairfaxes ranked amongst the minor landed gentry of Yorkshire. They seem to have risen to this status in the thirteenth century, partly by buying land out of the profits of trade in York, partly by successful marriages. But they remained of little importance until the later fifteenth century. They had, by then, produced no more than a series of bailiffs of York, a treasurer of York Minster and one knight of the shire. The head of the family was not normally a knight. The family property consisted of the two manors of Walton and Acaster Malbis and house property in York. But in the later fifteenth century and onwards the fortunes of the family were in the ascendant and they began a process of quite conscious social climbing. At the same time they began to increase considerably in numbers. The three main branches, with al1 their cadet lines, were fixed by the middle of the sixteenth century – the senior branch, Fairfax of Walton and Gilling, the second branch, Fairfax of Denton, Nunappleton, Bilhorough and Newton Kyme, the third branch, Fairfax of Steeton. It is very important for any attempt to assess the strength and nature of Catholicism in Yorkshire to try to understand the strong family – almost clan – unity of these pushing, rising families. While adherence to Catholicism could be primarily a personal choice in the face of family ties and property interests, the history of the Faith in Yorkshire was conditioned greatly at every point by the strength of those ties and interests. The minute genealogy and economic history of the gentry has therefore a very direct bearing on recusant history.

Wie viel Geschichte braucht die Ökonomie? Das Verhältnis von Theorie und Geschichte in evolutionstheoretischer Interpretation

2009 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Dopfer
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
The Body ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Communication Link ◽  
Evolutionary Ontology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Element

AbstractEconomic History and History of Economic Thought haven been relegated increasingly from the teaching and research curricula of economics in recent years. The paper starts off arguing that this trend is due to the mechanistic ontology of mainstream economics, and it continues setting out an alternative evolutionary ontology expounding how the historical element must and can be integrated into the body of economic theory. Centre stage is a lingua franca composed of analytical terms that are designed to bridge the domains of theoretical and of historical economic analysis. Economists are viewed in their status as observers whose cognitive dispositions as well as social behaviour co-evolve with the environment they inhabit. Further advances in economic theory are seen as being critically dependent on employing an evolutionary approach and on establishing a communication link to economic history and the history of economic thought which likewise may get essential inspirations from applying that approach.

The Creative Response in Economic History

1947 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Schumpeter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Causal Factors ◽  
History Of

Economic historians and economic theorists can make an interesting and socially valuable journey together, if they will. It would be an investigation into the sadly neglected area of economic change.As anyone familiar with the history of economic thought will immediately recognize, practically all the economists of the nineteenth century and many of the twentieth have believed uncritically that all that is needed to explain a given historical development is to indicate conditioning or causal factors, such as an increase in population or the supply of capital. But this is sufficient only in the rarest of cases.

A (New) Economic History of the American Revolution?

2018 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-128
Author(s):  
Emma Rothschild
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Point Of Departure

The article suggests that The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution can be the point of departure for a new economic history that combines the history of economic thought, economic-cultural history, especially of long-distance connections, and the history of ordinary exchanges in economic life.

scholarly journals Organizational structure and economic activities of the cooperative publishing house «Kultur-Liga» in the context of the study of economic history problems

2019 ◽  
pp. 110-122
Author(s):  
Yevhenii Kostyk
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Publishing Industry ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Difficult Situation ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
History Of

The subject of research is the organizational structure and economic activities of the cooperative publishing house «Kultur-Liga». The aim of the study is to study the development of the organizational structure and economic activities of the cooperative publishing house «Kultur-Liga» in the context of economic history. Methods of research. All components of the study are based on fundamental principles – scientific, historicism, objectivity, system, development, priority of concrete verity, pluralism; and also the methods of knowledge of social and economic processes of social development – analysis, synthesis, problem-chronological, comparative analytical, archaeological, retrospective, statistical, a systematic and integrated approach. Research methodology. In the process of investigating this problem, the fundamental principles were based on economic history and history of economic thought, the Ukrainian and foreign scientists’ works and experts in this area. Results of the study. In the study, we tried to consider the development of the organizational structure and economic activities of the cooperative publishing house «Kultur-Liga» in the context of economic history. The field of application of results. The results of this study can be used in studying issues of economic history and the history of economic thought. Conclusions. Thus, noting the fact that we considered above – the development of the organizational structure and economic and economic activity of the cooperative publishing house «Kultura-Liga», permits to characterize the features of the formation organizational structure of a publishing house, to consider social and professional founders and members, to analyze a system of cooperative management based on a share company. It should be noted that in Ukraine at the present stage of development of the market economy where is dominated by various forms of ownership, a national publishing industry is in a difficult situation. The search of an effective model of the national book publishing is an important today, and so in the study particular attention is paid to own historical experience.

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