scholarly journals California Fair Trade: Antitrust and the Politics of “Fairness” in U.S. Competition Policy

2015 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Phillips Sawyer
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Fair Trade ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Antitrust Law ◽  
World War ◽  
State Regulations ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Resale Price ◽  
Price Maintenance ◽  
Considerable Pressure

In the decades before World War II, U.S. antitrust law was anything but settled. Considerable pressure for antitrust revision came from the states. A perhaps unlikely leader, Edna Gleason, organized California's retail pharmacists and coordinated trade networks to monitor and enforce Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) contracts, a system of price-fixing, then known as “fair trade.” Progressive jurists, including Louis Brandeis and institutional economist E. R. A. Seligman, supported RPM as a protection to independent proprietors. The breakdown of legal and economic consensus regarding what constituted “unfair competition” allowed businesspeople to act as intermediaries between heterodox economic thought and contested antitrust law, ultimately tailoring federal policy to accommodate state regulations.

scholarly journals The Role the Static Maximization Approach Plays in Neoclassical Analyses

1994 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Toboso
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Public Choice ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Nobel Prize Winner ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
World War ◽  
Subject Field ◽  
Basic Purpose

This is an article on the methodology of economic thought. The critical assessment of the neoclassical research programme contained here basically comes from the contributions of J.M. Buchanan, Nobel prize winner in Economics 1986. These comments are aimed at pointing out the role that the static maximization approach plays in neoclassical analyses since L. Robbins and P. Samuelson’s influential contributions came about after World War II. Just to complement this basic purpose, I present in section 4 the alternative methodological foundations J.M. Buchanan proposes and uses to replace the static maximization approach when building public choice analyses and I sketch in section 5 several personal comments about some explanatory and prescriptive limitations both neoclassical and public choice analyses share. Except in rare and anomalous cases, neither neoclassical nor public choice analyses contain concepts making reference to the non-voluntary or power influences some individuals might exercise over others in their economic interactions. “In a brief treatment it is helpful to make bold charges against ideas or positions taken by leading figures. In this respect I propose to take on Lord Robbins as an adversary and to state, categorically, that his all too persuasive delineation of our subject field has served to retard, rather than to advance, scientific progress.” [Buchanan, J.M. (1964), p. 20.]

State Constitutional Law in 1936–37

1937 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-679
Author(s):  
J. A. C. Grant
Keyword(s):  
Fair Trade ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Resale Price Maintenance ◽  
Resale Price ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Price Maintenance ◽  
State Constitutional Law

The invalidation and consequent abandonment of the N.I.R.A. did not bring to an end the trends of which it was, in fact, merely a manifestation rather than a cause. Section 7a had its precursors in the Railway Labor Act of 1926, the Norris Anti-Injunction Act of 1932, and similar state laws, and has been carried over in the National Labor Relations Act. The price maintenance provisions of the codes were the result of years of effort on the part of the American Fair Trade League to legalize resale price maintenance contracts. Today, various state Fair Trade Acts go much farther than the codes dared to go in establishing resale price maintenance even apart from privity of contract. Trade associations have continued their efforts to “rationalize” industry through the collection of statistics on capacity, production, sales, and prices, trusting that the courts will permit this to be done through a more liberal interpretation of the anti-trust laws. Pending further national legislation to be built upon the broader interpretation of the commerce power enunciated in the Labor Relations Act decisions, business efforts to set minimum prices have been carried on under a mantle of state and local legislation. Various trades and professions, desiring to carry forward their efforts to standardize minimum working conditions and professional practices in their fields, have also sought the aid of the states and of their local governments. Consequently, much of the work of the state courts during the year 1936–37 concerned the validity of these undertakings. There was also the normal run of cases in the various fields of state constitutional law. As last year (see this Review, Aug., 1936, pp. 692–712), the decisions will be discussed under the following headings: (1) separation and delegation of powers; (2) inter-governmental relations; (3) individual rights: procedural; (4) individual rights: substantive; and (5) fiscal powers. However, the nature of the material has necessitated a complete rearrangement of the subject-matter within each heading.

The Formalist Revolution of the 1950s

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Blaug
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
World War ◽  
Intellectual Revolution ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The 1950S

Something happened to economics in the decade of the 1950s that is little appreciated by most economists and even by professional historians of economic thought. The subject went through an intellectual revolution as profound in its impact as the so-called Keynesian Revolution of pre-war years. I call it the Formalist Revolution after Ward (1972, pp. 40–41), who was the first to recognize the profound intellectual transformation of economics in the years after World War II.

History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches: Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman

2013 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 1185-1187
Author(s):  
Michael McPherson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Rand Corporation ◽  
London School ◽  
World War ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
International Teaching ◽  
London School Of Economics

Michael McPherson of The Spencer Foundation reviews, “Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman” by Jeremy Adelman. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Explores the life and economic work of Albert O. Hirschman. Discusses Hirschman's early life in the Weimar Republic; Hirschman's education and early relationship with politics; Hirschman's journey to Paris; Hirschman's move to the London School of Economics and involvement in the Spanish Civil War; Hirschman's return to France and the outbreak of World War II; Hirschman's emigration to the United States; Hirschman's involvement in the U.S. Army; the aftermath of World War II; the Cold War and Red Scare; Hirschman's years in Colombia; Hirschman's Yale University years and The Strategy of Economic Development; the RAND Corporation; travel and research; the upheaval of the late 1960s; crisis and hope in Latin America; Hirschman and the Institute for Advanced Study; Hirschman's relationship with the human body; Hirschman during the late 1970s and early 1980s; Hirschman's study of the ethics of social science; Hirschman's work in retirement; and Hirschman's final years. Adelman is Walter Samuel Carpenter III Professor of Spanish Civilization and Culture and Director of the Council for International Teaching and Research at Princeton University.”

The Wider Context of Samuelson’s MIT Textbook—Depression-Era Discussions about the Value of Economics Education for American Engineers

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (S1) ◽  
pp. 31-58
Author(s):  
Amy Sue Bix
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Economics Education ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
World War ◽  
Teaching Economics ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
Problem Solvers ◽  
Depression Era

Standard histories of economic thought portray Paul Samuelson’s 1948 Economics textbook as the first serious attempt at teaching economics to young engineers. In reality, many other professors, both in economics and engineering, had extensively addressed that issue before World War II. Throughout the 1930s, the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, faculty, and engineering professionals analyzed the relevance of economics to their work and the best ways to help students appreciate its importance. The Depression attached urgency to such discussions, as popular commentary blamed technological change for unemployment. In response, engineers sought to instill undergraduates with a self-glorifying economic history that credited engineering for all civilized progress and prosperity. Their rhetoric positioned engineers as the embodiment of disciplined rationality, the problem-solvers who could straighten out the nation’s crisis if encouraged to assume greater influence in economic governance. A number of Depression-era schools experimented with curricula for teaching engineers more economics, though approaches varied. Such developments thus situate this key episode of Samuelson’s life, the authorship of one of the most influential textbooks in modern economics, within a broader academic framework and longer intellectual context.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document