0000000001185406
AUTHOR
Luca Fiorito
showing 68 related works from this author
On John Bates Clark's “Naive Productivity Ethics”: A Note
2023
Abstract This article explores in detail the reactions among American economists to John Bates Clark's famously controversial claim that the marginal productivity theory of factor pricing and distribution is necessarily just. The general debate around Clark's “naïve productivity ethics,” as George Stigler sharply called it, transcended the then existing distinctions within the discipline and involved figures of virtually all theoretical and ideological persuasions—from prolabor progressives such as Richard T. Ely to staunch conservatives such as Thomas Nixon Carver. Our reconstruction reveals that, contrary to several standard historical accounts, for American early twentieth-century margin…
Robert Hoxie's Introductory Lecture on the Nature of the History of Political Economy(1916): The History of Economic Thought as the History of Error
2006
John Bates Clark on trusts: New light from the Columbia archives
2005
Public concern over the so called “trust problem” in the United States between the end of the nineteenth century and 1914, the year of the passage of the Clayton and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Acts, was reflected in the considerable contemporary literature on the subject. Not surprisingly, professional economists actively participated in this debate. Their thinking directly and indirectly influenced the legislation of 1914 in a way that cannot be said of the Sherman Act of 1890 (Mayhew 1998). A survey of the most important of these professional writings shows that, among the several voices animating the discussion, John Bates Clark's was perhaps the most influential. In this connection,…
Warner Winslow Gardner’s The Institutional Theory of John R. Commons (1933)
2011
John M. Clark and frank H. Knight on the adding-up theorem, overhead costs, and more
2018
This note offers new archival insight into a 1925 polemical exchange between Frank Knight and John Maurice Clark that was hosted in the pages of Journal of Political Economy. Although the exchange centered on the effects of overhead costs on marginal productivity theory and the so-called adding-up theorem, it also provided significant elements to assess the methodological differences between two of the most representative American economists of the interwar years.
Economists and Eugenics: Progressive Era Racism and its (Jewish) Discontents
2017
This chapter analyzes the contribution to the debates on labor and immigration of a group of Jewish academicians and reformers who, during the second half of the Progressive Era, explicitly took a stance against the racialist and eugenic rhetoric of the period. This group includes first-rank economists like Edwin R. A. Seligman, Jacob H. Hollander, and Emanuel A. Goldenweiser; influential field specialists such as Isaac A. Hourwich and Isaac M. Rubinow; and relatively less known figures like Max J. Kohler and Samuel K. Joseph. By focusing on the voices of these dissenters, this chapter enriches the emerging picture of Progressive Era eugenic and racial thought.
Introduction to a Symposium on David Gordon: American Radical Economist
2022
Not available
A joint reading of positional and relational goods
2013
Both relational and positional goods are based upon an idea of joint consumption - though with opposite signs. Indeed, in both cases, individuals' consumption choices take into account not only the individuals themselves, but others, as well. Given that relational goods provide a form of identity to their consumers, we show that a certain degree of positionality emerges within the consumption of relational goods. Analogously, except in a two-agent context, each positional good also has a relational component. What emerges is a complex structure of economic outcomes based on both relational and positional motives.
Wesley Clair Mitchell and the “Illiberal Reformers”: A Documentary Note
2021
In this note we inquire whether Mitchell as a reformer ever expressed concern over the biological quality of individuals and whether he did somehow share the Progressive Era faith in eugenics as an instrument for improving American society’s health, welfare, and morals. This is an aspect of Mitchell’s thought that has received scant attention in the literature and that projects him into the current debate on progressivism.
John Maurice Clark's contribution to the genesis of the multiplier analysis: A note with some related unpublished correspondence
2008
The multiplier is a central concept in Keynesian and post-Keynesian economics. It is largely what justifies activist full-employment fiscal policy: an increase in fiscal expenditures contributing to multiple rounds of spending, thereby financing itself. Yet, while a copingstone of post-Keynesian theory,
Frank H. Knight on Social Values in Economic Consumption. An Archival Note
2020
This note reproduces an unpublished paper on "Social Values in Economic Consumption" which Knight prepared for the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Summer Conference, on Nantucket, Massachusetts in June 1931. This paper sheds new light on Knight in two important respects. First, it presents, in a more systematic fashion, Knight’s criticism of what he perceived to be the then standard theory of consumption. Specifically, Knight argued that an individual's consumption is dictated more by his income in relation to others than by mere utility maximization — a notion now commonly known as relative income hypothesis. In this connection, Knight also pointed out that a general increase in inc…
Frank H. Knight, pragmatism, and American institutionalism: A note
2009
This note deals with the debated question of whether, and to what extent, Frank Knight's epistemology was consistent with the general philosophy of American pragmatism. First, in accord with recent interpretations, I provide new evidence illustrating that Knight's views on science, knowledge and related philosophical topics present some important similarities with the pragmatic tradition. Second, I attempt to demonstrate that Knight's unsympathetic reading of Dewy and pragmatism was, to a relevant extent, a consequence of his aversion to the so-called scientific wing of American interwar institutionalism. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.
Sidney Armor Reeve: Engineer, Inventor, Progressive, and Underappreciated Utopian
2022
Sidney Armor Reeve, professional engineer and amateur historian, economist, and sociologist, writing during what has been described as the Progressive Era, at-tacked the very foundations of the existing economic and social orders. He explic-itly criticized the dominant commercialism of the capitalist society as being a can-cer, a major cause of inequality and unemployment, offering instead a program of reform that, while some reviewers characterized it as consistent with the program of the socialists, presented something of an alternative vision, one recognizing the primacy of the Ultimate Consumer. His remedy, favoring as it did the central con-trol of the economy, shared at least commonal…
Human Nature and Economic Institutions: Instinct Psychology, Behaviorism, and the Development of American Institutionalism
2004
Recent articles have explored from different perspectives the psychological foundations of American institutionalism from its beginning to the interwar years (Hodgson 1999; Lewin 1996; Rutherford 2000a, 2000b; Asso and Fiorito 2003). Other authors had previously dwelled upon the same topic in their writings on the originsand development of the social sciences in the United States (Curti 1980; Degler 1991; Ross 1991). All have a common starting point: the emergence during the second half of the nineteenth century of instinct-based theories of human agency. Although various thinkers had already acknowledged the role of impulses and proclivities, it was not until Darwin's introduction of biolo…
AN INSTITUTIONALIST'S JOURNEY INTO THE YEARS OF HIGH THEORY: JOHN MAURICE CLARK ON THE MULTIPLIER-ACCELERATOR INTERACTION
2007
GERHARD COLM ON JOHN MAURICE CLARK'S ECONOMICS OF PLANNING PUBLIC WORKS: AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER
2011
Beyond Homo Oeconomicus. The rise and fall of Instinct theory in Institutional Economics
2005
A CURIOSITY FORM THE WESLEY CLAIR MITCHELL PAPERS: FAY ON MARSHALL AND SOME CONTROVERSIAL MATTER
2021
This brief note reproduces some archival material which shed new light on Marshall.
Waging War Against Mechanical Man. Frank H. Knight's Critique of Behavioristic Psychology
2002
The major theme of this essay is to explore the rationale of Knight's campaign against the adoption of behaviorism in economics. We also attempt to qualify whether Knight's methodological criticism may somewhat undermine his recently acquired credentials as an institutionalist economist. In so doing we focus our attention in particular, but not exclusively, on his debate with the institutionalist Morris A. Copeland. In the first section we try to explain why behaviorism gained consensus among institutional economists, and we also provide a brief overview of the main behavioristic themes as they were presented in contemporary economic literature. The second section is devoted to Knight's rea…
Human Nature and Economic Institutions Instinct Psychology, Behaviorism and the Development of American Institutionalism
2003
This paper explores the evolution of the psychological foundation of institutional economics between the early XXc and the 1940s. The first part deals with the rise and fall of instinct psychology. Inspired by Veblen's taxonomy of instinctive behavior, several American economists attempted to build a viable alternative to psychological hedonism of neoclassical economics then only at its infancy. In this debate we show how instinct theory came to be applied to the field now as industrial psychology. The second part discusses some of the reasons why this methodological approach began to lose momentum among leading American institutionalists. In this section we also present the emergence of be…
Lawrence Kelso Frank's Proto-Ayresyan Dichotomy
2004
This paper explores the evolution of the psychological foundation of institutional economics between the early XXc and the 1940s. The first part deals with the rise and fall of instinct psychology. Inspired by Veblen's taxonomy of instinctive behavior, several American economists attempted to build a viable alternative to psychological hedonism of neoclassical economics then only at its infancy. In this debate we show how instinct theory came to be applied to the field now as industrial psychology. The second part discusses some of the reasons why this methodological approach began to lose momentum among leading American institutionalists. In this section we also present the emergence of be…
Frank H. Knight on social values in economic consumption: an archival note
2020
We reproduce an unpublished address on “Social Values in Economic Consumption” which Knight prepared for a SSRC Conference in June 1931. This material sheds new light on Knight in two respects. First, anticipating what is known as the relative income hypothesis, Knight indicated that a general increase in income, not only leaves the individual’s relative position in society unaltered but makes her/his situation worse off due to the peculiar characteristics of the market for “personal services.” Second, this address provides further evidence of how, in spite of some substantial methodological differences, Knight’s research interests converged with those of the institutionalists.
BETWEEN PROGRESSIVISM AND INSTITUTIONALISM: ALBERT BENEDICT WOLFE ON EUGENICS
2013
Albeit concerned with the biological element in social evolution, Albert B. Wolfe was among the very few economists of the progressive era who openly expressed his concerns about certain implications of eugenic rhetoric for the social science. Specifically, Wolfe questioned the strong hereditary boundaries that more extreme eugenicists suggested about human beings. As I will attempt to show in paper, a careful examination of Wolfe’s writings reveals that his reaction was rooted in the belief that many of the social problems which eugenicists attributed to hereditary limitations, were actually imputable to the influence that the social, economic, and physical environment exercised on the ind…
Jacob viner'sreminiscences from thenewdeal (February 11,1953)
2009
An Institutionalist's Journey into the Years of High Theory: John Maurice Clark on the Accelerator-Multiplier Interaction
2007
A few years ago, an article by Arnold Heertje and Peter Heemeijer (2002) triggered an articulate and stimulating debate among scholars on the intellectual origins of Paul Samuelson's multiplier-accelerator model (1939a, 1939b). The discussion, which involved the participation of Samuelson himself, centered on whether, and to what extent, Samuelson's 1939 seminal contributions were inspired by Roy Harrod'sThe Trade Cycle(1936). Heertje and Heemeijer argue that “there is little factual support for Samuelson's suggestion ascribing the model mainly to Alvin Hansen, his mentor in the days of the creation of the model” (Heertje and Heemeijer 2002, p. 207). Instead, they provide convincing evidenc…
John Maurice Clark and the Multiplier. A Note
2004
Eugenics and American Economics in the Interwar Years: The Case of Thomas Nixon Carver
2017
The aim of this paper is to explore in some detail Carver’s eugenic ideas with a main, albeit non-exclusive, focus on the interwar years. Although his major contributions had all appeared prior to 1918, Carver remained particularly productive throughout the 1920s and 1930s, publishing several articles and eight books, which include The Principles of National Economy (1921), and The Essential Factors of Social Evolution (1935)—two works which contain significant traces of eugenic reasoning. Just as important, Carver’s interwar activities were not limited to academia. After his retirement from Harvard in 1932 he became involved in the activities of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, while i…
Beyond Legal Relations: Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld's Influence on American Institutionalism
2011
This paper documents Hohfeld’s influence on interwar American institutionalism. We will mainly focus on three leading figures of the movement: John Rogers Commons, Robert Lee Hale, and John Maurice Clark. They regarded Hohfeld’s contribution on jural relations as a preliminary step toward the understanding of the adversarial nature of legal rights. Albeit with substantial differences in style, method and emphasis, Hohfeld’s schema provided a powerful analytical and rhetorical tool for their analysis This paper documents Hohfeld's influence on interwar American institutionalism. We will mainly focus on three leading figures of the movement: John Rogers Commons, Robert Lee Hale, and John Maur…
The Institutionalists’ Reaction to Chamberlin’s 'Theory of Monopolistic Competition
2009
Edwin Chamberlin's The Theory of Monopolistic competition is often described as containing omportant traces of institutionalist influence. This is also confimred by Chamberlin himself who, repeadetly, referred to the work of Veblen, and John Maurice Clark among his inspirational sources. The aim of this paper is to analyse the institutionalist rection to the publication of the Theory of Monopolistic Competition. What will be argued is that the institutionalist response to Chamberlin was a mixed one, and involved some substantial criticisms of his analysis of market structures both on methodological and theoretical grounds. The paper is organized as follows. The first section presents a sket…
When Economics Faces the Economy: John Bates Clark and the 1914 Antitrust Legislation
2013
The aim of this paper is to analyze John Bates Clark's influence in the passing of the Clayton and Federal Trade Commission Acts of 1914. It is argued that Clark was important to the passage of these acts in two ways. First, he exercised an indirect influence by discussing in academic journals and books problems concerning trusts, combinations, and the measures necessary to preserve the working of competitive markets. At least as importantly, Clark took an active role in the reform movement, both contributing to draft proposals for the amendment of existing antitrust legislation and providing help and advice during the Congressional debates that led to the passage of the FTC and Clayton Act…
American institutionalism at Chicago: A documentary note
2012
This note provides new evidence concerning American institutionalism at Chicago during the 1920s and 1930s. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
Survival Value and a Robust, Practical, Joyless Individualism: Thomas Nixon Carver, Social Justice, and Eugenics
2017
The aim of this paper is to provide a compressive assessment of Thomas Nixon Carver's thought—from his early formative years in the 1880s to his post WWII career as a journalist and pamphleteer. The main (albeit not exclusive) focus of this paper will be on the theoretical and philosophical coordinates of Carver's “new liberalism”—his own definition—and how this broad vision was intrinsically connected with an explicitly hierarchical and eugenic approach to human nature. Just as important, what follows is also an attempt to increase our general understanding of the extent in which eugenic considerations permeated the realm of political economy during the first decades of the last century an…
Lawrence Kelso Frank's Proto Ayresian Dichotomy: A Note
2003
This paper explores Lawrence Kelso Frank's contribution to the evolution of the so called Veblenian dichotomy. According to this apprach, peculiar to the institutional framework of every economic system is an absolute and irreconcilable tension between the dynamic and progressive force of technology on the one side, and the static and conservative structure of ceremony and institutions on the other. The first section examines Frank's adoption of behavioristic psychology in connection with the main changes which were taking place in the American social sciences during the first decades of the twentieth century. The second section describes Frank's theory of institutional change, emphasizing …
Knowledge, Advocacy, and the NBER Method: Wesley C. Mitchell under Scrutiny
2006
Two minds that never met: Frank H. knight on john M. keynes once again — A documentary note
2016
This note presents new archival evidence about Frank H. Knight’s views on John M. Keynes. The relevant material is composed of a series of lecture notes taken by Perham C. Nahl in Frank H. Knight’s course on Business Cycles at the University of California at Berkeley in the fall of 1936. It emerges from the notes that the methodological gap between Keynes and Knight was irreducible, which explains the harsh tone of Knight’s published review of The General Theory. Connected to this is Knight’s strenuous defense of the ‘postulates of classical political economy’ as criticized by Keynes in chapter 2 of his book, an argument that was better expounded in the classroom than in the review. However…
Introduction to E. R. A. Seligman, Autobiography
2006
FRANK KNIGHT, JOHN DEWEY, AND AMERICAN PRAGMATISM: A FURTHER NOTE
2011
The Other J.M.: John Maurice Clark and the Keynesian Revolution
2009
This paper suggests that Clark's views regarding the Keynesian Revolution illuminate some of the limitations of the Keynesian orthodoxy that developed after the war, bringing more institutional detail and a greater preoccupation with dynamic analysis. Clark developed the multiplier in dynamic terms and coupled it with the accelerator to provide the framework for business cycle theory. His analysis was not formalized and emphasized time lags and non-linearities, similar to Harrod. In addition, Clark was concerned with the inflationary consequences of Keynesian policies and he was dissatisfied with those mechanical interpretations of the income flow analysis, which came to be known as hydraul…
“A certain amount of ‘recantation’”: On the origins of Frank H. Knight’s antipositivism
2016
The aim of this paper is to investigate in some detail the origins of Knight’s antipositism and to assess the main influences that brought him to a change in methodological perspective after 1921. As importantly, what follows is also an attempt to increase our general understanding of the methodological debates taking place during the early decades of the last century and to shed new light on the inherently pluralistic character of US interwar economics. This paper is organized as follows: the first section outlines Knight’s methodological views as presented in his early works; the second section discusses Knight’s “recantation” and his attack on behavioristic social science; the third sect…
On Simon Nelson Patten’s Progressivism: A note
2020
This article is an attempt to offer an assessment of the main coordinates of Simon Nelson Patten’s views on democracy and biological determinism. This will allow us to better delineate the differences—as well as the affinities—between Patten and the core of progressives discussed by Thomas C. Leonard in a series of path-breaking contributions, culminating in his Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era. It is our contention that even within the persisting intricacies, ambiguities, and contradictions of Patten’s expository style, it is possible to trace a shift in some aspects of his ideas—a gradual evolution that makes his peculiar brand of progress…
INTRODUCTION TO A SYMPOSIUM ON ROBERT HEILBRONER AT 100
2019
The Influence of American Economists on the Clayton and Federal Trade Commission Acts
2011
The aim of this paper is to analyze American economists’ influence in the passing of the Clayton and Federal Trade Commission Acts (1914). Specifically, it is argued and documented that American economists were important in this process in two ways. Many economists exercised an “indirect” influence by discussing in academic journals and books problems concerning trusts, combinations, and the necessary measures to preserve the working of competitive markets. At least as importantly, if not more so, some economists took an active role in the reform movement both contributing to draft proposals for the amendment of existing antitrust legislation and providing help and advice during the Congres…
EUGENICS AND SOCIALIST THOUGHT IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERA: THE CASE OF JAMES MEDBERY MACKAYE
2018
The aim of this essay is to assess James Medbery MacKaye’s contribution to socialist thought during the Progressive Era. Largely forgotten today, MacKaye proposed a special version of socialism, which he called “Pantocracy,” based on a peculiar blend of utilitarian and eugenic assumptions. Specifically, MacKaye held that biological fitness mapped to the capacity for happiness—biologically superior individuals possess a greater capacity for happiness—and saw the eugenic breeding of “a being or race of beings capable in the first place of happiness” as a possibility open by the advent of Pantocracy. Incidentally, this essay provides further evidence that the influence of eugenic and racialist…
Anti-Semitism and Progressive Era Social Science. The case of John R. Commons
2016
This paper explores Common’s views toward Jews in order to assess whether his published writings contain assertion that today would be stigmatized as anti-Semitic. The evidence we provide shows that Commons’ racial characterization of Jews was framed within a broad and indiscriminate xenophobic framework. With other leading Progressive Era social scientists, in fact, Commons shared the idea that the new immigration from Eastern and southern Europe would increase competition in the labor market, drive down wages, and lead Anglo-Saxon men and women to have fewer children, since they would not want them to compete with those who survive on less. Within this general xenophobic context, Commons …
Positional goods and social welfare: a note on George Pendleton Watkins’ neglected contribution
2018
Watkins's analysis of adventitious utility contains many aspects that are connected to the contemporary debate on positional goods. First, Watkins adventitious utility emerges from a process of social exclusion and can create negative externalities, in the sense that positive consumption of one individual implies negative consumption by another individual. Not only it creates negative externalities on other individuals, but it can initiate a race-to-the-bottom, where individuals waste an increasing amount of money on goods which do not possess any real utility.
Wesley Mitchell, Arthur Burns and Trygve Haavelmo on business cycles The two Encyclopaedia of the social sciences (1930–1935 and 1968)
2012
The paper presents a brief reconstruction of the history of the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (1930-1935 and 1968) a 15 volume major editorial enterprise that was accomplished under the direction of Columbia economist E.R.A. Seligman. It then provides an analysis of the main entries that were devoted to business cycle theory, namely those by Wesley C. Mitchell, Arthur Burns and Trygve Haavelmo.
Herbert J. Davenport on Conspicuous Consumption and the Economics of Feminism
2019
This article analyzes Herbert J. Davenport’s discussions of conspicuous consumption and feminism. Even though these (typically) Veblenian topics represent two “episodes” in many respects disconnected with the central body of Davenport’s theoretical interests, the assessment of Davenport’s views on these matters enlarges our knowledge of the development of his thought. Our analysis shows how Davenport can be enrolled among the forerunners of the modern theory of positional goods. Moreover, our article offers some new findings on the impact of Veblen’s ideas on one of his closest students at the Chicago University.
John Roger Commons, Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld and the Origins of Transactional Economics
2010
The aim of this paper is to provide an assessment of John R. Commons’ adoption of Wesley N. Hohfeld’s framework of jural opposites and correlatives in order to construct his transactional approach to the study of institutions. Hohfeld’s influence on Commons, it is argued, was both positive and negative. On the one hand, Commons, followed Hohfeld and recognized that such concepts as property and inheritance actually represent an aggregation of numerous types of legal relations. Hohfeld’s schema provided a powerful rhetorical and analytical tool whereby these highly abstracts conceptions could be reduced to a limited number of primary elements. Moreover, Hohfeld’s schema appeared to be consis…
Does brick size matter? Albert G. Keller on another QWERTY story
2023
In his seminal ‘‘Clio and the Economics of Qwerty’’, Paul David indicates Thorstein Veblen’s famous discussion of the British system of coal rail haulage as an intellectual antecedent to the idea of lock in. This note documents how Albert G. Keller, a Yale sociologist contemporary of Veblen, had presented a similar argument in connection to the establishment of a brick tax in England and its effects on the size of bricks. Like Veblen, Keller used this illustration to emphasize the inertia exercised by certain institutional conditions.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION, HEREDITARIANISM, AND EUGENICS. A HARVARD TALE
2019
This chapter documents how eugenics, scientific racism, and hereditarianism survived at Harvard well into the interwar years. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Thomas Nixon Carver and Frank W. Taussig published works in which they established a close nexus between an individual’s economic position and his biological fitness. Carver, writing in 1929, argued that social class rigidities are attributable to the inheritance of superior and inferior abilities on the respective social class levels and proposed an “economic test of fitness” as a eugenic criterion to distinguish worthy from unworthy individuals. In 1932, Taussig, together with Carl Smith Joslyn, published American Business Leaders…
Sulle Origini del Modello Moltiplicatore-Acceleratore: Una Nota sul Contributo di John Maurice Clark
2006
Review of Jacob Viner, Lectures in Economics 301, edited by Douglas A. Irwin and Steven G. Medema, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (USA) and Lo…
2014
WILLIAM FIELDING OGBURN AND THE INSTITUTIONALISTS. A CASE OF THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONVERGENCE?
2014
This paper investigates the relationship between William Ogburn and the Institutionalists. This is done by assessing Ogburn's contribution in the light of the methodological debates that animated academia during the 1920s and the early 1930s - the years that marked the peak of the Institutionalists influence in American economics - and by comparing his work with that of some of the more 'sociologically oriented' figures of the movement. The present paper is organized as follows. The first two sections deal with Ogburn's epistemic commitments with respect to the main methodological debates of the period. The second section reviews Ogburn's 1922 Social Change and his theory of social evolutio…
A Scholar in Action in Interwar America: John H. Williams on Trade Theory and Bretton Woods
2009
In this paper we analyse the scientific contributions of Harvard economist John H. Williams as international trade theorist and monetary reformer together with his activities as a Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In the first 2 Sections we first present a succinct overview of Williams’ main contributions to international trade theory and to the interwar debate on the reform of the international monetary system. Particular attention will be devoted to his early academic writings which contained different critical arguments against the two main tenets of classical international economics: the Ricardian theory of comparative advantages and the gold standard. These critic…
In Memory of Bob Heilbroner (1919-2005)
2005
Frank W. Taussig and Carl S. Joslyn on the Social Origins of American Business Leaders: A Chapter in the History of Social Science at Harvard
2019
In their 1932 volume "American Business Leaders: A Study in Social Origins and Social Stratification," Frank W. Taussig and Carl S Joslyn, then a young Harvard graduate, argued that success in business depended more on innate superiority than on other environmental factors such as financial aid, influential connections, and formal education. The aim of this paper is to analyze the main contentions of Taussig and Joslyn, as well the intellectual genesis of, and the general reactions to, this controversial volume. Although our main focus is on Taussig and Joslyn, other figures, all directly affiliated with Harvard, will play a decisive role in our narrative—the economist Thomas Nixon Carver, …
Norman Edwin Himes's "Eugenics and Democracy: A Call to Action" (1939). The Eugenic Manifesto of a Devote Carverian
2022
This note presents an unpublished 1939 address given by the American sociologist and population specialist Norman Edwin Himes on "Eugenics and Democracy: A Call to Action. Himes's discussion of eugenics and democracy has a two-fold relevance. First, it provides further evidence that among population studies specialists a generalized commitment to eugenics persisted well beyond the era of the so-called Progressive Era and continued throughout the 1930s. Second, Himes's approach reveals an attempt to reformulate a eugenic agenda along "liberal" lines, which was intended to distance him from the coercive and racialist approach of his progressive predecessors. Yet, it will be shown, even though…
Curiosities from the Columbia Archives
2004
A Scholar in Action in Interwar America. John H. Williams' Contributions to Trade Theory and International Monetary Reform
2004
In this paper we analyse the scientific contributions of Harvard economist John H. Williams as international trade theorist and monetary reformer together with his activities as a Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In the first 2 Sections we first present a succinct overview of Williams' main contributions to international trade theory and to the interwar debate on the reform of the international monetary system. Particular attention will be devoted to his early academic writings which contained different critical arguments against the two main tenets of classical international economics: the Ricardian theory of comparative advantages and the gold standard. These critic…
A Joint Reading of Positional and Relational Goods
2012
Both relational and positional goods are based upon an idea of joint consumption – though with opposite signs. Indeed, in both cases, individuals’ consumption choices take into account not only the individuals themselves, but others, as well. Given that relational goods provide a form of identity to their consumers, we show that a certain degree of positionality emerges within the consumption of relational goods. Analogously, except in a two-agent context, each positional good also has a relational component. What emerges is a complex structure of economic outcomes based on both relational and positional motives.
HEREDITARIANISM, EUGENICS, AND AMERICAN SOCIAL SCIENCE IN THE INTERWAR YEARS: MEET THE CARVERIANS
2022
Like other Progressive Era reformers, Thomas Nixon Carver promoted a form of biology-infused social science that included both eugenics and a strong version of hereditarianism. Carver was also a charismatic teacher who trained several generations of economists and sociologists at Harvard. In this paper we will focus on the contribution of three of them: James A. Field, Norman E. Himes, and Carl S. Joslyn. These authors differ in terms of style, method, and emphasis—with Field and Himes more interested in population and birth control issues, and Joslyn in the dynamics of social stratification. As it will be shown below, however, all of them reveal an explicit commitment to hereditarianism an…
Was Frank Knight an institutionalist?
2005
This paper critically examines Geoffrey Hodgson's recent provocative claim about Frank Knight as being a member of American institutionalism in the interwar years. In the first section of the paper the authors attempt to provide a definition of institutionalism and to emphasize its meaning from a historiographic point of view. The second and third sections analyze the two main methodological struggles between Knight and the institutionalists, namely, the debate during the early 1020s over the use of instinct theory as an explanation of economic behavior, and the subsequent campaign led by Knight in the late 1920s and early 1930s against the behaviorist wing of American institutionalism à la…
Sull’apertura internazionale della manualistica italiana negli anni 1860 – 1922. Alcune riflessioni generali e il caso dei trusts
2007
On john maynard keynes's anti-semitism once again: A documentary note
2015
This note presents new archival evidence about John Maynard Keynes' attitudes toward Jews. The relevant material is composed of two letters sent by Robert G. Wertheimer to Bertrand Russell and Richard F. Kahn along with their replies. Between 1963 and 1964, Wertheimer - An Austrian-born Jewish immigrant then professor of economics at Babson College - wrote to Russell and Kahn asking for their personal reminiscences concerning Keynes' anti-Semitic utterances. In their brief but still significant responses, both Russell and Kahn firmly denied any hint of anti-Semitism in Keynes, thereby providing significant first-hand testimonies from two of his closest acquaintances.