Search results for "Pensiero"

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…

On the limits to the long-period method in classical economics. A note

2001

On a first reading of Theory of Production, Kurz & Salvadori (1995) appear to confine the empirical domain of the long-period models of the classical theory of value and distribution to stationary economies with non-constant returns to scale and to growing economies with constant returns to scale. Such a reading is shown to be untenable since it merges the two levels of exploring the extension of a model and of testing a theoretical hypothesis. Conversely, the way Kurz & Salvadori tackle the problems of price dynamics and returns to scale in growing economies is shown to be compatible with what appears to be Sraffa's (implicit) strategy of research.

Encouraging and verifying critical thinking skills through the reading process

2017

La competenza di lettura è un punto di partenza imprescindibile per migliorare abilità di analisi, valutazione, sintesi, interessate pure nella promozione della competenza digitale. Questo lavoro si propone di accertare la validità di un percorso formativo incentrato sull’uso di strategie di lettura per lo sviluppo del pensiero critico. Ci si chiede soprattutto se e come leggere testi usando il formato elettronico favorisca nello studente attività di interpretazione, formulazione di giudizi ed espressione di idee originali. Nella prima parte del lavoro è presentato l’oggetto di studio. Nella seconda parte è descritta la metodologia di ricerca, che mette in pratica le risultanze scientifiche…

Consumption patterns, development and growth: Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Thomas Robert Malthus

2003

In this paper we combine the classical analysis of luxury consumption with the classical theories of development and growth. We also focus on the role played, within classical economics, by institutional factors such as the structure of property rights and contractual arrangements in determining consumption patterns and investment in agriculture. In particular, we show that Ricardo's and Malthus' different views on the role of consumption expenditure in promoting growth depend on Ricardo's acceptance (Malthus' refusal) of Say's law of markets and on Ricardo's exclusion (Malthus' inclusion) of a non-commodity option such as leisure from (in) the range of available consumption alternatives.

Piero Sraffa on utility and the 'subjective method' in the 1920s: A tentative appraisal of Sraffa's unpublished manuscripts

2001

The paper reconstructs Sraffa's assessment of utility-based and individualistic explanations of demand in Marshallian economics in the light of some fresh evidence provided by Sraffa's unpublished manuscripts of the 1920s. It is shown that Sraffa criticised the standard Marshallian explanation of individual consumption choices, emphasised the independent measurement requirement in explanation, lacked enthusiasm for the heuristic potentialities of the 'subjective method' in economic theorising and strove for an analysis of the phenomena of interdependence in the sphere of production as well as in the sphere of consumption.

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.

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.

M. Meschiari, 2013, Uccidere spazi. Microanalisi della corrida

2014

Richiedere a un detenuto di fornire prova dell’avvenuta conversione viola la sua libertà di religione

2021

This short contribution provides a comment of the judgment of the European Court on Human Rights in the case of Neagu v. Romania (application no. 21969/15), in which the Court found a violation of Article 9 (right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case concerned a prisoner who had converted to Islam while in detention. He complained of the refusal of the Romanian authorities to provide him with pork-free meals, in accordance with the precepts of his religion, unless he furnished proof that he was an adherent of that religion. The Court found that, bearing in mind the provisions introduced by the order of the Ministry of Justice r…

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: ADAM SMITH’S THEORY OF SENTIMENTAL LAW AND ECONOMICS

2020

For Adam Smith, a crime is not the result of a rational calculation of loss and gain but the consequence of envy and a vain desire to parade wealth to attract the approbation of others, combined with a natural systematic bias in overestimating the probability of success. Similarly, Smith does not conceive of legal sanctions as a rational deterrent but as deriving from the feeling of resentment. While the prevailing approach of the eighteenth century is a rational explanation of crime and a utilitarian use of punishment, Adam Smith instead builds his theory of criminal behavior and legal prosecution consistently on the sentiments. A well-functioning legal system is thus an unintended consequ…