Search results for "history of political economy"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Money in the "Body Politick" : The Analysis of Trade and Circulation in the Writings of Seventeenth-Century Political Arithmeticians.
2005
International audience; This article discusses the analysis of trade and circulation in the writings of seventeenth-century political arithmeticians. Political arithmetic was in its way an anatomy of the social body. William Petty titled his 1672 book The Political Anatomy of Ireland. In his preface he explicitly claimed to be following Francis Bacon, highlighting the experimental method and the idea that analytical methods can be transposed from one discipline to another. He thus drew a parallel between the natural body and the body politic. It was a widely held idea that money guaranteed the nation's health; conversely its poor state of health could lead to the wasting away of the body po…
The term “political oeconomy” in Adam Smith
2020
This article analyses the use of the term “‘political oeconomy” in the Wealth of Nations, considered by many the founding text of the discipline of Political Economy. It shows that Adam Smith could not accept the use of the term “political oeconomy” that had been made by other authors to indicate the subject matter of his scientific inquiry, devoted to the nature and causes of the wealth of nations; he used the term “political oeconomy” as a synonym for economic policy, especially in the fourth book of the Wealth of Nations. In order to understand this statement, it is necessary to keep in mind the methodological and epistemological perspective developed by Smith; in his view, the inquiry i…
The Political Economy of the World Bank. The Early Years
2009
This book covers the early years of the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), commonly known as the World Bank when it first confronted the issue of development as a fundamental part of its mission. The book is mainly concerned with how the Bank interpreted its mission and, more specifically, how its mission was born: what events shaped it, what cultural and ideological background influenced it and what was the historical context in which it arose. So this book is a contribution to the study of the prehistory of development, understood in its social and economic context. In this respect, the study of the early years of the World Bank offers excellent context for obser…
Le origini della Banca Mondiale. Una deriva conservatrice
2007
Nel secondo dopoguerra la Banca Mondiale dovette affrontare per la prima volta il problema del sostegno ai cosiddetti paesi in via di sviluppo, trovandosi costretta a riconvertirsi dal sostegno alla ricostruzione europea agli aiuti allo sviluppo nel resto del mondo. Una delle istituzioni attualmente ai vertici dell'economia mondiale attraversò allora una fase di definizione di quali dovessero essere i propri obiettivi e quali i mezzi per raggiungerli. Attraverso la consultazione di materiali d'archivio mai utilizzati prima d'ora, Alacevich indaga sulle istanze culturali, politiche e ideologiche che contribuirono a dare origine alle scelte di politica economica della Banca Mondiale nei confr…