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Author: Jonathan S. Franklin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367873455
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 174
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Book Description
Over the course of the twentieth century, professional economists have become a feature in the policymaking process and have slowly changed the way we think about work, governance, and economic justice. However, they have also been a frustrating, paradoxical, and in recent years, controversial fixture in American public life. This book focuses on the emergence and growth of professional economics in the U.S., examining the challenges early professional economists faced, which foreshadowed obstacles throughout the twentieth century. From the founding of the American Economic Association in 1885 to the depths of the Great Depression, this volume illustrates why some of the most optimistic and capable economic minds struggled to help smooth economic transitions and tame market fluctuations. Drawing on archival research and secondary sources, the text explores the emergence of professional economics in the United States and explains how economists came to be 'irrelevant geniuses'. This book is well suited for those who study and are interested in American history, the history of economic thought and policy history.
Author: Jonathan S. Franklin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367873455
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Get Book Here
Book Description
Over the course of the twentieth century, professional economists have become a feature in the policymaking process and have slowly changed the way we think about work, governance, and economic justice. However, they have also been a frustrating, paradoxical, and in recent years, controversial fixture in American public life. This book focuses on the emergence and growth of professional economics in the U.S., examining the challenges early professional economists faced, which foreshadowed obstacles throughout the twentieth century. From the founding of the American Economic Association in 1885 to the depths of the Great Depression, this volume illustrates why some of the most optimistic and capable economic minds struggled to help smooth economic transitions and tame market fluctuations. Drawing on archival research and secondary sources, the text explores the emergence of professional economics in the United States and explains how economists came to be 'irrelevant geniuses'. This book is well suited for those who study and are interested in American history, the history of economic thought and policy history.
Author: Michael Alan Bernstein
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400865085
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 377
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Book Description
The economics profession in twentieth-century America began as a humble quest to understand the "wealth of nations." It grew into a profession of immense public prestige--and now suffers a strangely withered public purpose. Michael Bernstein portrays a profession that has ended up repudiating the state that nurtured it, ignoring distributive justice, and disproportionately privileging private desires in the study of economic life. Intellectual introversion has robbed it, he contends, of the very public influence it coveted and cultivated for so long. With wit and irony he examines how a community of experts now identified with uncritical celebration of ''free market'' virtues was itself shaped, dramatically so, by government and collective action. In arresting and provocative detail Bernstein describes economists' fitful efforts to sway a state apparatus where values and goals could seldom remain separate from means and technique, and how their vocation was ultimately humbled by government itself. Replete with novel research findings, his work also analyzes the historical peculiarities that led the profession to a key role in the contemporary backlash against federal initiatives dating from the 1930s to reform the nation's economic and social life. Interestingly enough, scholars have largely overlooked the history that has shaped this profession. An economist by training, Bernstein brings a historian's sensibilities to his narrative, utilizing extensive archival research to reveal unspoken presumptions that, through the agency of economists themselves, have come to mold and define, and sometimes actually deform, public discourse. This book offers important, even troubling insights to readers interested in the modern economic and political history of the United States and perplexed by recent trends in public policy debate. It also complements a growing literature on the history of the social sciences. Sure to have a lasting impact on its field, A Perilous Progress represents an extraordinary contribution of gritty empirical research and conceptual boldness, of grand narrative breadth and profound analytical depth.
Author: Jonathan S. Franklin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317429494
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
Over the course of the twentieth century, professional economists have become a feature in the policymaking process and have slowly changed the way we think about work, governance, and economic justice. However, they have also been a frustrating, paradoxical, and in recent years, controversial fixture in American public life. This book focuses on the emergence and growth of professional economics in the U.S., examining the challenges early professional economists faced, which foreshadowed obstacles throughout the twentieth century. From the founding of the American Economic Association in 1885 to the depths of the Great Depression, this volume illustrates why some of the most optimistic and capable economic minds struggled to help smooth economic transitions and tame market fluctuations. Drawing on archival research and secondary sources, the text explores the emergence of professional economics in the United States and explains how economists came to be ‘irrelevant geniuses’. This book is well suited for those who study and are interested in American history, the history of economic thought and policy history.
Author: Marion Fourcade
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691117608
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 413
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Book Description
'Economists and Societies' explores the role of economists in the modern world. It looks at the extent of their involvement in social programs, the regulatory environment & commerce, & offers analysis of the development of this ubiquitous profession.
Author: William J. Barber
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412822169
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 492
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Book Description
Many economists who struggled to establish a secure place for their discipline in American universities in the nineteenth century made significant contributions to reshaping American academic life in general. Yet, they were often at war among themselves as they sought to define the mission and methods of economics in an era of social and intellectual ferment. This volume represents the contribution of American scholars to a multinational research project on the institutionalization of political economy in European, Japanese, and North American universities. It includes case studies of divergent experiences of fourteen institutions that figured prominently in the molding of American culture: William & Mary, The University of Virginia, South Carolina College, Brown, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, The University of Pennsylvania, The University of Chicago, The University of California, Stanford, The University of Wisconsin, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These are supplemented in an essay by A. W. Coats on the turbulent early decades of the American Economic Association. In this new introduction, Barber takes note of the fact that in a somewhat different context and with a modified rhetoric the same issues present themselves today as they did one hundred years earlier. And this in turn introduces some troubling concerns about just what sort of science economics is, and was. The volume as a whole can be read as reflections on the troubled status of the discipline of economics as it now exists in American university and research contexts. It provides fresh perspectives on the development of social science and economic thought and on the history of higher education in the United States. As such it will be of very great interest to professional economists, students of higher education, and those for whom the life of American ideas holds a central place.
Author: Binyamin Appelbaum
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316512273
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 456
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Book Description
In this "lively and entertaining" history of ideas (Liaquat Ahamed, The New Yorker), New York Times editorial writer Binyamin Appelbaum tells the story of the people who sparked four decades of economic revolution. Before the 1960s, American politicians had never paid much attention to economists. But as the post-World War II boom began to sputter, economists gained influence and power. In The Economists' Hour, Binyamin Appelbaum traces the rise of the economists, first in the United States and then around the globe, as their ideas reshaped the modern world, curbing government, unleashing corporations and hastening globalization. Some leading figures are relatively well-known, such as Milton Friedman, the elfin libertarian who had a greater influence on American life than any other economist of his generation, and Arthur Laffer, who sketched a curve on a cocktail napkin that helped to make tax cuts a staple of conservative economic policy. Others stayed out of the limelight, but left a lasting impact on modern life: Walter Oi, a blind economist who dictated to his wife and assistants some of the calculations that persuaded President Nixon to end military conscription; Alfred Kahn, who deregulated air travel and rejoiced in the crowded cabins on commercial flights as the proof of his success; and Thomas Schelling, who put a dollar value on human life. Their fundamental belief? That government should stop trying to manage the economy.Their guiding principle? That markets would deliver steady growth, and ensure that all Americans shared in the benefits. But the Economists' Hour failed to deliver on its promise of broad prosperity. And the single-minded embrace of markets has come at the expense of economic equality, the health of liberal democracy, and future generations. Timely, engaging and expertly researched, The Economists' Hour is a reckoning -- and a call for people to rewrite the rules of the market. A Wall Street Journal Business BestsellerWinner of the Porchlight Business Book Award in Narrative & Biography
Author: Elizabeth Popp Berman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691248885
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
The story of how economic reasoning came to dominate Washington between the 1960s and 1980s—and why it continues to constrain progressive ambitions today For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold political vision on the left, and what shrunk the very horizons of possibility? In Thinking like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way of thinking—an “economic style of reasoning”—became dominant in Washington between the 1960s and the 1980s and how it continues to dramatically narrow debates over public policy today. Introduced by liberal technocrats who hoped to improve government, this way of thinking was grounded in economics but also transformed law and policy. At its core was an economic understanding of efficiency, and its advocates often found themselves allied with Republicans and in conflict with liberal Democrats who argued for rights, equality, and limits on corporate power. By the Carter administration, economic reasoning had spread throughout government policy and laws affecting poverty, healthcare, antitrust, transportation, and the environment. Fearing waste and overspending, liberals reined in their ambitions for decades to come, even as Reagan and his Republican successors argued for economic efficiency only when it helped their own goals. A compelling account that illuminates what brought American politics to its current state, Thinking like an Economist also offers critical lessons for the future. With the political left resurgent today, Democrats seem poised to break with the past—but doing so will require abandoning the shibboleth of economic efficiency and successfully advocating new ways of thinking about policy.
Author: History of Economics Society. Conference
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0415133556
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 346
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Book Description
This volume demonstrates the variety and creativity of American economics and the links between American economic thought and its non- European context. It contains selected papers from the 1996 History of Economics Society Conference.
Author: Donald K. Pickens
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 073914085X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
Leon H. Keyserling: A Progressive Economist is the insightful biography of the life and thought of the influential liberal reformer Leon H. Keyserling. By examining Keyserling's life in the context of integrative liberalism, the biography aims to explore the origins of the concept of integrative liberalism and Keyserling's profound and provocative contribution to it. The book follows the political reformer's life from the beginning of his career as a member of Democratic Senator Robert Wagner's staff, at the same time showing how the Progressive Movement, before World War I, was the ideological and institutional origin for integrative liberalism. The Great Depression and subsequent New Deal, to which Keyserling was a significant contributor, allowed integrative liberalism to develop until the movement started losing vitality in the 1960's and came to an end during the Reagan Presidency. In the meantime, the book presents Keyserling as a major sculptor of Truman's economic policies, after which he left the government and began effectively debating public policy on his own. Tracing Keyserling's interactions with each presidency, the biography shows that Keyserling's policies and politics were expressive of integrated liberalism, an often-overlooked philosophy of reform in the second half of the twentieth century. The ideological cornerstone of integrative liberalism was a full employment public policy, expressed as economic growth and developed directly from United States history. The fear driving the policy was that there would be wide swings in the business cycle, resulting in underemployment and economic stagnation. This sentiment and fear has an impact even now in the twenty-first century, making Leon H. Keyserling a timely and profitable study for graduate and undergraduate students of history, economics, political science, and public administration.
Author: Douglas A. Irwin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022639901X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 873
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Book Description
A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year: “Tells the history of American trade policy . . . [A] grand narrative [that] also debunks trade-policy myths.” —Economist Should the United States be open to commerce with other countries, or should it protect domestic industries from foreign competition? This question has been the source of bitter political conflict throughout American history. Such conflict was inevitable, James Madison argued in the Federalist Papers, because trade policy involves clashing economic interests. The struggle between the winners and losers from trade has always been fierce because dollars and jobs are at stake: depending on what policy is chosen, some industries, farmers, and workers will prosper, while others will suffer. Douglas A. Irwin’s Clashing over Commerce is the most authoritative and comprehensive history of US trade policy to date, offering a clear picture of the various economic and political forces that have shaped it. From the start, trade policy divided the nation—first when Thomas Jefferson declared an embargo on all foreign trade and then when South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over excessive taxes on imports. The Civil War saw a shift toward protectionism, which then came under constant political attack. Then, controversy over the Smoot-Hawley tariff during the Great Depression led to a policy shift toward freer trade, involving trade agreements that eventually produced the World Trade Organization. Irwin makes sense of this turbulent history by showing how different economic interests tend to be grouped geographically, meaning that every proposed policy change found ready champions and opponents in Congress. Deeply researched and rich with insight and detail, Clashing over Commerce provides valuable and enduring insights into US trade policy past and present. “Combines scholarly analysis with a historian’s eye for trends and colorful details . . . readable and illuminating, for the trade expert and for all Americans wanting a deeper understanding of America’s evolving role in the global economy.” —National Review “Magisterial.” —Foreign Affairs
