Heinz-Dieter Kurz

The Elgar companion to classical economics

This reference provides an account of the classical approach to economics. It contains 200 short entries in a dictionary format on all the significant areas of this school of thought. Together, the two volumes offer analytical and historical views of old and modern classical economics.

One Theory or Two? Walras's Critique of Ricardo

There are essentially two views about the development of economic theory. According to the one that nowadays appears to be almost universally accepted, the history of economic theory is a one-way avenue leading from primitive conceptualizations of the demand and supply approach to all sorts of economic phenomena to ever more sophisticated ones, merely leaving behind errors of reasoning and unnecessarily restrictive assumptions. According to the alternative view, the history of our subject is not characterized by a linear development. A theory that once dominated the discussion rather tends to get abandoned for a variety of reasons, some of which are internal to that theory and concern its scope and coherence, while others are external to it and concern its ability to explain the facts. A theory may be replaced by fundamentally different ones: a theory may be “submerged and forgotten” at some stage, as one commentator remarked perceptively; it need not, but may, come back at a later stage, especially when new formulations of the theory succeed in overcoming the difficulties encountered by its earlier versions. In this essay we will attempt to support the discontinuity thesis by considering an important episode in the history of our subject: the

Mark Blaug on the "Sraffian Interpretation of the Surplus Approach"

Mark Blaug (1999) hasput forward acriticalassessmentofPieroSraffa’sinterpretationoftheclassicalecono-mistsandtheliteratureinspiredbyit,includingsomeofourworks(KurzandSalvadori1995,1998a,1998b).Duetospaceconstraintswecanof-feronlyasummaryofsomeofourargumentsinresponse.Forobviousreasons we must essentially proceed in terms of assertive statements.The reader interested in the full argument and the evidence from thewritingsoftheclassicalauthorsinitssupportisinvitedtovisitourhomepagesandclickonthelinkto“Understanding‘Classical’Economics:AReplytoMarkBlaug”(KurzandSalvadori2000).Webeginwithafewpreliminaries(section1)andthenturntothe“Sraffian”andBlaug’sal-ternative interpretation of the classical approach to the theory of valueanddistribution(sections2and3).

The Elgar Companion to David Ricardo

Arguably one of the most important economists who has lived, Ricardos impact on the economics profession is immense. This unique and comprehensive Companion elucidates his significance and continuing legacy. Ricardo made major contributions to all fields of the subject, from monetary issues to value and income distribution, from capital accumulation, technical progress and economic growth to foreign trade and international specialisation, and from taxes to public debt. What he called the main problem of political economy, the distribution of income and wealth, is again back on the political and economic agenda with a vengeance. Leading experts in the field explore his influence and offer novel interpretations of received doctrines.