Essays in the history of mainstream political economy

This book is a collection of articles on schools, individuals and topics within the mainstream of the history of economic thought. The principal schools are the Physiocrats and the English Classical Econo mists. The principal individuals are François Quesnay, Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Francis Y. Edgeworth, Friedrich von Wieser, Frank W. Taussig and William H. Hutt. The principal topics include the economic role of government, power, the psychology of economics, and the early history of macroeconomics. Within these topics atten tion is focused on the theory of property, legal and 'non-legal' social control of eco nomic activity, the importance of institutions in the organization and control of economic systems, and the role of economists in the (re)construction of the economy. Other subjects include the early treatment of the history of economics as a field of inquiry, the influence of Wieser on the work of Joseph Schumpeter, and the teaching of monetary and business-cycle theory before John Maynard Keynes.