| Description |
1 online resource (xviii, 206 pages) : illustrations. |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Series |
Routledge studies in the history of economics ; 47
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Routledge studies in the history of economics ; 47.
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| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 188-201) and index. |
| Contents |
K that wouldn't go away -- Sleepwalker effect -- Levels and problems -- Idealizations and the method of economics: some historical background -- Way forward -- A brief exposition of reswitching and capital reversing -- Model -- Characteristic propositions of neoclassical production theory -- Perversities and anomalies -- Background of the debate: some history -- Robinson's research programme -- Discontinuities in the recent history of economic thought -- Clouds in the neoclassical sky -- Robinson defines the problem -- Champernowne's solution -- Robinson returns to the problem -- Taking methodological stock (I) -- Polish idealization model -- Back to the capital theory debate -- Correspondence and factualization -- An excursion into the philosophy of science -- Better roughly right than precisely wrong? -- An example of correspondence -- Triumph and crisis of the neoclassical production model -- Neoclassical triumph -- Crisis for the neoclassical model -- Taking methodological stock (II) -- Antipodean idealization model -- Aiming at a complete model of idealizations -- From curiosum to issue -- A little theorem with big consequences -- Symposium -- Neoclassical reactions -- Hicks hunts the snark -- Brown pursues the trail -- More neoclassical resources are mobilized -- Taking methodological stock (III) -- Tactics and moves -- Strategies and likelihoods -- AIM and PIM reconsidered -- Weapons -- Role of mathematics -- Mathematics as a neutral instrument. |
| Summary |
"A controversy in capital theory dominated economics in the 1960s and 1970s. Economists based in Cambridge, England detected flaws in the production model of neoclassical economics, associated with Cambridge, America. This debate established that the aggregate measure K for capital could not be used except in very special cases despite its still common usage in real business cycle theory today." |
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"The Cambridge Controversies in Capital Theory discusses the main contributions to the controversy in a series of case studies. It gradually develops a methodological model of idealizations that explains both the process of the debate and the historical ironies surrounding it, revealing that the surrounding confusion was due to the internal dynamics of the debate rather than to ideological differences. Economists were mainly engaged in attempts to solve local problems, often of a highly technical nature. This, plus the use of mathematics, led them to confuse different kinds of idealizations and to drift away from the global problems that were at stake. |
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The main methodological result is a model describing the development of theories by a particular type of generalization: correspondence. The direction in which theories are expanded is ruled by the logical presupposition relationship between the core of a research programme and its corresponding models. This framework is used to assess Cartwright's account of scientific explanation, to solve Friedman's problem of assumptions and the problem of methodological pluralism." "This book will be of use to academics and advanced students with an interest in theoretical economics, history of economic thought, economic methodology and the philosophy of science."--Jacket. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Capital.
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Capital. |
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Neoclassical school of economics.
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Neoclassical school of economics. |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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| Added Title |
Controversies in capital theory |
| Other Form: |
Print version: Birner, Jack, 1951- Cambridge controversies in capital theory. London ; New York : Routledge, 2002 0415073480 (DLC) 00047059 (OCoLC)45002220 |
| ISBN |
0203416686 (electronic book) |
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9780203416686 (electronic book) |
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0415073480 |
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9780415073486 |
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