Rick Marriner
Tuesday
Homework 3


B. Neo-Classical Thought

B. Identifications

1. Leon Walras (1834-1910) Works: Two volumes of Elements of Pure Economics (1844-77). After twice failing his entrance exams for the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris for lack of Mathematical preparation, Walras went on to study at the Ecole des Mines in 1854. He had a short and failed career in Banking, journalism and business before moving to Economics. He was appointed to the chair of political economy at the Academy of Lausanne, Switzerland.

2. Alfred Marshal (1842-1924) Works: The Economics of Industry (1879), Principles of Economics (1890), Industry and Trade (1919). Born in London, England. Alfred Marshal was an able mathematician, but he sought to express himself in the most simplest of means using his wizardry in math in his foot notes and end notes. Keynes was his pupil.

3. Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) Works: Cours d’economie politique (1897), Manuale d’economie politique (1909). He was the son of a Genoese father and a French mother. He studied engineering and went on to become an architect like his father graduating from the University of Turin with the thesis "The fundamental principles of equilibrium of solid bodies.". He studied philosophy and politics in Florence and in 1893 was appointed to the chair of political economy at the University of Lausanne, following Leon Walras.

4. Francis Ysidro Edgeworth (1845 -1926) Works: Mathematical Physics: An essay on the application of mathematics to the moral sciences (1877) Methods of Statistics (1885). His undergraduate work was completed at Trinity College in, Dublin and he went on to Oxford to studied law and other social sciences. He was admitted to the bar in 1877 and finally moved to become a professor of Political Economics at King’s College. He was later appointed to the Tooke Chair of Economic Science.

5. Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950) Works: Political Economy (1919). Schumpeter was not only an avid economist, but a versed intellectual of many fields of study. He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge and even spent some time with in the Cairo at the International Court. He was a scientist and a teacher. He was not, however, a very good politician and had to give up a public as Minister of Finance after only 6 months in office. The reason "lack of diplomatic prowess".

6. John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) Works: The Economic Consequences of Peace (1919), The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. The son of a professor of Economics and destined by a family connection to be influential in the narrow British University world, Keynes used his own intellectual prowess to break out of the mold and forge a name for himself. He was on the staff of the British delegation that negotiated peace after, but resigned in protest and wrote the first book stated above.

C. Short Essay on the life and works of F.A. Von Hayek (1899-1992)

Hayek is one of the most eminent of the Modern Austrian economists. He was a student of Friedrich Von Wieser and a protégé and colleague of Ludwig Von Mises. Hayek received the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. His works have been collected and take up an impressive nineteen volumes in the recent University of Chicago Press and Routedge project. his father was a physician and botanist, his grandfather a statistician and his cousin was the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He attended the University of Vienna and earned his doctorates in 1921 and 1923. His official background was law, but his love was economics. Some of his more famous works include The Road to Serfdom (1944), Prices and Production (1931), The Pure Theory of Capital (1941). The last is his most ambitious work showing how the economies structure of production depends on the characteristics of its capital.

D. Short-answer essay questions for the following chapters.

7. The Heresies of John Maynard Keynes:
Question: According to Keynes what revitalizes a national economy and what starts a depression.
Answer: The flow of income is the main source of an economies vitality. The act of saving, or rather, hoarding takes money out of the flow and no longer allows it to work to the betterment of society. The investment that is damaged due to the act of hoarding is a cause of depression according to Keynes.

8. The Contradictions of Joseph Schumpeter
Question: What is plausible Capitalism?
Answer: It is the direct refutation of Karl Marx’s doomed capitalism. It paints the scenario of ever increasing growth without stagnation. In short it is a reasoned model of an economic system that is caught up in the process of self-renewing growth.

9. Behind the Wordly Philosophers
Question: What is the ultimate objective of economic thinking?
Answer: Simply, to understand the society that we live in past, present and future. The systematic and sometimes grandiose goal of, as Alfred Marshal said, "The study of mankind in the ordinary business of life"