tailieunhanh - History of Economic Analysis part 114

History of Economic Analysis part 114. At the time of his death in 1950, Joseph Schumpeter-one of the major figures in economics during the first half of the 20th century-was working on his monumental History of Economic Analysis. A complete history of humankind's theoretical efforts to understand economic phenomena from ancient Greece to the present, this book is an important contribution to the history of ideas as well as to economics. | History of economic analysis 1092 took time for it to be recognized consciously and with full awareness of its pivotal importance. Speaking very roughly we may associate this achievement or a decisive share in this achievement with the work of It is however only the emphasis upon the pivotal importance of that fact which constitutes the historical merit of the work. His own interpretation of it that is his distinctive theory which runs in terms of alternating accumulation and release of liquid saving is valuable only as an example of how short the way is from a promising starting point into a blind alley even for an able and serious worker. II. The outstanding work in the line under discussion is Arthur Spiethoff His analytic schema first lists a number of possible starters of a process of expansion of plant and equipment which process then accounts without difficulty for all the other observed phenomena of booms great care being taken to account for the individual peculiarities of every historical instance. This em- 8 Walras it is interesting to note treated as common knowledge the fact that the production des capitaux neufs goes on in alternating high tides and low tides characterized by respectively high and low rates of discount and of prices and identified it in 1884 with what we call business cycles of about 10 years duration. He does not quote Juglar but Jevons. Études d économie appliquée 1936 p. 31. 9 Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranowsky 1865-1919 was the most eminent Russian economist of that period and should perhaps have been mentioned also in other connections. The methodological aspect of his work is particularly interesting he did much historical work of high quality but he was also a theorist and he combined or welded into a higher unit these two interests in a way which he had learned from Marx and which was by no means common. From Marx too he had learned to theorize though he experienced the influence both of the English .