EC 333
HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
Prerequisite: EC 201 or 202, or permission of instructor
Objectives:
Students
having completed the course should;
1. be aware of the major
contributors to economic thought including Adam Smith, Karl Marx, David
Ricardo, Alfred Marshall, John Mayard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and Ludwig Von
Mises.
2. be knowledgeable regarding
the manner in which economic thought influenced the industrial revolution and
the twentieth century age of inflation.
3. be aware and familiar with
the economic traditions or paradigms from the classical tradition to the
present.
4. Be familiar with the
development of free market economic thought.
Content of the course:
This
is a course in the development of economic ideas. The various schools of thought or traditions are analyzed in
historical order. The first part of the
course deals with the economic thought of the ancients, medieval scholastics,
mercantilists, physiocrats, and the classical writers of economics. The second half of the course deals with the
paradigms of Marxism, Neo-Classical economics, institutionalism, Keynesionism,
monetarist economics, supply-side economics, Austrian economics, and
post-Keynesion economics.
General kinds of
assignments:
Students
will be required to read the materials for a given economics tradition prior to
the class lecture, and be prepared to take part in the classroom analysis.
Testing and grading
patterns:
There
will be a midterm examination, a final examination, and a research paper. The grade will be determined upon a
combination of these measurement tools plus classroom participation.
Course outline:
I. Pre-Classical economics
A. mercantilist thought
B. Physiociatic thought
II. Classical economics
A. Adam Smith
B. Thomas Malthus
C. David Ricardo
D. Nassau Senior
E. John Stuart Mill
F. Classical theory in review
1. Scope and method
2. Laws of classical economics
3. Classicism and laissez-faire
4. Appraisal of classicism
III. Marxian economics
A. Early socialist writers
B. Karl Marx
IV. Neo-Classical economics
A. Forerunners of subjectivism
1. Gossen
2. Dupuit
B. Austrian school
1. Karl Menger
2. Bohm - Bawerk
3. Ludwig Von Mises
4. Modern Day Austrians
a. Hayek, Hazlitt, Hutt
b. Sennholz, Kirzner, Rothbard,
Greaves
C. Lausanne school
1. Leon Walras
2. Vilfredo Pareto
3. Joseph Schumpeter
D. Cambridge school
1. William Jevons
2. Knut Wiksell
3. Alfred Marshall
4. Irving Fisher
V. Institutional school
A. Thorstein Veblen
B. Wesley Mitchell
C. John Commons
D. John K. Galbraith
VI. Keynesian school
A. John M. Keynes
B. Economics of Keynes
1. Refutation of Neo-Classical
principles
2. Wage theory
3. Interest and money theory
4. Inflation and depression
theory
VII. Neo-Keynesian economics
A. The "Keynesian Cross"
B. IS-LM appartus
C. Phillips curve
VIII. Monetarist school
A. Quantity theory tradition
B. Freidman's re-formulation of
quantity theory
C. Principles of monetarism
D. Political economy
IX. Supply-Side tradition
A. Art laffer and the laffer
curve
B. Principles
1. Taxation
2. Government spending
X. Post-Keynesian economics
A. The new left – the radical
economists
B. Galbraithian challenge
C. Austrian and monetarist
challenge
Text:
Henry
Spiegel. The Growth of Economic Thought. Duke University Press, 1983.
George
Nash. The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America. Basic Books,
Inc. 1979.
Reference material:
Ingrid
Rima. Development of Economic Analysis. 3rd Edition. Richard
D. Irwin Inc., 1978.
Adam
Smith. The Wealth of Nations. Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1968.
Thomas
Swartz. The Supply Side. Dushkin Publishing, 1983.
William
Breit. The Academic Scribblers. Dryden Press, 1982.
Robert
Heilbroner. Marxism For and Against. W.W. Norton & Co., 1980.
Murray
Rothford. The Essential von Mises. Bramble Minebooks, 1973.
Elbert
V. Bowden. Economic Evolution. Southwestern Publishing Co., 1981.
