Course: History of Economic Thought
Code: ECO313
Semester: B
Instructor: Nicholas J. Theocarakis
The course is an introduction to the history of economic thought. The approach of the course is both historical and analytical. The development of economic thought is presented as a succession of changes in the perception of the nature of socio-economic processes. The course emphasizes the historical nature of economic theories and attempts to show how actual socio-economic phenomena shape the evolution of economic theory. The course also attempts to teach students economic theory by showing how the concepts they are taught in economics classes have evolved in time.
Course outline
The Methodology of Economics, Ancient Greek economic thought [Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle], Scholastic economic thought, Mercantilism [English, French, German, Italian], William Petty, John Locke, David Hume, Boisguilbert, Richard Cantillon, John Law, Physiocracy and Turgot, Classical political economy [Adam Smith, David Ricardo, T.Robert Malthus], post-Ricardians and J. S. Mill, Karl Marx and Marxist political economy, A. Augustin Cournot, Hermann Heinrich Gossen, The “MarginalistRevolution” [W. Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger and Léon Walras], German Historical School, Thorstein Veblen and Institutional economics, Neoclassicaleconomics [Vilfredo Pareto, Alfred Marshall, Francis Y. Edgeworth, Knut Wicksell, John Bates Clark, Irving Fisher], Austrian School [Eugenvon Böhm-Bawerk and Friedrich von Wieser], John Maynard Keynes, Joseph A. Schumpeter, Michał Kalecki, General Equilibriumtheory [Vienna Colloquiumand Arrow-Debreu], Piero Sraffa, contemporary development sinmicroeconomic and macroeconomic theory, including the major debates in economic theory.
Suggested textbooks:
Roger E. Backhouse, The Ordinary Business of Life: A History of Economics from the Ancient World to the Twenty-First Century, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. [Greek edition]
Ernesto Screpanti and Stefano Zamagni, An outline of the history of economic thought, Oxford: Clarendon Press; 2nd edition, 2005. Italian:Profilo di storia del pensiero economico, Roma, Carocci, 3rd, 2 volume edition, 2004. [Greek edition].
Alessandro Roncaglia, The Wealth of Ideas: a History of Economic Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.Italian: La ricchezza delle idee. Storia del pensiero economico, Roma, Laterza.5th edition, 2011.
E.K. Hunt, History of economic thought: a critical perspective, 2nd updated edition, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2002.
Ingrid H. Rima, Development of Economic Analysis, 7th edition, London: Routledge, 2008.
Reader: Steven G. Medema and Warren J. Samuels (eds.), The History of Economic Thought: A Reader, London, Routledge, 2003.
E-class: Annotated guides with links to the seminal texts, guide to the use of internet for HET, and guide for students’ class assignments
Credits
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