Abstract
Although the story that the great political economist David Ricardo (1772–1823) learned at the same school as Spinoza is most likely a romantic fiction, it suggests an intriguing parallel ...that reaches far beyond mere biographical coincidence. Like Spinoza, Ricardo was seen by both admirers and detractors as contributing in a “Jewish” way to forging a new, secular sphere of modern life. Because he left the Jewish community and did not frame his intellectual work as deriving from Judaism, such arguments necessarily appealed to racialization, making Ricardo Jewish in spite of himself. Considering Ricardo as a Spinoza figure offers us a deeper perspective on the role of racialized Jewishness in narratives of modern social science and thereby also in the theory of secularization.
A Key To Ricardo Clair, Oswald St
1957, 20131016, 2003, 2013-10-16
eBook
Ricardo is one of the most imposing figures in the history of economic thought, yet attimes his writings are among the most obscure. A Key to Ricardo traces,simplifies and clarifies Ricardo's ideas ...on the principal topics on which he wrote.
The book provides a careful analysis of Ricardo's most cryptic passages and also explores areas where Ricardo appears to be mistaken. Setting Ricardo's writings against the context of his contemporaries, the relevance of the Ricardian contribution to subsequent economic thinking is nonetheless made very clear.
"This book explores the perceived paradigmatic conflict within British classical economics between the so called 'Ricardo School' and the contemporary French Economics of Jean-Baptiste Say. Samuel ...Hollander provides the reader with extensive evidence, utilizing all editions of Say's main texts and his lesser-known writings in order to demonstrate his adherence to much of Ricardian theory.
This intriguing book focuses on selected doctorinal issues and surrounding debates, and will interest all serious historians of economic thought, finding a place on the bookshelves of many economists across the world."
Retrospectives Bernhofen, Daniel M.; Brown, John C.
The Journal of economic perspectives,
10/2018, Letnik:
32, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Last year marked the 200th anniversary of Ricardo’s famous “four numbers” paragraph on comparative advantage, which is one of the oldest analytical results in economics. Following the lead of James ...Mill (1821), these four numbers have been interpreted as unit labor coefficients. This interpretation has provided the basis for the development of the ‘Ricardian model’ from John Stuart Mill (1852) to Eaton and Kortum (2002). However, if we accept the labor unit interpretation of these numbers, Ricardo’s exposition in his 1817 Principles of Political Economy and Taxation makes little logical sense. Building on Sraffa’s (1930) interpretation of Ricardo’s numbers as labor embodied in trade, our discussion reveals the amazing simplicity and generality of Ricardo’s comparative advantage formulation and gains-from-trade logic.
Retrospectives Hollander, Samuel
The Journal of economic perspectives,
04/2019, Letnik:
33, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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We are currently experiencing an outpouring of concern both popular and professional regarding technological unemployment. I shall be discussing an apparent about-turn on the subject by David Ricardo ...(1772–1823), who at different times, even in different chapters of the same book, and, indeed, even at different places in the same chapter, seemed to be on both sides of the argument as to whether technological unemployment should be a matter for concern. In a chapter entitled "On Machinery," added to the third edition of his Principles of Political Economy (1821), which comprises volume 1 of his Collected Works (1951–73), Ricardo announced that he had become concerned about the possibility, even likelihood, of technical change detrimental to labour's interests. However, in the very same "On Machinery" chapter, Ricardo also outlined qualifications to show that there was little need for concern. Ricardo's opposing messages are reflected in contrasting reactions to the chapter "On Machinery." Some readers—including Thomas Robert Malthus and J. R. McCulloch—understood it as supporting working-class opposition to machinery. Others—including John Stuart Mill and Sir John Hicks—find therein the answer to such opposition.
This paper evaluates the role of sectoral heterogeneity in determining the gains from trade. We first show analytically that in the presence of sectoral Ricardian comparative advantage, a one-sector ...sufficient statistic formula that uses total trade volumes as a share of total absorption systematically understates the true gains from trade. Greater relative sectoral productivity differences lead to larger disparities between the gains implied by the one-sector formula and the true gains. Using data on overall and sectoral trade shares in a sample of 79 countries and 19 sectors we show that the multi-sector formula implies on average 30% higher gains from trade than the one-sector formula, and as much as 100% higher gains for some countries. We then set up and estimate a quantitative Ricardian–Heckscher–Ohlin model in which no version of the formula applies exactly, and compare a range of sufficient statistic formulas to the true gains in this model. Confirming the earlier results, formulas that do not take into account the sectoral heterogeneity understate the true gains from trade in the model by as much as two-thirds. The one-sector formulas understate the gains by more in countries with greater dispersion in sectoral productivities.
•The one-sector sufficient statistic formula understates the true gains from trade.•Greater relative sectoral productivity differences lead to greater understatement.•In the data, multi-sector formula implies 30% higher gains than one-sector formula.•Results are confirmed in a quantitative Ricardian–Heckscher–Ohlin model.
This book offers the first comprehensive assessment of Tony Blair's premiership and his Third Way project. It reveals the hidden flaw in the market economy which explains why politicians, of all ...parties, cannot keep their grand promises.Blair promised to reform the Welfare State - the pact between people and their governments to abolish the evils of poverty and ignorance. In fact, however, despite a record three election victories in a row, the gap between rich and poor widened. The reason, the author argues, is the method government relies on to raise taxes. Contrary to intention, the tax burden on low-income earners increased, while property owners have enjoyed record capital gains. The outcome is over £1trillion indebtedness which renders tens of thousands of families vulnerable to bankruptcy and the loss of their homes in the next recession.Fred Harrison reveals how taxpayers' money is channelled behind the scenes, through 'the invisible hand', from poor to rich people and from poor to rich parts of the country.Public spending, for example on roads, railways, schools and hospitals, makes a major contribution to rising land values. These benefit house and other property owners, rich ones more than poor ones, desirable locations and asset-rich parts of the country more than poor ones, but those who rent their properties do not share in the windfall gains. In fact, they have to pay rising rents.Taking Britain as a case study, Harrison escorts the reader along an old Roman road from south to north to pin-point how poverty is institutionalised in the growing divide between rich and poor. Along the way he illuminates the inner workings of tax policies and property rights that similarly afflict all market economiesTax reform is on the political agenda in the West, but politicians continue to believe their consultants who tell them that 'broad-based' taxes are necessary. Harrison challenger this conventional wisdom and explains that the market economy needs to integrate the prices charged for public services with the prices charged for all other goods and services. This model is based on people, including the rich, paying for, and in proportion to, the benefits they receive, which really would be progressive. This reform has a further benefit. It would enable the European and American economies to face the challenge of the newly emerging economies and remain competitive in the global markets of the 21st century.
Ricardo and International Trade Senga, Shigeyoshi; Fujimoto, Masatomi; Tabuchi, Taichi
2017, 20170518, 2017-05-18, Letnik:
195
eBook
iDavid Ricardo’s theories have been widely studied and discussed, including the prominent theory on comparative advantage. Ricardo and International Trade looks at the ongoing renaissance of the ...Ricardian international trade theory. The book’s interpretation brings fresh insights into and new developments on the Ricardian international trade theory by examining the true meaning of the ‘four magic numbers’. By putting together theories of comparative advantage and international money, the book attempts to elucidate Ricardo’s international trade theory in the real world.
This book also features contributions from the Japanese perspective and compares Ricardian theories with those of his contemporaries, such as Malthus, Torrens and J. S. Mill. This book will be a valuable reference for researchers and scholars with interests in history of economic thought and international economics.ii
iii
Piero Sraffa’s The Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is the seminal attempt to create a physical, rather than a social, numeraire to measure the price of commodities. Sraffa’s ...physical numeraire is predicated on the physical identity and, therefore, direct commensurability of inputs and outputs. It is considered to be the viable alternative to Ricardo and Marx’s social numeraire that used labour time to measure the value of incommensurate inputs and outputs. Sraffa’s assumption of the identity of inputs and outputs contradicts the essential nature of the production process itself, where human activity changes one set of inputs into a different, and therefore incommensurate, set of outputs. This false premise underpins every critique of labour value theory, including from Samuelson and Steedman. Paradoxically, Sraffa’s assumptions also underpin the work of Marxists, notably Freeman and Kliman, who attempt to defend labour value theory in models where it does not apply.
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