The Economics Of Joan Robinson

"Economics has always been partly a vehicle" for the ruling ideology of each period as well as partly a method of scientific investigation. It limps along with one foot in untested hypotheses and the other in untestable slogans. Here our task is to sort out as best we may this mixture of ideology and science."With these provocative words, Joan Robinson introduces this lively and iconoclastic book. "In what follows," she says, "this theme is illustrated by reference to one or two of the leading ideas of the economists from Adam Smith onwards, not in a learned manner, tracing the development of thought, nor historically, to show how ideas arose out of the problems of each age, but rather an attempt to puzzle out the mysterious way that metaphysical propositions, without any logical content, can yet be a powerful influence on thought and action."Robinson is responsible for some of the most austerely professional contributions to economic theory, but here in effect she takes the reader behind the scenes and cheerfully exposes the dogmatic content of economic orthodoxy. In its place, she offers the possibility that with obsolete metaphysics cleared out of the way economics can make a substantial advance toward science. .

Joan Robinson is widely regarded as the greatest female economist. Her published work spanned six decades and is analysed here by a distinguished, international team of scholars.

This and its companion volume, "The Economics of Imperfect Competition and Employment", are about Joan Robinson, her impact on modern economics, her challenges and critiques and the advances made in the science and art of economics.

Joan Robinson was one of the most prominent economists of the century. She made fundamental contributions to many different areas of economic thought. She studied economics at Girton College Cambridge, graduating in 1925. During the 1930's she published three books and participated in Keynes 'Circus'. Her early contributions to economics were extensions of neo-classical theory, and in 1933 she introduced the theory of imperfect competition. She became an ardent follower of Keynes and produced expositions of his theory. She was one of the first economists to take Marx seriously as an economist. She became Reader in Economics at Cambridge in 1956, and in the same year she published The Accumulation of Capital - in which she began to extend Keynes theory, in particular to take into consideration long-run issues of growth and capital accumulation. Her work on growth theory in 1962, alongside Nicholas Kaldor, led to them developing the Cambridge Growth Theory. She became the first ever female Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge in 1979. This collection of her writings is an excellent testament to the depth and breadth of the impact she had on economic theory as a whole.

Contributions to Modern Economics includes contributions to two great intellectual upheavals in economic theory: the Keynesian Revolution and the revival of the classical theory of profits led by Piero Sraffa. The formation of prices in capitalist and socialist economies and of international trade is also discussed. The evolution of these ideas is linked to the personal and historical events that influenced them. Comprised of 24 chapters, this book begins by describing the second crisis of economic theory, which is related to the first crisis — the great slump of the 1930s. The reader is then introduced to the theory of money and the analysis of output; obstacles to full employment; and the concept of hoarding. Subsequent chapters explore capital, profits, and prices, with emphasis on the theory of capital, imperfect competition, and the theory of value. International trade, capitalism, and beggar-my-neighbor remedies for unemployment are also examined. This monograph should be of interest to economists.