Economic Theories, Protagonists, and Facts
Collected Essays in the History of Economic Thought by Maria Cristina Marcuzzo
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4296979 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alessandro Roncaglia (Sapienza University of Rome, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 943-946 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History of Political Economy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2702 • E-ISSN: 1527-1919 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00182702-11950689 |
| OpenAlex | W4411026173 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 3 |
Miniature," Halsmayer shows that Solow's miniatures were constructed as a link between neoclassical theory and mathematics to provide an anschauliche (comprehensible, intelligible) answer to "what would happen if" in the world of the model.The final chapter, chapter 5, "Model Talk," discusses the initial struggle economists had with the epistemological status of these "tricky" objects, that is, these small-scale artifacts and their relation with the real world before they became the epistemic norm.Originally created as an educational device for his MIT students, the model was transformed "from a personal toy model to an epistemic standard, from model talk to disciplinary language" (20).There are already several good historical works on how economics became a model-based science and how economics became a mathematical science.However, this book is, to my knowledge, the first to combine both histories to deal with the paradoxical history of how reasoning with mathematical objects to discuss the qualitative features of small, abstract, unrealistic worlds became the disciplinary norm at a period when economists were gaining significant influence in policy circles.By resolving this paradox, Halsmayer's history of the Solow model provides an excellent insight into the remarkable nature of the discipline of economics
Economic history · Economic Thought · Economics · History of economic thought · Neoclassical economics · Positive economics · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · History · Political Economy and Marxism
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |