Monthly Archives: April 2013

The rise of economics as engineering II: the case of MIT

Posted on April 25, 2013 by

Edit 2015: since this post was written, a collective volume on the history of economics at MIT has been published. Free drafts of some  chapters: Roy Weintraub’s introduction to the volume; my survey of economics at MIT, 1941-1973; Weintraub on MIT’s openness to … Continue reading →

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The rise of economics as engineering I : setting the scene

Posted on April 24, 2013 by

The rise of the economist as engineer is, economists and historians say, an essential characteristic of the development of economics in the postwar period. In 2006, Greg Mankiw wrote a much commentedpaper in which he argued that one brand of macroeconomics (neokeynesian) … Continue reading →

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A chronology of economics at Carnegie (in progress)

Posted on April 23, 2013 by

To illustrate the previous post on the difficulties in putting together a chronology, here is tentative chronology of economics at Carnegie. It’s still in process, and links, sources and entries will be updated as I research. It reflects my general interest … Continue reading →

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On the difficulty of assembling a chronology and other F….moments in history of economics research

Posted on April 22, 2013 by

This year, I’m sharing an office with an econometrician on Mondays and with a geographer on Fridays (you don’t want to go into the subtleties of the French educational system). We’re discussing the content of our research and the strengths … Continue reading →

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History of applied economics: now what?

Posted on April 18, 2013 by

Crossposted from the INET Playground There is a “tendency to neglect applied economics in writing the history of economic thought,” Roger Backhouse and Jeff Biddle remarked in 2000. They then followed the “applied” trail back into the XIXth and early XXth … Continue reading →

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