Talk:History of economics

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The section "Biblical (NT) economic thought" needs to be cleaned up. I fixed the dots, but it's unclear if all of it is relevant or not. I any case, it's a mess to read. /130.235.57.231 23:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been "bold" and deleted it. It's connection to the history of economic thought is tenuous in the extreme, and is at most worth a footnote, not the first section after the introduction. BrendanH 09:40, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Move survey

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move to History of economics —Mets501 (talk) 03:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

History of economic thought → History of economics — Should be moved to History of economics for parallelism with the other History of science articles. savidan(talk) (e@) 17:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.

  • support Septentrionalis 21:18, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Peter O. (Talk) 02:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose I wasn't gonna be obstinate about this, but we can't really speak of a history of economics that covers Aristotle and other pre-SmithEdgeworthian philosophers. Also, the article (probably rightfully) ignores game theory, econometrics and almost the whole technical side of economics, so the term "economic thought" is more apt than "economics". ~ trialsanderrors 08:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC) | Addendum if I'm the only one disagreeing we should move. ~ trialsanderrors 01:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
    • This seems rather fine-drawn; most of Aristotle's economic thought is in the Oeconomica. Septentrionalis 19:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Moved to discussion.
    • History of physics says less than this article about the second half of the twentieth century. Septentrionalis 19:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments:

  • The problem is that the term "economics" is really comparatively young and is sometimes meant to stand for "technical inquiry into the economy". Although I don't think laypersons know the distinction or care. ~ trialsanderrors 03:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Shouldn't this be a merge? (Feel free to leave me a message if I forget to check back.) Sofeil 11:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Economics

Moved here from survey

I know. My distinction is between economy and economics. I should've said pre-Edgeworthian since Adam Smith to Karl Marx dabbled in (political) (o)economy. Economics technically is only the part of the history since the late-19th century. Here's what Robert Heilbroner writes on William Stanley Jevons (who published the General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy): "Perhaps even more noteworthy, he planned to write (although he did not live to do so) a book called Principles of Economics: it is significant that political economy was now called economics". But I don't really feel strongly about it, if the consensus is to go with the common term and accept the imprecision that goes with it I can live with it. I just wanted to bring it up as a point to consider. ~ trialsanderrors 19:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

But Oeconomica is a (neuter) plural; and economics is formed after it. Septentrionalis 19:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
As is economy. The point is here that economics is ambiguous, it could retroactively be applied to all of history or just stand for the history since ca. 1880. "Economic thought" doesn't have that problem. ~ trialsanderrors 20:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

As for moving, give it the five days, and I'll think about this. Not convinced now. Septentrionalis 03:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] Suggestion to merge Economic schools of thought into this article

Oppose: That article is mostly about not history but present. Significantly, the JEL classification codes#Schools of economic thought and methodology JEL: B Subcategories don't have any category for history of neoclassical economics beyond 1925. Why? Because beyond that point, it's now, not "history". --Thomasmeeks 11:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Oppose. Per Thomasmeeks. Page Up 23:52, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More merging

I want to open up the talk on merging Economic schools of thought with the history of economics articles. Here's the reason. I think that if you used the title "History of economic thought" then there's nothing to distinguish the two. If there is something, what is it? JEL which people keep talking about distinguishes Economic history from Schools of thought, but of course the former is about how economies (rather than economic theories) have evolved through history. Someone suggested above that if it's a current a current school of thought (e.g. neoclassicism) then it ain't history. It's present. Well, I personally don't believe in an End of history and to be fair schools of thought that may be predominant today have themselves had a history which on an encyclopedia deserves some unified explanation. Feel free to reply, agree, denounce what I've said, etc. Wikidea 02:11, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I support a merge, but I'd favour History of economic thought as the title, with a redirect from History of economics. This is the field description commonly used in economics, and that should be the decisive factor. Schools of thought is a different kind of classification, since multiple schools coexist at ohe time, and several remain viable today JQ 10:25, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging the pages

Hello, I am going ahead with the merger soon for this page into the History of economic thought. I wanted first to ask, can anyone identify what there is on this page, that isn't already covered on the HoET page, that ought to be? For example the section on pre-modern economic thought, there's some stuff about "Wáng Ānshí" (among others) who I admit I have never heard of before. I've already added a link to the main page of his in the HoET article, which (with the greatest respect) to him, should be enough - it seems there isn't much about what he actually thought you see, and the same goes for one or two of the other bits of frenetic info there and about. Please post your thoughts. Wikidea 13:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Like you, I've never heard of the Chinese or Indian writers listed here, and I don't think the space they are given here is consistent with WP:WEIGHT, but it would be a pity to lose this material. Maybe we could break out a separate article on premodern economic thought where more of a global approach would be appropriate. JQ 20:20, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger done

All material is either covered already in History of economic thought, bits more relevant to Schools of economics is now there, and I created a new page called Ancient economic thought where the old stuff can be found (though the page does seem rough at the moment!). Wikidea 18:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I've now redirected the page to Economic history because that's correct (of course!). The economic history page is not however, that impressive. Wikidea 09:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
No, no, no, no! Economic history is not the same thing as history of economics! Can you please undo this? And before you do something like this, you should discuss it with a few people. You can discuss it with me, for example. --Anthon.Eff 15:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
It's back on History of economic thought as a redirect. I'm a bit sceptical though. I would suggest the title History of economics is for Economic history - one example was a book by JK Galbraith, "A History of Economics". Although I can see a few societies do it the other way. Wikidea 10:18, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps we should put a notice at the top of both articles, pointing to the other one? Smmurphy(Talk) 19:51, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Upshot of this is as follows. 'Economic History' is the study of history using the tools of economics. An economic historian, for instance, would use the economic concepts of risk preference and portfolio theory to investigate the behavior of, say, farmers in the 14th century allocating crops to various common fields (and thus how the enclosure movement impacted the actions decisions of farmers).
'History of Economics' is the study of the intellectual history of the (economic) discipline. A historian of economic thought might be interested in pursuing the orgins and development of the concept of "Risk Preference". Not only would they be interested in the origns of the concept, but also what subsequent economic methods, models, concepts, etc., grew from the introduction of "risk preference" into the discipline.
There should be no redirects --- no suggestion to go to the other page --- 'History of Economics' are apples, 'Economic History' are oranges.
Cheers, Corebreeches 02:50, 30 September 2007 (UTC)