Pre-Classical Economists Volume I: Charles Davenant (1656–1714) and William Petty (1623–1687)

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Pre-Classical Economists Volume I: Charles Davenant (1656–1714) and William Petty (1623–1687)

9781852784683 Edward Elgar Publishing
Edited by the late Mark Blaug, former Professor Emeritus, University of London and Professor Emeritus, University of Buckingham, UK
Publication Date: January 1991 ISBN: 978 1 85278 468 3 Extent: 272 pp
Charles Davenant was one of the leading economic pamphleteers of the 1690s. He frequently developed general principles, some of which sound almost like the early writings of Adam Smith. He was, however, a Mercantilist in the sense that he underlined the advantages of a favourable balance of trade as a source of political power, favoured population growth and decried luxury spending.

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Charles Davenant was one of the leading economic pamphleteers of the 1690s. He frequently developed general principles, some of which sound almost like the early writings of Adam Smith. He was, however, a Mercantilist in the sense that he underlined the advantages of a favourable balance of trade as a source of political power, favoured population growth and decried luxury spending.

William Petty focused on some practical questions of his times including war finance, monetary reform, relief for the poor. His work contains a veritable cornucopia of terms and concepts that came to dominate economic thinking for the next three centuries; ‘full employment’ and ‘ceteris paribus’, the idea of national income as identical to national expenditure, public works as a method of dealing with unemployment etc. However his greatest contribution was the invention of what he called ‘political arithmetic’, the quantitative estimation of both the stock of national wealth and the flow of national income to determine the appropriate base for taxation.
Contributors
10 articles, dating from 1900 to 1988
Contributors include: T. Aspromourgos, A.F. Chalk, J. Creedy, B.W. Dempsey, A.M. Endres, G.H. Evans, Jr., T.E. Gregory, C.H. Hull, O.H. Taylor
Contents
Contents:
1. C.H Hull (1900), ''Petty''s Place in the History of Economic Theory''
2. T.E. Gregory (1921), ''The Economics of Employmet in England, 1660-1713''
3. O.H. Taylor (1929/1930), ''Economics and the Idea of Natural Laws I,II''
4. B.W. Dempsey (1935-6), ''The Historical Emergence of Quantity Theory''
5. A.F. Chalk (1951), ''Natural Law and the Rise of Economic Individualism in England''
6. G.H. Evans, Jr (1967), ''The Law of Demand - The Roles of Gregory King and Charles Davenant''
7. T. Aspromourgos (1986), ''Political Economy and the Social Division of Labour: The Economics of Sir William Petty''
8. J. Creedy (1986), ''On the King-Davenant "Law" of Demand''
9. A.M. Endres (1987), ''The King-Davenant "Law" in Classical Economics
10. T. Aspromourgos (1988), ''The Life of William Petty in Relation to his Economics: a tercentary interpretation''
Name Index
1. T.W. Hutchison (1953), ''Berkeley''s Querist and its Place in the Economic Thought of the Eighteenth Century''
2. I.D.S. Ward (1959), ''George Berkeley: Precursor of Keynes or Moral Economist on Underdevelopment?''
3. N.E. Devletoglou (1963), ''Montesquieu and the Wealth of Nation''
4. M. Blaug (1964), ''Economic Theory and Economic History in Great Britain''
5. F. Cesarano (1976), ''Monetary Theory in Ferdinando Galiani''s Della Moneta''
6. J.J. Spengler (1984), ''Boisguilbert''s Economic Views vis-a-vis those of Contemporary Reformateurs''
7. S. Rashid (1987), ''Political Economy as Moral Philosophy: Dugald Stewart of Edinburgh''
8. R. Predergast (1987), ''James Anderson''s Political Economy - his Influence on Smith and Malthus''
9. S. Rashid (1988), ''The Irish School of Economic Development 1720-1750''
Name Index
1. M.W. Holtrop (1929), ''Theries of the Velocity of Circulation of Money in Earlier Economic Literature''
2. Frank W. Fetter (1932), ''Some Neglected Aspects of Gresham''s Law''
3. Max J. Wasserman and Frank H. Beach (1934), ''Some Neglected Monetary Theories of John Law''
4. Earl J. Hamilton (1937), ''Prices and Wages at Paris under John Law''s System''
5. N.G. Pauling (1951), ''The Employment Problem in Pre-Classical Economic Thought''
6. Emil Kauder (1953), ''The Retarded Acceptance of the Marginal Utility Theory''
7. Jacob Viner (1960), ''The Intellectual History of Laissez Faire''
8. Marian Bowley (1963), ''Some Seventeenth Century Contributions to the Theory of Value''
9. Alfred F. Chalk (1966), ''Mandeville''s Fable of the Bees: A Reappraisal''
10. M.J. Scott-Taggart (1966), ''Mandeville: Cynic or Fool''
11. Earl J. Hamilton (1969), ''The Political Economy of France at the Time of John Law''
12. Harry Landreth (1975), ''The Economic Thought of Bernard Mandeville''
13. Albert O. Hirschman (1982), ''Rival Interpretations of Market Society: Civilizing, Destructive or Feeble?''
Name Index

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