Compulsory Course - 3nd Semester (Autumn 2nd year) | Course ID: 010 | E-Class

Lecturer

Nicholas Theocarakis

Language of instruction

Greek

Course content

• Introduction to the methodology of economic science
• -The economics of the ancient Greeks: Plato [Republic], Xenophon [Cyropaedia & Oeconomicus] and Aristotle [Politics & Nicomachean Ethics]
• The economic teaching of the Middle Ages. The Scholastics: Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, School of Salamanca
• Mercantilism [British and Continental]. Interpretations [liberal, historical, and modern].
• From mercantilism to Physiocracy: Boisguilbert, Vauban, Bernard de Mandeville, John Locke, Sir William Petty, Richard Cantillon, John Law, David Hume, Ferdinando Galiani, Daniel Bernoulli
• Physiocracy: Quesnay (Tableau Oeconomique), Mirabeau, Dupont de Nemours, Turgot
• Classical political economy: Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith
• Classical political economy: Thomas Robert Malthus, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill.
• Marxist political economy: Karl Marx - Friedrich Engels.
• The precursors of neoclassical economics: Jean-Baptiste Say, Johann Heinrich von Thünen, Augustin Cournot, Hermann Heinrich Gossen, Jules Dupuit.
• The marginalist revolution: W. Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger and Léon Walras. The Methodenstreit.
• The consolidation of neoclassical economics: Alfred Marshall, F. Y. Edgeworth, Vilfredo Pareto, John Bates Clark, Irving Fisher, Knut Wicksell, Gustav Cassel, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser, Maffeo Pantaleoni, Enrico Barone.
• Institutional economists: Thorstein Veblen.
• The concept of equilibrium: Walras vs. Edgeworth. From the Vienna Colloquium to Arrow-Debreu.
• Interwar developments, John Maynard Keynes, Michał Kalecki, Joseph Alois Schumpeter.
• Post-war developments and controversies.

Bibliography

Textbooks

• Roncaglia, Alessandro, The Wealth of Ideas: A History of Economic Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• Hunt, E.K. and Mark Lautzenheiser, History of economic thought: a critical perspective, 3^rd updated edition, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2011.
• Screpanti, Ernesto and Stefano Zamagni, An Outline of the History of Economic Thought, [translated by David Field from the Italian Profilo di storia del pensiero economico], Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 2^nd edition, 2005.
• Backhouse, Roger E., The Ordinary Business of Life: A History of Economics from the Ancient World to the Twenty-First Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
• Vaggi, Gianni and Peter Groenewegen, A Concise History of Economic Thought: From Mercantilism to Monetarism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003
• Schumpeter, Joseph A., History of Economic Analysis [Edited from manuscript by Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter; with a new introduction by Mark Perlman], New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 1^st edition 1954.
• Niehans, Jürg, AHistory of Economic Theory: Classic Contributions, 1720-1980, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.
• Rubin, Isaac Ilych, A History of Economic Thought[Translated from the Russian and edited by Donald Filtzer. Afterword by Catherine Colliot-Thélène], London: Ink Links, 1979.
• Robbins, Lionel, A History of Economic Thought: The LSE Lectures, edited by Steven G. Medema and Warren J. Samuels, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998.

Collection of texts

• Steven G. Medema and Warren J. Samuels, The History of Economic Thought: A Reader, New York: Routledge, 2013, 2^nd edition.
• Ρηγίνος Δ Θεοχάρης (επιμ ), Η εξέλιξη της οικονομικής σκέψεως από τους αρχαίους Έλληνες στους κλασικούς: Επιλογές από κείμενα, Αθήνα: Παπαζήσης, 1985.

Collections of articles

• Blaug, Mark (ed.) Pioneers in Economics, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 1990-1992 (46 volumes).
• Cunningham Wood, John (ed.) Critical Assessments of Leading Economists, Routledge, London 1981-2003 (19 volumes).

Dictionary

• John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman (eds), The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, London, Macmillan, 1987.

Accompanying volume

• Warren J. Samuels, Jeff Biddle and John Bryan Davis (eds), A Companion to the History of Economic Thought, Malden, Mass., Blackwell, 2003.

Links to original texts that are freely available are posted in the course’s e-class platforms (Documents)

Recorded lectures are available in e-class (Open Delos and WebEx platform)

Lecture slides are posted on e-class.

Assessment

Assessment is based on the grade of the written examination at the end of the semester. The course syllabus is posted on the e-class. Critical thinking, analytical ability and knowledge of economic theory are positively assessed.