Errors in Time as Causes of Economic Fluctuations: An Introduction

The role of expectations and of their disappointment in determining economic fluctuations was first studied by the great economists of the 1930s. Amongst them is Marco Fanno. Fanno’s most popular contributions on this topic are his 1931 article Cicli di produzione, cicli del credito e fluttuazioni industriali and his 1947 [1956] book La teoria delle fluttuazioni economiche. Relatively little known is his 1933 article Irrtümer in der Zeit als Ursachen wirtschaftlicher Schwankungen published in German in Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie. The present article is an introduction to the English translation (published for the first time in the current issue of this journal) and of the Italian translation (available from the website of this journal) of the 1933 article. The aim of this introduction is to help readers to determine the essential similarities and some important differences between the 1931 article and the less known article of 1933. The most relevant of these differences is the greater attention devoted in the latter article to errors in time (an expression equivalent to the disappointment of expectations that is found in modern literature) and to the interactions between these errors, the origin of fluctuations and the changes in the time structure of production. Our introduction endeavours to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the 1933 article considered both on its own and in relation to the 1931 article from which it was derived. The relations between the 1933 article, translated here, and the macroeconomic theory that was developed in the 1930s and in the following decades will be examined in a different paper

Alfred Marshall's critical analysis of scientific management

In Industry and Trade, 'A study of industrial technique and business organization; and of their influences on the conditions of various classes and nations' (1919), Alfred Marshall develops a detailed analysis of scientific management, emphasizing not only its unquestionable advantages but also its dangerous limits. Although in the literature Marshall's evaluation of scientific management has been considered rather positive, the author has found it sceptical and definitively critical in many passages of his book. This paper deals with Marshall's analysis in order to underline the reasons why he criticizes Taylor's system, which, at that time, sounded like the greatest expression of modernity.Scientific management, industrial organization, division of labour, progress,

Capitale vs lavoro nei manuali di economia politica in Italia tra fine Ottocento e primi Novecento

Tra fine Ottocento e primi Novecento si sviluppa, affermandosi di l\uec a poco quale approccio mainstream, l\u2019economia marginalista-neoclassica. Diversi sono gli aspetti che differenziano questo approccio da quello fino ad allora prevalente, quello classico. Uno di questi aspetti riguarda l\u2019analisi del capitale e del lavoro. In questo scritto ci proponiamo di indagare il modo in cui alcuni economisti italiani nei loro manuali di economia politica, pubblicati tra fine Ottocento e primo Novecento, trattano del problema della relazione tra capitale e lavoro nelle teorie della produzione e della distribuzione

Institutional Economics and the Concept of Equilibrium

Institutionalism did exert a great influence both in the academia and in politics in the interwar period. However, after World War II, it lost ground and was pushed behind the scenes, although some distinguished exponents reached a remarkable success. In the 1970s, a new and very different kind of institutionalism developed. The paper inquires, through the use of the concept of equilibrium, into the evolution of institutionalism, from the classic, through the modern, to the new institutionalism

Alfred Marshall's Idea of Progress and Sustainable Development

The goal of bettering the quality of life (for the present and the future) is the inspiring principle of sustainable development, but even though this word is recent, it is not brand-new. Many of the conditions set for economic development to be \u2018\u2018sustainable\u2019\u2019 were already recognized and stated by a few economists of the past. Among them Alfred Marshall deserves special mention. In this paper we shall attempt to strengthen this interpretation of Marshall\u2019s contribution, in order to draw attention to interesting but less well-known aspects of his thought