Ensayo sobre el principio de la población

Copia digital : Biblioteca Virtual de Patrimonio Bibliográfico (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte

Evidence and Ideology in Macroeconomics: The Case of Investment Cycles

The paper reports the principal findings of a long term research project on the description and explanation of business cycles. The research strongly confirmed the older view that business cycles have large systematic components that take the form of investment cycles. These quasi-periodic movements can be represented as low order, stochastic, dynamic processes with complex eigenvalues. Specifically, there is a fixed investment cycle of about 8 years and an inventory cycle of about 4 years. Maximum entropy spectral analysis was employed for the description of the cycles and continuous time econometrics for the explanatory models. The central explanatory mechanism is the second order accelerator, which incorporates adjustment costs both in relation to the capital stock and the rate of investment. By means of parametric resonance it was possible to show, both theoretically and empirically how cycles aggregate from the micro to the macro level. The same mathematical tool was also used to explain the international convergence of cycles. I argue that the theory of investment cycles was abandoned for ideological, not for evidential reasons. Methodological issues are also discussed

Accounting: A General Commentary on an Empirical Science

Many researchers have questioned the view of accounting as a science. Some maintain that it is a service activity rather than a science, yet others entertain the view that it is an art or merely a technology. While it is true that accounting provides a service and is a technology (a methodology for recording and reporting), that fact does not prevent accounting from being a science. Based upon the structure and knowledge base of the discipline, this paper presents the case for accounting as an empirical science

Chapitre VI

Les nouvelles colonies. – Raisons de leur croissance rapide. – Les colonies d’Amérique du Nord. – Exemple extraordinaire de croissance dans les colonies de l’intérieur. – Rapidité avec laquelle même les vieux États se remettent des ravages de la guerre, de la peste, de la famine ou des cataclysmes naturels

Chapitre IX

Thèses de M. Condorcet sur la perfectibilité organique de l’homme et la prolongation indéfinie de la vie humaine. – Fausseté de l’argumentation qui, d’une amélioration partielle dont la limite ne peut être connue, conclut à un progrès illimité ; exemples tirés de l’élevage des animaux et de la culture des plantes