"This is a remarkable book. It is the first attempt of which I am aware to deal with the complexity of Joan Robinson's contributions to Cambridge economics in the 1930s. Robinson is an iconic figure, and a series of legends-mostly created by Robinson herself in a complex process of personality and career formation-makes such a historical reconstruction necessary. 'Necessary' is the right word, since the entire history of what is now called macroeconomics, and a number of elements of the history of neoclassical economics in the pre-Second World War period, have been told from the perspective of Cambridge, England, by individuals engaged in defending the Cambridge tradition." -- E. Roy Weintraub, author of How Economics Became a Mathematical Science "The Provocative Joan Robinson is an engaging, insightful, and highly original treatment of a significant figure and community in the history of economics." -- Steven G. Medema, author of The Hesitant Hand: Taming Self-Interest in the History of Economic Ideas
Aslanbeigui and Oakes demonstrate that Robinson’s professional identity was thoroughly embedded in a local scientific culture in which the Cambridge economists A. C. Pigou, John Maynard Keynes, Dennis Robertson, Piero Sraffa, Richard Kahn (Robinson’s closest friend on the Cambridge faculty), and her husband Austin Robinson were important figures. Although the economists Joan Robinson most admired—Pigou, Keynes, and their mentor Alfred Marshall—had discovered ideas of singular greatness, she was convinced that each had failed to grasp the essential theoretical significance of his own work. She made it her mission to recast their work both to illuminate their major contributions and to redefine a Cambridge tradition of economic thought. Based on the extensive correspondence of Robinson and her colleagues, The Provocative Joan Robinson is the story of a remarkable woman, the intellectual and social world of a legendary group of economists, and the interplay between ideas, ambitions, and disciplinary communities.
Collage with Woman in Foreground 1
1. The Improbable Theoretician 17
Excursus: Robinson and Kahn 51
2. The Making of The Economics of Imperfect Competition 89
3. Becoming a Keynesian 161
"Who Is Joan Robinson?" 235
Notes 247
Bibliography 279
Index 295
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Nahid Aslanbeigui is Professor of Economics and the Chair of Economics, Finance, and Real Estate at Monmouth University. She is co-editor of Rethinking Economic Principles: Critical Essays on Introductory Textbooks and Women in the Age of Economic Transformation: Gender Impact of Reforms in Post-Socialist and Developing Countries.
Guy Oakes is Professor of Philosophy and Jack T. Kvernland Professor in the School of Business, also at Monmouth University. He is the author of The Imaginary War: Civil Defense and American Cold War Culture and Weber and Rickert: Concept Formation in the Cultural Sciences.