Economic essays

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: John Bates Clark as an economist / Jacob H. Hollander

Collection:: Economics Books

2 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK a a Ly Le with Clark is organic relation rather than objective coincidence. In 1876 Dunbar had admitted, “The United States have thus far done nothing toward developing the theory of political economy,” and four years later Cliffe Leslie had particularized: “American political economy is in the main an importation from Europe, not an original development.” But the extraordinary changes in American economic organization were already begin- ning to exert influence. A new spirit of realistic study of sur- rounding phenomena was becoming manifest, with an accompany- ing reflex of doctrinal controversies then raging among English economists. More notable than these factors was the return to the United States in the early eighties of a remarkable company of young scholars from post-graduate study in German universities. Their arrival and activity effected a virtual renascence in American economic thought. With others trained in this country lodgment was found in leading universities; student bodies gathered, and productive scholarship developed. The dominant characteristics of the group were an avowal of the historical inductive method, and an election in the main of concrete problems for inquiry. At Harvard, Taussig traced the growth and influence of American protectionism; at Yale, Hadley concerned himself with railway transportation, and Farnam with social problems; at Columbia, Seligman studied the theory and practice of public finance and Mayo-Smith pursued statistical inquiries; at Johns Hopkins, Ely made pioneer studies of local taxation and of the labor movement; at Pennsylvania, James studied municipal economics and at Michigan, H. C. Adams became identified with fiscal studies. A “statement of principles” proposed and accepted in the formation of the American Eco- nomic Association at Saratoga in 1885 as “a general indication of the views and the purposes” of the founders contained the declaration: “While we appreciate the work of former economists, we look not so much to speculation as to the historical and statistical study of actual conditions of economic life” for the further development of political economy. 5 In the organization and early activity of the American Economic Association the extreme “historical” tendency in the United States spent itself. Stirred by militant challenge, heartened by clearness of issue, supplied with convenient chan-

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