Warren J. Samuels has been a prominent figure in the study of economics in the twentieth century. This book brings together essays by leading scholars in the areas of economics in which Samuels has made his most important contributions: the history of economic thought, economic methodology, and institutional and post-Keynesian economics.

This work is designed to give the reader a sense of the breadth and possibilities of economics. The essays, all published here for the first time, investigate issues such as:

• The institutional structures that shape economic activity...

The history of economic thought has always attracted some of the brightest minds in the discipline. These chroniclers of development have helped form our current views, and it is no surprise that many among them have been at the forefront of new movements in the history of ideas.

This notable collection summarizes the work of these key historians of economics and attempts to quantify their impact. Some of the writers covered, such as Friedrich Hayek and Joan Robinson, are already assured of their place among the greatest economists of the twentieth century, but the collection also...

This volume explores the social, political, and intellectual contexts in which twentieth-century notions of market failure were developed. Markets can fail to perform in ways that best promote the larger interests of society: this idea is as old as economics itself and is one of the most crucial issues with which economic thinkers have had to grapple. However, while the history of the theory of market failure has received some critical examination, little attention has been paid to the larger contexts in which these theoretical analyses emerged. Contributors to this volume directly examine...