SHOE Archives

Societies for the History of Economics

SHOE@YORKU.CA

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Condense Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Sender:
Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 28 Jul 2014 10:27:30 -0700
Reply-To:
Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
quoted-printable
In-Reply-To:
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=utf-8
From:
Robert Leeson <[log in to unmask]>
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (358 lines)
Graeme Dorrance's chapter is the source: Phillips, the undergraduate, couldn't understand a diagram in Boulding's textbook and so used his engineering training ...  

The Machine then inspired James Meade to enroll Phillips in a PhD; the stabilization exercise (associated with the curve) is a development from the Machine.  

----- Original Message -----
From: "M Morgan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 5:56:54 AM
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Kenneth Bounding and the 1949 Clark Medal

There is certainly a link between the development of the Mark I Machine built by Walter Newlyn and Bill Phillips - the link is found in an undergraduate essay of Phillips in which he references and reproduces one of Boulding' plumbing diagrams.  (Newlyn had also an undergraduate essay in which he considers an hydraulic design for macro-thinking about inflation.)  The evidence for this Phillips’ link is reported in my Chapter 5 (of The World in the Model, 2012) on the machine's creation by Newlyn and Phillips.



I did not find any evidence of links between Boulding and Phillips for the P Curve – but then I was not looking for such.



Mary Morgan



Professor Mary S. Morgan

LSE and University of Amsterdam



Catch Mary’s Keynes Lecture 2013 online here: http://www.britac.ac.uk/events/2013/Models_Fact_and_Fiction_in_Economics.cfm

General information, CV and “How Well Do Facts Travel?” project below:

[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/Research/facts/Home.aspx





-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Travel
Sent: 28 July 2014 12:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Kenneth Bounding and the 1949 Clark Medal



Robert what is you source for that attribution? I am not too surprised although I never heard Bill mentions Boulding as an inspiration in all the time I worked with him.



Re the text: one must not forget this was a different age for economics texts. Marshall was still used as a text in many places and up and coming young economises did not generally write texts until Samuelson showed them to way. Boulding's book was worth all the praise it apparently got from his contemporary economists and certainly from we honours students at UBC.



Richard Lipsey



-----Original Message----- re

From: Robert Leeson

Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2014 6:30 PM

To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

Subject: Re: [SHOE] Kenneth Boulding and the 1949 Clark Medal



Boulding's textbook resulted in the Phillips machine and the Phillips curve stabilization program.



Dorrance, G. 2000. Early reactions to Mark I and II. In Leeson, R. Ed *A.W.H

Phillips: Collected Works in Contemporary Perspective*. Cambridge: CUP.



----- Original Message -----

From: "Travel" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>

To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2014 2:51:05 PM

Subject: Re: [SHOE] Kenneth Boulding and the 1949 Clark Medal



I wonder if anyone in our group other than myself was raised on Bounding’s wonderful text Economic Analysis. After the dry books I used and consulted as a student of elementary economics at UBC in the late-1940s, I used Bounding’s great book in my second year theory course. (In those days a course lasted a whole academic year, what would now be 21/2  semesters.) It was wonderful and gave me a sense of economics being a really relevant subject. It confirmed me in my as-yet tentative view that I wanted to become a professional researcher in economics.







Perhaps I might be allowed to add that the series of nearly a dozen articles that Curt Eaton and I wrote in the 1970s on economic geography and monopolistic competition (reprinted in the volume The Foundations of Economic Geography and Monopolistic Competition) and still cited regularly, mainly by economic geographers, was originally motivated when I read Boulding’s  exposition of, and elaborations on, Hoteling’s  duopolistic competition in a linear market. I think it was Boulding who christened this “The “Principle of Minimum Differentiation”. On reading Boulding’s account, I set myself the research project of discovering if the many generalisations that Boulding suggested followed from Hoteling’s two-firm case would stand up to careful theoretical investigation. I thank Boulding for the 10 fruitful years that Curt and I spent on this subject.







Richard Lipsey









From: Coffin, Donald A

Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2014 12:32 PM

To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

Subject: Re: [SHOE] Kenneth Boulding and the 1949 Clark Medal



In response to James Forder's suggestion that "...the recipients after the mid-1970s have a higher propensity to become really notable economists than did those before that time."





Here's the list of recipients from the beginning until 1973:



1947 Paul A. Samuelson

1949 Kenneth E. Boulding

1951 Milton Friedman

1953 No Award

1955 James Tobin

1957 Kenneth J. Arrow

1959 Lawrence R. Klein

1961 Robert M. Solow

1963 Hendrik S. Houthakker

1965 Zvi Griliches

1967 Gary S. Becker

1969 Marc Leon Nerlove

1971 Dale W. Jorgenson

1973 Franklin M. Fisher





I'm not sure how that list supports Dr. Forder's suggestion.  (Except maybe for the 1953 award.)











Don Coffin





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of

James Forder [[log in to unmask]]

Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2014 8:54 PM

To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

Subject: Re: [SHOE] Kenneth Boulding and the 1949 Clark Medal





I have sometimes wondered about Friedman in that kind of way too (not

particularly in relation to the Bates medal). Before ‘A theory of the

consumption function’ (1957) I am not sure that his publications alone

really support some of the remarks one can read from that time about how

clever he was. Isn’t the answer that in those days, assessments based on

personal interactions, comments, private correspondence, discussions at

conferences and the like had much more weight than now, as compared to

publications? As it turned out, Friedman and Tobin produced more than

Boulding, but I am not sure they would have seemed cleverer than him to

those who knew them in the ‘40s. It is our publications-based view that

tells the misleading story, perhaps?



Here’s a suggestion that might raise controversy: Looking at the list at

http://www.aeaweb.org/honors_awards/clark_medal.php and ignoring the recent

awards (since it is too soon to say), the recipients after the mid-1970s

have a higher propensity to become really notable economists than did those

before that time. I hypothesise that this is because as time went on the

award of the medal was increasingly based on publications rather than other

assessments, and those who publish much before they are 40 carry on doing so

afterwards.



best wishes



James









James Forder

Fellow and Tutor in Political Economy

Balliol College Oxford











On 26 Jul 2014, at 22:42, David Mitch <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:





  In 1949, Kenneth Boulding was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal for best

economist under the age of 40. He was the second person to get this award,

after Paul Samuelson in 1947.  Could anyone explain why Boulding would have

been chosen for this award?   It is not evident to me at least that his

contributions or potential circa 1949 would have put him in the same league

as other early Clark winners including Samuelson, Friedman, and Tobin.  In

posing this query, I intend no disrespect for either Boulding, who I think

had a quite fascinating and worthwhile career, or the Clark Medal.  I would

just like to try to understand why Boulding might have been chosen for this

award in 1949.



  By the way, I have looked at Philippe Fontaine's 2010 article on Boulding

in _Science in Context_. I think it is an excellent article. But it doesn't

address directly the question of why Boulding might have gotten the Clark

Medal.



  A related query is what were the institutional arrangements for selecting

the Clark Medal winner in the late 1940s.  Presumably there was a selection

committee.  Who was on this committee?

  Would John Maurice Clark, JB Clark's son have been involved in the

selection process?  Was there some pot of money involved in funding this

award?  If so, where did the money come from?





  David Mitch



  --



  David Mitch

  Professor of Economics

  Graduate Program Director

  Economic Policy Analysis

  Affiliate Professor, Asian Studies

  University of Maryland, Baltimore County

  email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://lse.ac.uk/emailDisclaimer

ATOM RSS1 RSS2