===================== HES POSTING ====================== 
 
Preface to HES list: 
 
Laurence Moss was HES President, 1994-95, and is a member of the Executive 
Committee today.  He initiated the discussion of getting the Society on 
internet and Babson College provided the first home for this e-mail list 
in winter 1995.  Thank you, Larry. 
 
The paper is available from Laurence Moss <[log in to unmask]>, not from me. 
 
----Paul Wendt, Coordinator, Kress Seminar in HEcTh 
 
 
==== Kress Notice, middlemarch'97 
 
                                        11 Mar 1997  
Kress seminar participants,  
 
This year we have a truly "Spring" term seminar, with the first session 
next Thursday, 20 March, 7:40-10 pm, Littauer M16 on the Harvard campus.  
We feature a paper with two discussants (or so I hope, seeking one): 
 
    Laurence Moss (Babson C)  
        The Advent of the Mathematical Mind in the United States:     
        Historical Problems Raised by the Edgeworth-Seligman Exchange  
  
    Discussant: Robert Dorfman (Harvard U)  
                and TBA  
 
    Paper available from the author: e-mail <[log in to unmask]> 
 
LAURENCE MOSS founded the Kress Seminar, Senior, in the late 1970s.  He 
has been a regular participant throughout Junior's ten years and he chairs 
the advisory committee today.  Larry's many papers include several 
presented here, on 18c Brits such as Mandeville and Hume and 20c Austrians 
such as Schumpeter and Hayek.  He cut his eye teeth in New York and often 
confers East of the Rhein today, so it is fitting that he turn to E.R.A. 
Seligman, the man who brought German-language economics to America via 
Columbia University.  I rely on his description of the paper:       ----PW 
 
In 1892, Edwin R.A. Seligman published __The Shifting and Incidence of 
Taxation__, an interesting book which combined a masterly survey of 
economic thinking about taxation with a logical-deductive account of how 
various particular taxes affect market outcomes. 
    Five years later, F.Y. Edgeworth published a series of three articles 
on "The Pure Theory of Taxation" (__Economic Journal__ 1897) and revealed 
one place in Seligman's book where the American economist had made an 
erroneous deduction.  Seligman did not take kindly to this criticism and 
found something about Edgeworth's mathematical methods to criticize also. 
    My paper deals with both the details of the Seligman-Edgeworth debate 
and the perceptions about mathematical method among at least Seligman's 
generation of American economists.                                  ----LM 
 
ROBERT DORFMAN (Economics, Harvard) is a microeconomist reknowned for his 
work on mathematical theory and environmental policy.  His work on the 
history of economics focuses on theories of capital and distribution, 
especially among Bohm-Bawerk and his many rivals.  Thus he knows the late 
19th century time period and transatlantic setting inhabited by Seligman 
and Edgeworth --the "salad days" simultaneously of neoclassical theory, 
professional economics, and lively international debate.            ----PW 
 
SECOND DISCUSSANT ?  Contact me ASAP if you are interested. 
 
 
Dinner  
    Anyone interested in dinner and conversation before the seminar is 
    invited to gather at the Singha House Thai restaurant (1105 Mass. Ave) 
    at 6:00.  The food is great, matched only by the company.  The Singha 
    House is prepared to handle late additions to a party (to about 6:30 
    for dinner or 7:00 for appetizer or drink, given our time constraint).  
     
I hope to see you Thursday,  
 
                                    imagine my signature, P/\/\/\/t 
 
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