Steve Medema and I summed up what seems to be known about the origin of this
quote in our piece in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2009. We said
that we had been unable to find the statement in Viner's publications, but a
remark by Kenneth Boulding (Economic Analysis, 1941, p. 1), suggests it was
made in conversation. Boulding was a student of Viner's in 1932-3.

Roger Backhouse


On 13 April 2011 05:13, Pat Gunning <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Your next question, Sam. "How do you know that Jacob Viner was an
> economist?"
>
> By the way, as I recall, there is some dispute about whether Viner said
> this. I wrote something about this on this list a couple of months ago, as I
> recall. Do a search on "what economists do."
>
> On 4/12/2011 11:45 AM, Samuel Bostaph wrote:
>
>> Who is an "economist?"
>>
>> Samuel Bostaph, Ph.D.
>> Champaign, Illinois
>>
>> "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves
>> up and hurry off as if nothing happened."--Winston Churchill
>>
>> --- On *Mon, 4/11/11, Thomas Humphrey /<[log in to unmask]>/* wrote:
>>
>>
>>    From: Thomas Humphrey <[log in to unmask]>
>>    Subject: [SHOE] DeLong on Econ Ed
>>    To: [log in to unmask]
>>    Date: Monday, April 11, 2011, 1:12 PM
>>
>>    Students should be taught economics.
>>    Economics is defined as what economists do (including modeling).
>>    Therefore students should be taught modeling, among other things.
>>
>>
> --
> Pat Gunning
> Professor of Economics
> Melbourne, Florida
> http://www.nomadpress.com/gunning/welcome.htm
>