----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- The relationship of engineering to economic thought in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is a complex and fascinating topic. For starters, see Thorstein Veblen's Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) and his The Engineers and the Price System (1921). There are a number of articles that deal with Veblen's work. With bias I suggest, Janet Knoedler and Anne Mayhew, Thorstein Veblen and the Engineers: A Reinterpretation, History of Political Economy, 31:2 (Summer 1999): 254-272 both for interpretation and for citations. William Barber's From New Era to New Deal: Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy 1921-1933 (1985) provides an excellent account of the relationship of Herbert Hoover as engineer to the formation of economic policy. It is a fascinating story in which the ideas of a most unlikely pair, Herbert Hoover and Thorstein Veblen, overlap as a consequence of a long interplay between engineering and American economic thought. A Journal of Economic Literature survey article by Bela Gold, "Changing Perspectives on Size, Scale and returns: An Interpretive Survey," [XIX, March 1981, 5-33 carries part of the story forward and provides useful citations. Anne Mayhew ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]