===================== 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 ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]