[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Most obviously, Laughlinbrought Thorstein Veblen with him from Cornell, and shortly thereafter placed himin charge of editing the Journal of Political Economy.As Hodgson has argued (2004),Veblen s years at Chicago (from 1892 to 1906) were remarkably creative ones.Duringthis time he published The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), The Theory of BusinessEnterprise (1904), and developed much of the material that would appear later in TheInstinct of Workmanship (1914).Veblen s presence on the faculty had a substantial impacton a number of students, particularly Wesley Mitchell and Robert Hoxie, but others aswell.Mitchell s 1899 doctoral dissertation,  History of the United States notes  pub-lished as A History of the Greenbacks (Mitchell 1903)  was prepared under Laughlin ssupervision, but Mitchell was deeply impressed with Veblen s analysis of pecuniary or business institutions and their failings (including business cycles).In Mitchell s casethese Veblenian ideas were combined with a strongly empirical bent, and John Dewey sinstrumentalist philosophy (Dewey was a member of the Philosophy Department atChicago from 1894 to 1902).Mitchell taught at Chicago as an instructor in 1901 and1902 but, despite Laughlin s efforts to retain him, left for Berkeley in 1903.2526 The Elgar companion to the Chicago School of EconomicsRobert Hoxie completed his doctorate in 1905, and his earlier work, in particular,is full of Veblenian concepts.On the basis of his investigations of trade unions, Hoxieeventually came to reject the Veblenian notion of machine industry creating a radicalizedtrade union movement (Hoxie 1917), but Veblen also changed his views on that issue.Hoxie taught at Chicago from 1906 until his suicide in 1916.His teaching method wasboth empirical and focused on the actual functioning of institutions, and inspired manystudents.Clarence Ayres came to Chicago with the intention of studying with Hoxie, butHoxie s death occurred very shortly afterward, and Ayres switched into philosophy.On Hoxie s recommendation, Laughlin hired Walton Hamilton from Michigan toChicago in 1913 (Dorfman 1974, p.6).Hamilton only stayed at Chicago until 1915when he moved to Amherst, but Hoxie and Hamilton became close friends.Accordingto Hamilton, it was Hoxie who first used the term  institutional economist to describehimself (Hamilton 1916).Hamilton later introduced the term into the literature of eco-nomics in a paper presented at an American Economic Association (AEA) meeting in1918 titled  The institutional approach to economic theory (Hamilton 1919).The paperis a manifesto for this  institutional approach to economics.Hamilton argued thatanything that  aspired to the name of economic theory had to be (i) capable of givingunity to economic investigations of many different areas; (ii) relevant to the problem ofcontrol; (iii) related to institutions as both the  changeable elements of economic life andthe agencies through which they are to be directed ; (iv) concerned with  process in theform of institutional change and development; and (v) based on an acceptable theory ofhuman behavior, one in harmony with the  conclusions of modern social psychology.According to Hamilton, among the  leaders of this move to develop an institutionaleconomic theory were Thorstein Veblen and Wesley Mitchell.Also involved in the same conference session was J.M.Clark, who had been hired toChicago from Amherst by Laughlin in 1915.Clark s doctoral dissertation had been onrailway regulation and Laughlin wanted a  railway man (J.Laurence Laughlin to H.C.Adams, 7 April 1915, H.C.Adams Papers, Box 10, Folder April 1915).At this point inhis career, however, Clark was attempting to accommodate Veblen s critique of neoclas-sical economics, and was turning his interest to issues such as social value, economics andpsychology, institutional reform and  social control.His paper at the 1918 conferencesession was titled  Economic theory in an era of social readjustment (Clark 1919), andcomplemented Hamilton s paper by arguing for an economics  actively relevant to theissues of its time.Another member of this group was Harold Moulton.Moulton completed his PhDat Chicago in 1914 under Laughlin, but he also admired Veblen (Dorfman 1959).He became an assistant professor at Chicago in the same year.Clark, Hamilton, andMoulton co-authored Readings in the Economics of War (1918).Moulton developedinterests in monetary and financial economics, and his work contained a clear undercon-sumptionist position.He was promoted rapidly and stayed at Chicago until 1922.In the period up to 1918, the department at Chicago contained, at various times,virtually all of those individuals most closely associated with the founding of the institu-tionalist movement: Veblen, Hoxie, Mitchell, Hamilton, and Clark.Chicago, thus, has astrong claim to be seen as the birthplace of what became known as  institutional econom-ics [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]