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This chapter investigates the nature of the transformation of macroeconomics by focusing on the impact of the Great Depression on economic doctrines. There is no doubt that the Great Depression exerted an enormous influence on economic thought, but the exact nature of its impact should be examined more carefully. In this chapter, I examine the transformation from a perspective which emphasizes the interaction between economic ideas and economic events, and the interaction between theory and policy rather than the development of economic theory. More specifically, I examine the evolution of what became known as macroeconomics after the Depression in terms of an ongoing debate among the “stabilizers” and their critics. I further suggest using four perspectives, or schools of thought, as measures to locate the evolution and transformation; the gold standard mentality, liquidationism, the Treasury view, and the real-bills doctrine. By highlighting these four economic ideas, I argue that what happened during the Great Depression was the retreat of the gold standard mentality, the complete demise of liquidationism and the Treasury view, and the strange survival of the real-bills doctrine. Each of those transformations happened not in response to internal debates in the discipline, but in response to government policies and real-world events.

Marshall, Pigou, and Keynes on one side of the Atlantic, and Fisher on the other, had different approaches to the quantity theory of money. But they shared its basic framework, with the result that theoretical discussions did not prevent some degree of mutual support on policy proposals. If a divergence there was, at this stage, this pertained the feasibility of Fisher’s proposals, because Fisher’s enthusiasm for reform could find no match at Cambridge. This notwithstanding, and although in varying degrees, Marshall, Pigou, and Keynes were sympathetic with Fisher’s battle for “stable money.” Indeed, a fragment from the Keynes Papers shows that, at a very early stage of his career, Keynes paid great attention to Fisher’s empirical research on the relationship between “Appreciation and interest,” taking the relation between nominal and real rates of interest as a possible explanation of the trade cycle. For some time at least, this widened the common ground upon which Fisher’s proposals for “stable money” could find some support at Cambridge.

Purpose – The chapter compares gift and market exchange in Hawaiian and New Zealand fisheries.Methodology/approach – The chapter draws upon a combination of original ethnographic fieldwork and literature pertaining to fisheries in both New Zealand and Hawaii.Findings – The privatization of fishing rights in New Zealand, in conjunction with a social policy directed toward Maori addressing colonial dispossession, has resulted in the dominance of market exchange, the creation of a purified version of indigenous gift exchange, and the attempted elimination of any hybrid activities. This has not been a positive outcome for the majority of coastal Maori. Fisheries development in Hawai’i has taken a different path. The flexibility that inheres in Hawaiian fisheries enables ongoing participation in both gift and cash economies.Originality/value – Over the last few decades western economies have witnessed a rapid extension of market approaches to many commonly owned environmental goods, a movement which has been entrenched as global policy orthodoxy. The social consequences of this development have been under researched. This chapter challenges the neoliberal model of using market mechanisms and property rights as “the way to do” natural resource management.

William Amasa Scott was in his time well-known as a monetary economist as well as a popularizer of economic ideas, whose opinions were widely regarded by the public. A proponent of Austrian economics and defender of classical economic theory, he soon found a home at the School of Economics, Political Science and History (later the School of Economics) at the University of Wisconsin which, while initially a mainstream department, would evolve into the citadel of Institutional Economics. Notwithstanding his status as an authority on monetary economics and his place as a public intellectual, he remained at the University something of an outsider throughout his career and today is largely forgotten.

This chapter gives in “Introduction to the Human Capital Issue” a critical analysis of the standard (economic) Human Capital (HC) theory, with the help of some “traditional” (founding) accounting concepts. From this study, to avoid the accounting and social issues highlighted in “Introduction to the Human Capital Issue,” we present, in “The “Triple Depreciation Line” Model and the Human Capital,” the “Triple Depreciation Line” (TDL) accounting model, developed by Rambaud & Richard (2015b), and we apply it to “HC,” but viewed as genuine accounting capital – a matter of concern – that firms have to protect and maintain.

From a critical review of literature on HC theory, from the origin of this concept to its connection with sustainable development, this chapter provides a conceptual discussion on this notion and on the differences/common points between capital and assets in accounting and economics. Then, it uses a normative accounting model (TDL), initially introduced to extend, in a consistent way, financial accounting to extra-financial issues.

This analysis shows at first that the standard (economic) HC theory is based on a (deliberate) confusion between assets and capital, in line with a standard economic perspective on capital. Therefore, this particular viewpoint implies: an accounting issue for reporting HC, because “traditional” accounting capital and assets are clearly isolated concepts; and a societal issue, because this confusion leads to the idea that HC does not mean that human beings are “capital” (i.e., essential), or have to be maintained, even protected, for themselves. It only means that human beings are mere productive means. The application of the TDL model to an accounting redefinition of HC allows a discussion about some key issues involved in the notion of HC, including the difference between the standard and “accounting” narratives on HC. Finally, this chapter presents some important consequences of this accounting model for HC: the disappearance of the concept of wage and the possibility of reporting repeated (or continuous) use of HC directly in the balance sheet.

This chapter contributes to the literature on HC and in general on capital and assets, by stressing in particular some confusions and misunderstandings in these concepts. It fosters a cross-disciplinary approach of these issues, through economic, accounting, and sustainability viewpoints. This analysis also participates in the development of the TDL model and the research project associated. It finally proposes another perspective, more sustainable, on HC and HC reporting.

The stakes of HC are important in today’s economics, accounting, and sustainable development. The different conceptualizations of HC, and the narratives behind it, may have deep social and corporate implications. In this context, this analysis provides a conceptual, and practicable, framework to develop a more sustainable concept of HC and to enhance working conditions, internal business relations, integrated reporting. As an outcome of these ideas, this chapter also questions the standard corporate governance models.

This chapter gives an original perspective on HC, and in general on the concept of capital, combining an economic and an accounting analysis. It also develops a new way to report HC, using an innovative integrated accounting model, the TDL model.

Seligman noted four topics that Rogers investigated in this pamphlet: the principles that regulate the exchange value of commodities; the wage theory; the incidence of taxes on agricultural products and an analysis of the economic consequences of a commutation of the tithe. This last topic Rogers treated mathematically. Seligman asserted that the appearance of Malthus's Principles of Political Economy in 1820…[gave] rise to an active discussion on some of the fundamental topics in dispute between Ricardo, Say and Malthus…. Most of the essays of the time, however, were concerned with the discussion of the nature and measure of value, and of these the majority based themselves on the theory advocated by Ricardo and McCulloch. (1903, pp. 351–352)

The goal of this chapter is to discuss the foundations of ‘modern finance’, its paradigm and conceptual framework, its methods and tools, its practices and results, its governance and regulation.

The first part presents the characteristics of ‘modern finance’ and its negative effects. The second part analyses the efforts made to remedy those effects and argue about the need for a real reform.

Several aspects are pointed, for example an unreasonable ‘normality’, incentives that encourage excess, the spread of subprime crisis, etc. The contemporary finance is a ‘giant with clay feet’.

We need to proceed with a dual reembeddedness of finance in the economy and economy in society.

This chapter uses Austrian capital theory to illustrate why empirical work can be elusive in typical Austrian themes. It explores the nature of the problem and different alternative solutions to empirical challenges. This chapter also discusses the Austrian literature’s epistemological approach to empirical work to shed light on the controversial relationship between Austrian theory and empirical testing. Finally, this chapter offers examples of how Austrian and mainstream economics can find a common empirical ground.