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This case study was made possible by the co‐operation of the managing director of Cosyfeet, Mr David Price, to whom we are very grateful. The case was prepared as a basis for class discussion and as an illustration of what may or may not constitute success in a small business context.

Kendall P. Cochran has claimed that John Maynard Keynes “developed a theory that would try ‘to account for things as they are’. In so doing he became another important social economist.

IT is surprising that in these days of universal research the subject of library Fittings should have remained to all intents and purposes a virgin one. It is neither an unimportant nor an uninteresting subject; to the librarian it is one naturally of peculiar interest. Yet, if we except slight and largely incidental treatment of ancient and monastic libraries and accounts of present day fittings—and the latter mostly of the trade catalogue order—there has been almost nothing written on the subject. It is therefore a matter of congratulation that so capable a writer and scholar as Mr. John Willis Clark should have seen proper to devote much time and learning to the investigation of this subject. In his handsomely produced and profusely illustrated volume entitled “The Care of Books,” in which the evolution of library fittings is traced from the classic period to the end of the eighteenth century, Mr. Clark has made one of the most valuable contributions to library economy that has been issued for many a day, and has earned the gratitude of all librarians. Mr. Clark has already treated the subject in his valuable essay on “The Library” in “The Architectural History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge,” and in his Rede and Sandars lectures on the monastic and Greek and Roman libraries respectively, and these with much fresh material he has embodied in this monograph of over 350 quarto pages. Mr. Clark's descriptions of the mechanical appliances used in the libraries of olden time, such as, for example, the methods of chaining books and the details of the chains and their fastenings, are wonderfully clear, supplemented as they are by photographs and drawings, even to the most non‐mechanical reader. The many plans and elevations given are enhanced in value by being drawn to and accompanied by the scale, and altogether we have nothing but praise for this book. At least, if we have a grumble, it is that Mr. Clark has not been so full on the “wall system”—which brings us of course to our own fittings of to‐day, and which is therefore not merely of antiquarian value—as he is on the “press” and “lectern” systems. We should therefore be glad to see an expansion of chapter viii. in a new edition.

The rise of the regulatory state during the Gilded Age was closely associated with the development of institutionalist ideas in American academia. In their analysis of the emergent regulatory environment, institutionalists like John Commons operated with a fundamentally marginalist theory of value and distribution. This engagement is a central explanation for the ultimate ascendancy of neoclassical economics, and the limitations of the regulatory environment that emerged in the Progressive Era. The eventual rise of the Chicago School and its deregulatory ambitions did constitute a rupture, but one achieved without rejecting preceding conceptions of competition and value. The substantial compatibility of the view of markets underlying both the regulatory and deregulatory periods is stressed, casting doubt about the transformative potential of the resurgent regulatory impulse in the New Gilded Age.

Most contemporary economists feel ill at ease with respect to big topics — national economic organisation, interpretation of economic history, relations of economic and political power, origins and functions of economic institutions. The terrain is unsuitable for our tools. We find it hard to frame meaningful questions, much less to answer them. (James Tobin, Nobel Laureate)

This paper discusses the American debate over price controls and economic stabilization after World War II, when the transition from a war economy to a peace economy was characterized by bottlenecks in the productive system and shortages of food and other basic consumer goods, directly affecting the living standard of the population, the public opinion, and political discourse. Specifically, we will focus on the economist Franco Modigliani and his proposal for a “Plan to meet the problem of rising meat and other food prices without bureaucratic controls.” The plan prepared by Modigliani in October 1947 was based on a system of taxes and subsidies to foster a proper distribution of disposable income and warrant a minimum meat consumption for each individual without encroaching market mechanisms and consumers’ freedom. We will discuss the contents of the plan and its further refinements, and the reactions it prompted from fellow economists, the public opinion, and the political world. Although the Plan was not eventually implemented, it was an important initiative for several reasons: first, it showed the increasing importance of fiscal policy among postwar government tools of intervention in the economic sphere; second, it showed a third way between direct government intervention and full-fledged laissez faire, in tune with the postwar political climate; third, it proposed a Keynesian macroeconomic approach to price and income stabilization, strongly based on econometric and microeconomic foundations. The Meat Plan was thus a fundamental step in Modigliani’s effort to build the “neoclassical synthesis” between Keynesian and Neoclassical economics, which would deeply influence his own career and the evolution of academic studies and government practices in the United States.

This article gives a centenary appreciation of the contributions to economic thought of Joseph A. Schumpeter, with special focus on his work, The Theory of Economic Development (TED). It proceeds, first, by providing an overview of Schumpeter's life and works; secondly, by giving an interpretative exposition of the main themes of TED, and, thirdly, Schumpeter's broader “economic sociology” in terms of the place of these ideas in the history of economic thought; fourthly, by examining the reception to TED and the impact of it and Schumpeter's dynamic methodology on the discipline.

Introduced by John H. Clark, the Map of Mental States is a geometrical model of a human mental life. In spite of its simplicity, it takes into account the most essential variables characterizing the mind. Deals with three important types of mental life which can be represented on the Map: mystical states, mental illnesses and drug states. The exact numerical positions of the states have been established on the Map, for the most known mystical path, for some mental illnesses and for two typical drugs. Rectilinear and curvilinear distances between corresponding states have been calculated and perspectives of such a study have been shown.