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The article engages with Amartya Sen’s interpretation of Piero Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (PCMC). Sen has the distinction of highlighting the philosophical and methodological aspects of Sraffa’s work. In this regard, Sen has highlighted the role of counterfactuals in economic theory and the role of value theory in political economy as a matter of “social communication.” On these two issues, there is considerable discussion in recent Sraffian scholarship that is concerned with the significance of Sraffa’s critique of marginalist theory and the rehabilitation of classical economics. The article scrutinizes Sen’s interpretation of PCMC and highlights several noteworthy contributions and insights. While being sympathetic to the substantive points of criticism entailed by PCMC, Sen misunderstands Sraffa’s “critique of economic theory” and the reasoning involved in such a critique. A critical reading reveals that Sen’s interpretation of Sraffa is more reflective of his own work on the “choice basis of description” than an appreciation of Sraffa’s theoretical project. Despite the misunderstandings, the article highlights the similarities in vision between Sen’s interpretation of Sraffa and Sraffa’s revival of classical economics. By undertaking such a critical reading, the article raises important issues about method and the scope of economic enquiries.

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.

This essay charts an intellectual journey. Geoffrey M. Hodgson became an institutional economist in the 1980s. He explains how he discovered institutional economics and what strains of institutional thought were attractive for him. Another issue raised in this essay is how institutional researchers organize and move forward. Hodgson argues for an interdisciplinary approach, but this is not without its problems.

Hazel Kyrk’s contribution is the most advanced formulation of the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon, an approach to the analysis of consumption that, originated from Veblen’s theory, was developed in the US in the early 20th century. This approach was part of a wider stream of empirical analyses of consumption expenditure that had begun more than a century earlier.

Along with elements that can be traced back to the neoclassical tradition, in Keynes’ analysis of consumption, we find original elements. The dependence of consumption expenditure on the level of income, which is essential for asserting the principle of effective demand, can also be found in a long tradition of empirical studies. In qualifying this relationship, Keynes uses theoretical elements echoing key insights of the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon. There is no documentary evidence that Kyrk or the economics of the social relevance of consumption came to Keynes’ attention. It is possible, however, to develop reasonable speculative considerations to argue a link between Keynes’ elaboration and both the empirical literature on the determinants of consumption and the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon.

This chapter introduces Marx's theory of the determination of profit rates. It contrasts this theory with what happened in the late nineteenth century to British profit rates with a detailed statistical account. It identifies missing features in the standard presentation and contrasts these with the overaccumulation hypothesis that he presents elsewhere. A formal mathematical model using the overaccumulation hypothesis is then given and tested against modern empirical data.

The aim of this Real Estate Insight is to comment upon commercial real estate research. Much of the current research on commercial real estate sits in academic silos, constrained by disciplinary boundaries and rejecting insights from other areas. This can lead to an impoverished understanding of the processes and practices that drive market behaviour.

This Real Estate Insight, through the lens of history, draws on insights from a century earlier and, in particular, from the work of Frank Ramsey; the paper argues that market behaviour is shaped by the role of key actors and persistent beliefs which need to be accounted for in our models of market practice.

The paper argues that current research paradigms need to accommodate agency explicitly into existing models and that real estate research will benefit immensely if researcher were more open in seeking ideas from outside the real estate field and to be more open to external ideas and concepts.

The paper suggests that property research needs to be more embracing of other academic disciplines to develop a full understanding of the numerous and various drivers within commercial real estate markets.

This is a review of how beliefs impact upon commercial real estate markets. As with many things, history can help researchers today get a broader and more appropriate perspective on market drivers and how they affect decision-making.