Synopsis
The 15 papers collected here by Gibson (economics, U. of Vermont) are presented in honor of the 100th birthday of leftist Keynesian economist Joan Robinson (1903-1983). The first papers consist of retrospectives of Robinson's career and works, addressing her intellectual development, her encounter with the ideas of Karl Marx, and the extent to which Robinson can be considered a popular economist in the mode of Jane Marcet or Harriet Martineau. Contributions then move on to consider Robinson's work on capital theory and dynamical systems and address such questions as the inclusion of history in formal systems of economics, the validity of Robinson's efforts to elevate methodology above ordinary issues of data and logical argument, and the contributions of later "exhilarationist" and "stagnationist" growth models to Robinson's accumulation model. The remaining contributions are presented under the heading, "thematic breadth," and discuss such issues as the public good character of accumulated knowledge, the non-neutrality and endogeneity of money, the extension of Robinson's theory of accumulation through the addition of an account of the circulation of money, and the relevance of Robinson's ideas to contemporary international policy issues. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR