Histories of economic thought have generally focused on the development of economic theory, notably value and distribution. The activity of applying economic theory to the understanding of particular situations and the solution of specific problems, though a part of the work of economists for several generations, has received relatively little attention from historians of economics.
Toward a History of Applied Economics explores such themes as changes in the historical conception of applied economics and its relationship to the “core” of economic theory, the emergence and decline of applied fields, and issues of applying general theoretical tools and concepts to real-world problems.
This is the 2000 supplement to the journal History of Political Economy. All 2000 subscribers will receive a copy of this book as part of their annual subscription.
Warren J. Samuels is Professor Emeritus, and former Director of Graduate Programs for the Economics Department at Michigan State University. He is former President of the History of Economics Society and former President of the Association for Social Economics. In 1997 he was made Distinguished Fellow, History of Economics Society. Professor Samuels was Editor of the Journal "of Economic Issues" and is presently Co-editor of the "Journal of Income Distribution," He has been on the Editorial Boards of 16 journals, has written or edited over 40 books, and is widely published in top journals.
Jeff E. Biddle is Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. He is widely published in the field of history of economic thought in such journals as "The History of Political Economy," "Journal of Labor Economics," and "American Economic Review,"
John B. Davis is Professor of Economics at Marquette University, and is former President of the History of Economics Society. Professor Davis specializes in history of economic thought and is renowned for his work on John Maynard Keynes. Recently he was a visiting fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge, UK where he conducted research on Keynes' unpublished manuscripts. Davis is Editor of the "Review of Social Economy" and his research has been published in "The Economic Journal," "Cambridge Journal of Economics," "Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics," and "The History of Political Economics,"
Roger E. Backhouse is Professor of the History and Philosophy of Economics at the University of Birmingham, where he has taught since 1980, and at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. In 2007 he was Ludwig Lachmann Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the London School of Economics. He currently holds a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship. He is the co-editor (with Philippe Fontaine) of The History of the Social Sciences since 1945 (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and The Unsocial Social Science? Economics and Neighboring Disciplines since 1945 (2010) and (with Bradley W. Bateman) of The Cambridge Companion to Keynes (Cambridge University Press, 2006). He is co-author (with Bradley W. Bateman) of Capitalist Revolutionary: John Maynard Keynes. He is author of The Puzzle of Modern Economics, The Ordinary Business of Life and The Penguin History of Economics. He has written for a number of journals including Economica, the Journal of Economic Perspectives, History of Political Economy, the Journal of the History of Economic Thought and the Journal of Economic Methodology. He has been review editor of the Economic Journal, editor of the Journal of Economic Methodology and associate editor of the Journal of the History of Economic Thought.
Thomas C. Leonard is research scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University, where he is also lecturer in the Department of Economics.
Warren C. Young is professor emeritus in the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he was on the faculty for over 40 years. Dr. Young has also taught as a visiting professor at Bengal Engineering College in Calcutta, India, and served as chief of the Energy Manpower and Training Project sponsored by USAir in Bandung, Indonesia.
Richard G. Budynas is professor of mechanical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology. He is author of a newly revised McGraw-Hill textbook, Applied Strength and Applied Stress Analysis, 2nd Edition.
Judy L. Klein is professor of economics at Mary Baldwin College.
