No. 3, December 1997
(Created by Ryo Hongo)
The 3rd Annual Meeting (Kwansei Gakuin University, June 21, 1997)
Aiko Ikeo (Kokugakuin University), The Mathematization in American Economics (in the 1950s and the 1960s)
In the United States, only a few economists like Irving Fisher used mathematics seriously before around 1940. On the other hand, the number of economists who use mathematics and statistics began to increase rapidly in the 1940s partly thanks to the US science promotion policy starting during WWII. Many leading economists were invited from Europe and Japan to study mathematical economics at Stanford University, the Cowles Foundation and other institutions. Several Japanese economists joined K. J. Arrow's project 'The Efficiency of Decision Making in Economic Systems' at Stanford University in the 1950s and 1960s. This project was backed by the Office of Naval Research, which managed to hobble the National Science Association and acted as the national research foundation until 1957. The participants in Arrow's project made great contributions to the development of mathematical economics from the 1950s on.
In the1950s, foreign languages such as French and German were replaced by mathematics and statics in the course of economics at American graduate schools. In this process, modern neoclassical economics was elaborated and established firmly.
Reference: Ikeo, Aiko (1996), 'Internationalization of economics in Japan', in A.W.Coats ed. Post- 1945 Internationalization of Economics, Duke University Press.
Atushi Shirai (Teikyo Heisei University), Changing Views of Dr.Shinzo Koizumi on the USA during the Asian-Pacific War
Prof. Shinzo Koizumi, a famous scholar of economics and the history of social thought, was President of Keio Univ. from 1937 to 47. In 1936, he attended the ceremony of tercentennial of Harvard Univ. and praised the national character of the US.
Unfortunately, however, during the Pacific War, he was very active to cooperate with the militaristic government and bitterly criticized American people and government, and encouraged students to fight against the US.
After the War, he criticized himself and became a pro-American, conservative and liberalistic opinion leader in Japan, being the home tutor of the Crown Prince Akihito, the present Emperor. There were many reasons for this change of views, but I must point out that the understanding of the US was not enough even among the eminent scholars in the war-time.
Toshihiro Tanaka (Kwansei Gakuin University), J. B. Clark and F. H. Giddings: The Outline of their Unpublished Correspondence, 1886-1930
The unpublished correspondence between J. B. Clark and F. H. Giddings was found and became to be in the collection of Kwansei Gakuin University Library in 1995. I would like to report on its outline, as I have almost completed to transcribe all letters and memorandum. It consists of Clark's 265 letters to Giddings and Gidding's 5 letters (copies) to Clark and a long memorandum written between 1886 and 1930. About 98 per cent of their letters were written between 1886 and 1895 when Clark was developing his theory, especially distribution theory of marginal productivity. They are of great value, because they shed new light on the formation process of Clark's theory of marginal productivity and then the process of marginal revolution in the United States.
What was Giddings' role in this process? His role was beyond that he became a joint author of the Modern Distributive Process,1888, and his infulence on Clark was not small at least in the following important points: the formation of Clark's theory of distribution, especially theories of capital and interest, the distinction between statics and dynamics, and the formation of his dynamics, and the conservative ideological influence on Clark in the changing process from Christian socialism to 'Progressive Liberalism'.
The Fourth Meeting of The Japanese Society for the History of American Ecomomic Thought
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