Constructing Economic Science: The Invention of a Discipline 1850-1950 (Oxford Studies in the History of Economics)

Constructing Economic Science demonstrates how an existing public discourse, political economy, was transformed in the early twentieth century into a new university discipline: economics. This change in location brought about a restructuring of economic knowledge. Finance, student numbers, curricula, teaching, new media, and the demands of employment all played their part in shaping economics as it is known today. It was broadly accepted in the later nineteenth century that industrialising economies required the skilled and specialised workforce that universities could provide. Advocacy for the teaching of commercial subjects was widespread and international. In Cambridge, Alfred Marshall was alone in arguing that economics, not commerce, provided the most suitable training for the administration and business of the future; and in 1903 he founded the first three-year undergraduate economics programme. This was by no means the end of the story, however. What economics was, how Marshall thought it should be taught, had by the 1920s become contested, and in Britain the London School of Economics gained dominance in defining the new science. By the 1930s, American universities had already moved on from undergraduate to graduate teaching, whereas in Britain university education remained focussed upon undergraduate education. At the same time, public policy was reformulated in terms of economic means and ends—relating to postwar reconstruction, employment, and social welfare—and international economics became American economics. This study charts the conditions that initially shaped the “science” of economics, providing in turn a foundation for an understanding of the way in which this new language itself subsequently transformed public policy. Cover 1 Half-Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgements 10 Note to Readers 14 PART I: FROM PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE TO INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE 16 1. Discourse and Discipline 18 The Initial Framework 23 The Institutionalisation of Political Economy 27 2. Reconstructing the University: The German Model, the American Version of That Model, and the University of London 35 The ‘Idea of a University’ 37 German Universities in the Nineteenth Century 39 The American University 44 The University of London 49 3. The Social Mediation of Economic Discourse 57 Societies and Associations 60 Popular Pedagogy and Self-​Education 64 The University Extension Movement 69 Elementary Textbooks 73 Curriculum, Examinations, Employment 77 From Magazines and Periodicals to Academic Journals 82 PART II: THE CAMBRIDGE MOMENT 90 4. The Moral Sciences Tripos and Cambridge Political Economy 92 The Mathematical Tripos 94 The Organisation of the Moral Sciences Tripos 101 Marshall’s Lectures on Political Economy 110 Marshall’s Inaugural Lecture 113 Reorganising the Teaching of Political Economy 115 Appendix: Selected Graduates in Mathematics and in Moral Sciences 120 5. The Cambridge Tripos in Economic and Political Science: Structure and Outcome 122 Designing the Tripos 126 Marshall’s Plea: His Final Argument 129 The Committee Stage and Subsequent Dissent 133 The Inauguration of the Tripos 138 Student Performance 140 Some Conclusions from the Data 150 Appendix: The Tripos Data Set 155 6. What Is ‘Marshallianism’? 156 ‘Jevonian Economics’ 159 Marshall as Teacher 164 Pigou as Student of Marshall 167 Sydney Chapman as Student of Marshall 174 The Composition of Principles of Economics 176 The 1920s: Moving on from Marshall 184 PART III: ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES 188 7. Why Not Oxford? 192 The Oxford Examination System 195 The Intercollegiate and University Lecture Systems 197 Classics and History 199 Edgeworth as Oxford Professor 202 The Oxford Diploma in Economics and the PPE 205 8. The Unrealised Prospect of Historical Economics 211 William Ashley 213 Toynbee’s Lectures 215 Ashley’s Economic History 224 Ashley in Toronto and Harvard 228 The Tariff Controversy and Liberal Imperialism 230 William Cunningham’s Historical Economics 233 PART IV: COMMERCE AND ECONOMICS 240 9. Models for Commercial Education: The United States, France, and Germany 242 The View from the United States 243 French Commercial Education 251 German Commercial Education 253 10. Higher Commercial Education in Great Britain and Ireland: Late Start, Early Dissolution 266 The Birmingham Faculty of Commerce 267 The Manchester Faculty of Commerce 280 The Teaching of Commerce and Economics in Liverpool 294 Commerce in the University of Leeds 303 Commerce in Scotland and Ireland 307 11. Commerce and Economics at the London School of Economics 310 The Early History of the School 310 The London BSc (Econ) 315 The Creation of the BCom 318 Undergraduate Teaching during the 1920s 319 Robbins as Professor of Economics 327 Commerce and Economics during the 1930s 332 The Dundee School of Economics 337 12. The Scientisation of Economics 348 Allyn Young’s Inaugural Lecture 351 Lionel Robbins’s Inaugural Lecture 354 The Sources for and Structure of Robbins’s Teaching 356 The Nature and Significance of Economic Science 364 The Instrumentalisation of ‘Austrian Theory’ and Its Legacy 369 The British Textbook Literature 372 Graduate and Undergraduate Education: The United States and Britain 379 13. Concluding Remarks 384 Appendix 390 Bibliography 406 Index 434 An accessible account of the role of the modern university in the creation of economics During the late nineteenth century concerns about international commercial rivalry were often expressed in terms of national provision for training and education, and the role of universities in such provision. It was in this context that the modern university discipline of economics emerged. The first undergraduate economics program was inaugurated in Cambridge in 1903; but this was merely a starting point. Constructing Economic Science charts the path through commercial education to the discipline of economics and the creation of an economics curriculum that could then be replicated around the world. Rather than describing this transition epistemologically, as a process of theoretical creation, Keith Tribe shows how the new "science" of economics was primarily an institutional creation of the modern university. He demonstrates how finance, student numbers, curricula, teaching, new media, the demands of employment, and more broadly, the international perception that industrializing economies required a technically-skilled workforce, all played their part in shaping economics as we know it today. This study explains the conditions originally shaping the science of economics, providing in turn a foundation for an understanding of the way in which this new language transformed public policy. 'Constructing Economic Science' shows how the new 'science' of economics was primarily an institutional creation of the modern university. Keith Tribe charts the path through commercial education to the discipline of economics and the creation of an economics curriculum that could be replicated around the world