J. E. Meade

J. E. Meade is among the most distinguished of contemporary economists, noted for his contributions to economic theory and policy. This volume presents a series of models of economic systems, each built on greatly simplified assumptions about human motives, technology, and social institutions, and undertakes in each case a series of exercises to examine the links of causal relationship in each case.This systematic treatment of the whole field of economic analysis on these lines is a rigorous and elegant non-mathematical statement of the basic principles and problems of contemporary economic theory. The volume is based on models of systems in which there are no capital goods, and in which consumer's tastes, technical knowledge, and the size and composition of the population are static.This sophisticated restatement of the fundamentals of economic theory also deals with the basic methodological problems of economic analysis. Given the complexity of variables inherent in all economic systems, how is the economist to proceed in dealing with a particular set of interrelated problems? And further, how can the economist be confident that the verdict is more likely to be right than wrong? Meade considers these and other questions in a book important not only to professional economists and their students, but also to those more generally interested in economic policy.

Societies consider certain institutions and activities as central, proper, and visible, while others are defined as peripheral, deviant, and private. Vilhelm Aubert takes us to the "hidden" societies: the privacy of love, the secrecy of the underground, the remoteness of a ship, the isolation of the ill, the retirement from social life into sleep, and similar fascinating topics.Vilhelm Aubert, a professor of sociology in the Law Faculty of Oslo University and a member of the board of directors of Oslo's famed Institute of Social Research, presents a theory of the hidden societies, a theory concerned with concepts such as time and space, causality, will, and' chance. Chapters on predictability and chance deal with lack of 6rder, with phenomena that appear meaningless or absurd from a point of view very prevalent in modern life. We are presented with a study of isolation as a sociological phenomenon - accepted or fostered by social action - and we see how the existence of lonely, private niches in a society serves, consciously or unconsciously, to satisfy-idiosyncratic needs of individual personalities.

In this sequel to his widely praised classic study of The Stationary Economy, Nobel Prize winning economist J. E. Meade continues his systematic treatment of the entire fi eld of economic analysis. He uses a series of simplifi ed models designed to show the interconnections between various specialist fi elds of economic theory.The Growing Economy departs from the position of static equilibrium Meade assumes in The Stationary Economy. Here he deals with equilibrium growth. Meade introduces capital goods and allows for growth through capital accumulation, population expansion, and technical progress. He still assumes perfect competition and the absence of indivisibilities, so that there are constant returns to scale in the productive system and a given set of consistent and independent preferences for each consumer.In this volume, an attempt is made to discuss the theory of economic growth with a minimum of mathematical analysis. In the main text no diff erential or integral calculus is employed; such mathematical techniques are used (sparingly) only in footnotes and appendices, which the general reader may avoid. Meade's treatise off ers students and specialists alike a general survey of theory in a form that is assessable even for those with little mathematical training. He takes into account the dynamics of trade, increased demand, and new technology and their impact on growth. Th is book carries the discussion a long way from the harmonious quiet of the abstract model to the untidy, real world.

This reissue, first published in 1982, is the first of two volumes on the causes and cure of Stagflation - the two-headed monster that combines mass unemployment with rapid inflation, which affected contemporary economies across the industrially developped world in the 1970s. Professor Meade outlines the nature of the problem, contrasting the Great Slump of the 1930s with the Great Stagflation of the 1970s and comparing the Orthodox Keynesian and Monetarist approaches with the New Keynesian strategy. Various proposals for the reform of wage-fixing institutions are discussed, including the limitation of trade-union bargaining powers, an official incomes policy, labour management and ownership in business, and tax or subsidy measures to discourage inflationary rises in wages and prices. The book will be essential reading for all concerned with both the theory and policy of contemporary macroeconomics, industrial relations, labour economics and labour law. It has been written so that the general argument in the main text is accessible to the general reader as well as of interest to the professional economist.

First published in 1983, this is the second of two volumes on the causes and cure of stagflation – that combination of mass unemployment and rapid inflation that is currently afflicting the mixed economies of the industrially developed world. The authors deplore the unemployment due to the failure of governments to adopt Keynesian measures for the expansion of economic activity, but recognise that in present conditions such measures would lead to an unacceptable and explosive inflation of money wages and prices. They therefore advocate a dual strategy of financial policies for a steady expansion of total money incomes combined with individual wage rates set at levels to promote employment.The book is of importance for all those concerned with macroeconomic theory and policy. The description of the meaning of a New Keynesian policy and of the arguments for it have been written in a way which should be intelligible to policy-makers and students, and not only to economists with technical training. Professional macroeconomists will be interested not only in these sections but also in the fully specified macroeconomic model used to analyse New Keynesian policies in economic terms and to carry out a counterfactual re-running of history. In addition, the unusually detailed exposition of the application of control techniques to a difficult multivariable control problem also makes the book of interest to control engineers who wish to acquaint themselves with recent generalisations of classical frequency response methods.

James Edward Meade (1907–1995) was a renowned British economist who, alongside Bertil Ohlin, was joint winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Economics. Originally published in 1958, this book contains the transcription of Meade's inaugural lecture as Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University, delivered during the same year. Concise and highly readable, it will be of value to anyone with an interest in economic history, theories regarding inflation, and macroeconomic theory in general.

This reissue, first published in 1982, is the first of two volumes on the causes and cure of Stagflation - the two-headed monster that combines mass unemployment with rapid inflation, which affected contemporary economies across the industrially developped world in the 1970s. Professor Meade outlines the nature of the problem, contrasting the Great Slump of the 1930s with the Great Stagflation of the 1970s and comparing the Orthodox Keynesian and Monetarist approaches with the New Keynesian strategy. Various proposals for the reform of wage-fixing institutions are discussed, including the limitation of trade-union bargaining powers, an official incomes policy, labour management and ownership in business, and tax or subsidy measures to discourage inflationary rises in wages and prices. The book will be essential reading for all concerned with both the theory and policy of contemporary macroeconomics, industrial relations, labour economics and labour law. It has been written so that the general argument in the main text is accessible to the general reader as well as of interest to the professional economist.

First published in 1983, this is the second of two volumes on the causes and cure of stagflation – that combination of mass unemployment and rapid inflation that is currently afflicting the mixed economies of the industrially developed world. The authors deplore the unemployment due to the failure of governments to adopt Keynesian measures for the expansion of economic activity, but recognise that in present conditions such measures would lead to an unacceptable and explosive inflation of money wages and prices. They therefore advocate a dual strategy of financial policies for a steady expansion of total money incomes combined with individual wage rates set at levels to promote employment.The book is of importance for all those concerned with macroeconomic theory and policy. The description of the meaning of a New Keynesian policy and of the arguments for it have been written in a way which should be intelligible to policy-makers and students, and not only to economists with technical training. Professional macroeconomists will be interested not only in these sections but also in the fully specified macroeconomic model used to analyse New Keynesian policies in economic terms and to carry out a counterfactual re-running of history. In addition, the unusually detailed exposition of the application of control techniques to a difficult multivariable control problem also makes the book of interest to control engineers who wish to acquaint themselves with recent generalisations of classical frequency response methods.

Examining the relationship between employment and rates of pay, this book discusses how the choice between different forms of business organization may affect this relationship. For the purposes of the discussion a simple model of an imperfectly competitive economy is constructed and then examined in operation with different organizational forms for the competing firms. Chapters cover the following: The Captialist Wage Economy; The Non-Discriminating Labour Co-operative; The Capitalist Sharing Economy; Discriminating Labour-Capital Partnerships.

In this sequel to his widely praised classic study of The Stationary Economy, Nobel Prize winning economist J. E. Meade continues his systematic treatment of the entire fi eld of economic analysis. He uses a series of simplifi ed models designed to show the interconnections between various specialist fi elds of economic theory.The Growing Economy departs from the position of static equilibrium Meade assumes in The Stationary Economy. Here he deals with equilibrium growth. Meade introduces capital goods and allows for growth through capital accumulation, population expansion, and technical progress. He still assumes perfect competition and the absence of indivisibilities, so that there are constant returns to scale in the productive system and a given set of consistent and independent preferences for each consumer.In this volume, an attempt is made to discuss the theory of economic growth with a minimum of mathematical analysis. In the main text no diff erential or integral calculus is employed; such mathematical techniques are used (sparingly) only in footnotes and appendices, which the general reader may avoid. Meade's treatise off ers students and specialists alike a general survey of theory in a form that is assessable even for those with little mathematical training. He takes into account the dynamics of trade, increased demand, and new technology and their impact on growth. Th is book carries the discussion a long way from the harmonious quiet of the abstract model to the untidy, real world.

J. E. Meade is among the most distinguished of contemporary economists, noted for his contributions to economic theory and policy. This volume presents a series of models of economic systems, each built on greatly simplified assumptions about human motives, technology, and social institutions, and undertakes in each case a series of exercises to examine the links of causal relationship in each case.This systematic treatment of the whole field of economic analysis on these lines is a rigorous and elegant non-mathematical statement of the basic principles and problems of contemporary economic theory. The volume is based on models of systems in which there are no capital goods, and in which consumer's tastes, technical knowledge, and the size and composition of the population are static.This sophisticated restatement of the fundamentals of economic theory also deals with the basic methodological problems of economic analysis. Given the complexity of variables inherent in all economic systems, how is the economist to proceed in dealing with a particular set of interrelated problems? And further, how can the economist be confident that the verdict is more likely to be right than wrong? Meade considers these and other questions in a book important not only to professional economists and their students, but also to those more generally interested in economic policy.

Examining the relationship between employment and rates of pay, this book discusses how the choice between different forms of business organization may affect this relationship. For the purposes of the discussion a simple model of an imperfectly competitive economy is constructed and then examined in operation with different organizational forms for the competing firms. Chapters cover the following: The Captialist Wage Economy; The Non-Discriminating Labour Co-operative; The Capitalist Sharing Economy; Discriminating Labour-Capital Partnerships.

In this volume, Nobel Laureate James Meade discusses a set of radical changes in economic institutions and policies designed to show an efficient, socially acceptable third alternative between Keynesian inflation and monetarist unemployment, and between the inefficiencies of socialist centralism and the ravages of unrestrained capitalist competition. According to Meade, these changes should aim at allowing freedom of individual choice (liberty), producing a high standard of living (efficiency) and avoiding excessive divergences between riches and poverty (equality). But there are inevitably clashes between these objectives. For example, free competition may promote liberty and efficiency but will offer high rewards to the owners of scarce resources and low rewards to those who command little earning power, resulting in the denial of equality. The author suggests a set of reforms which could mitigate the effects of such clashes. Such a review of institutions is highly relevant in the present age of social uncertainties. For example, on what lines should the post-communist economies of Eastern Europe be rebuilt?Can we avoid the stark choice between the inflation of Keynesianism and the unemployment of monetarism? Can the ravages of free capitalist competition be avoided without the inefficiencies of centralized economic planning? Including an extensively revised version of Meade's well- known tract, Agothopia: The Economics of Partnership, Liberty, Equality, and Efficiency will be of interest to both economists and political scientists.

This book discusses a set of radical changes in economic institutions and policies designed to show an efficient but socially acceptable third way between Keynesian inflation and monetarist unemployment, and between the inefficiencies of socialist centralisation and the ravages of unrestrained capitalist competition. It consists of a reprint of Efficiency, Equality and the Ownership of Property together with four recent papers including a highly revised version of the well-known tract Agathotopia: The Economics of Partnership.

Societies consider certain institutions and activities as central, proper, and visible, while others are defined as peripheral, deviant, and private. Vilhelm Aubert takes us to the "hidden" societies: the privacy of love, the secrecy of the underground, the remoteness of a ship, the isolation of the ill, the retirement from social life into sleep, and similar fascinating topics.Vilhelm Aubert, a professor of sociology in the Law Faculty of Oslo University and a member of the board of directors of Oslo's famed Institute of Social Research, presents a theory of the hidden societies, a theory concerned with concepts such as time and space, causality, will, and' chance. Chapters on predictability and chance deal with lack of 6rder, with phenomena that appear meaningless or absurd from a point of view very prevalent in modern life. We are presented with a study of isolation as a sociological phenomenon - accepted or fostered by social action - and we see how the existence of lonely, private niches in a society serves, consciously or unconsciously, to satisfy-idiosyncratic needs of individual personalities.