It’s terrifying how easy it is to be blithely unaware of the intellectual history of economics, even if you read a lot, as I do. History of thought is one of the glaring gaps in undergraduate and graduate courses, alongside economic history per se.
Last week, when I was speaking at the Manchester Statistical Society, my discussant, Dr Richard Pryke, mentioned the work of Ian Little. At the weekend I looked him up and found this fabulous obit written by Professor Peter Oppenheimer and this by Robert Skidelsky.
It turns out that Prof Little’s [amazon_link id=”0198281196″ target=”_blank” ]A Critique of Welfare Economics[/amazon_link] of 1950 was hugely influential and was reissued in 2002. I’m not at all proud of knowing nothing about it, and will try to fill the gap.
[amazon_image id=”0198281196″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]A Critique of Welfare Economics[/amazon_image]
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Try EJ Mishan as a follow up. First name both Ezra and Edward. I was in his Economics group in 1956, mercifully Miliband free territory. He had a very analytical approach. Interesting in context that Little’s family had been 9th Lancers, see Wikipedia.