Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:52:37.980Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Population and Policy in Marshall's Economics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Rhead S. Bowman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Malthusian population doctrine formed an integral part of both theory and policy in classical economics: “[T]he Malthusian theory lent support to the subsistence theory of wages and prepared the way for the Ricardian preoccupation with the land-using bias of economic progress; by explaining poverty in terms of a simple race between population and the means of subsistence, it provided the touchstone for all classical thinking about economic policy” (Blaug 1997, p. 65). Among historians of economic thought there is probably little in this statement with which to disagree. A variety of interpretations, however, have been given to the subsequent career of the population doctrine, including its place in the economics of Alfred Marshall. Economists after John Stuart Mill, Joseph Schumpeter argued, found the population doctrine to be of little theoretical use to economics: many leading economists of the neoclassical school, including Alfred Marshall, “paid their respects to it, even though they no longer based upon it any part of their analytic structures” (1954, p. 890). Mark Blaug, by contrast, suggests that the analysis of population in Marshall's Principles of Economics indicates an “orthodox classical attitude to population problems” (1997, p. 385). Yet another perspective is offered by John Whitaker who remarks that early in his career Marshall resolved to transform the “old political economy into a new science of economics, open to the progressive intellectual and social movements of the day.” His intent was to leave behind the sterile controversies and pessimistic pronouncements of the old political economy, including those associated with the population doctrine (1996, vol. 1, pp. xvii, xx).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 2006 , pp. 199 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Becker, Gary S. (1981) A Treatise on the Family (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Blaug, Mark (1973) Ricardian Economics: A Historical Study (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1958).Google Scholar
Blaug, Mark (1997) Economic Theory in Retrospect, 5th edition (New York: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowman, Rhead S. (1990) Smith, Mill and Marshall on Human Capital Formation, History of Political Economy, 22 (2), pp. 239–59.Google Scholar
Bowman, Rhead S. (2004) Marshall: Just How Interested in Doing Good Was He? Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 26 (12), pp. 493–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coontz, Sydney H. (1968) Population Theories and the Economic Interpretation (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd).Google Scholar
Deane, Phyllis (1990) Marshall on Free Trade, in: Tullberg, R. M. (Ed.) Alfred Marshall in Retrospect (Aldershot: Edward Elgar).Google Scholar
Furniss, E. S. (1920) The Position of the Labourer in a System of Nationalism (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin) Hollander, Samuel (1997) The Economics of Thomas Roben Malthus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).Google Scholar
Hughes, Jonathan and Cain, Louis P. (2003) American Economic History, 6th edition (New York: Addison-Wesley).Google Scholar
Maloney, John (1985) Marshall, Orthodoxy and the Professionalisation of Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Malthus, T. R. (1798) Population: The First Essay (Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959).Google Scholar
Malthus, T. R. (1803) An Essay on the Principle of Population, Winch, Donald (Ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Malthus, T. R. (1836) Principles of Political Economy, 2nd edition (New York: Kelly, 1965).Google Scholar
Marshall, Mary Paley and Marshall, Alfred (1881) The Economics of Industry (London: Macmillan).Google Scholar
Marshall, Alfred (1892a) The Poor Law in Relation to State-Aided Pensions, The Economic Journal, 2 (5), pp. 186–92.Google Scholar
Marshall, Alfred (1892b) Poor-Law Reform, The Economic Journal, 2 (6), pp. 371–79.Google Scholar
Marshall, Alfred (1920) Principles of Economics, 8th edition (London: Macmillan).Google Scholar
Marshall, Alfred (1926) Official Papers By Alfred Marshall (London: Macmillan).Google Scholar
Marshall, Alfred (1975) The Early Economic Writings of Alfred Marshall, 1867–1890, Vol II, Whitaker, J. K. (Ed.) (New York: The Free Press).Google Scholar
Marshall, Alfred (1995) Alfred Marshall's Lectures to Women, edited by Raffaelli, T. et al. , (Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar).Google Scholar
Matthews, Robin C. O. (1990) Marshall and the Labour Market, in: Whitaker, J. K. (Ed.) Centenary Essays on Alfred Marshall (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart (1848) Principles of Political Economy, edited by Ashley, W. J. (New York: Kelly, 1969).Google Scholar
Overbeek, J. (1974) History of Population Theories (Rotterdam: Rotterdam University Press).Google Scholar
Pigou, A. C. (1925) Memorials of Alfred Marshall, edited by Pigou, A. C. (New York: Kelley, 1966).Google Scholar
Raffaelli, Tiziano (1995) Of Microscopes and Telescopes, in: Raffaelli, T. et al. , (Eds) Alfred Marshall's Lectures to Women (Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar).Google Scholar
Ricardo, David (1810–1811) The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. I, edited by Sraffa, Piero (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951).Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1954) History of Economic Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Smith, Adam (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library, 1937).Google Scholar
Spengler, J. J. (1945) Malthus's Total Population Theory: A Restatement and Reappraisal, Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 11 (02, May), pp. 83–110, 234–64.Google Scholar
Spengler, J. J. (1958) Population as a Factor in Economic Development, Population and World Politics, edited by Hauser, P. M. (Glencoe: The Free Press).Google Scholar
Stigler, G. J. (1969) Alfred Marshall's Lectures on Progress and Poverty, The Journal of Law and Economics, 12 (1), pp. 181–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tullberg, Rita McWilliams (1995) Marshall's Contribution to the Women's Higher Education Movement, in: Raffaelli, T. et al. , (Eds) Alfred Marshall's Lectures to Women (Aldershot: Edward Elgar).Google Scholar
Walker, D. A. (1974) Marshall on the Long-Run Supply of Labor, in: Alfred Marshall: Critical Assessments, Vol. IV, edited by Wood, J. C. (London: Groom Helm, 1982).Google Scholar
Weir, David R. (1989) Malthus's Theory of Population, in: Eatwell, J., Milgate, M., and Newman, P. (Eds) The New Palgrave, Economic Development (New York: W.W. Norton).Google Scholar
Winch, Donald (1997) Malthus, in: Three Great Economists: Smith, Malthus, Keynes (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Whitaker, John K. (Ed.) (1996) The Correspondence of Alfred Marshall, Economist, Vols. 1–3 (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar