Jan Tinbergen (1903-1994) and the rise of economic expertise / Erwin Dekker, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dekker, Erwin, 1984- author.

Series:

Historical perspectives on modern economics.

Historical perspectives on modern economics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tinbergen, Jan, 1903-1994.

Tinbergen, Jan.

Economists--Netherlands--Biography.

Economists.

Economic history--1945-.

Economic history.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 463 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Summary:

Jan Tinbergen was the first Nobel Prize winner in Economics and one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. This book argues that his crucial contribution is the theory of economic policy and the legitimation of economic expertise in service of the state. It traces his youthful socialist ideals which found political direction in the Plan-socialist movement of the 1930s for which he developed new economic models to combat the Great Depression. After World War II he was able to synthesize that work into a theory of economic policy which not only provided a lasting framework for economic policy around the world, but also secured a permanent place for economic experts close to government. The book then turns to an examination of his attempt to repeat this achievement in the development projects in the Global South and at the international level for the United Nations.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title

Series information

Title page

Copyright information

Epigraph

Contents

List of Figures/Tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part I Becoming an Economic Expert

1 The Construction of Peace

1.1 High Hopes

1.2 Naïve Utopianism

1.3 Tinbergen's The Hague

1.4 The Organization of Peace and Economic Prosperity

2 A Progressive Education

2.1 The Tinbergen Household

2.2 Luuk and Niko

2.3 Growing Up

3 The Bourgeois Socialist

3.1 In between Classes

3.2 The Social-Democratic Student Club of Leiden

3.3 The AJC in Leiden

3.4 Pacifism

4 From Ehrenfest to the Econometric Society

4.1 The Socrates of Leiden

4.2 The Essential Problems in Science

4.3 A PhD in Physics, and a Start in Economics

4.4 Useful Education and Science

4.5 The Econometric Society in Leiden

5 Hendrik de Man and Jan Tinbergen

5.1 Hendrik de Man and Cultural Socialism

5.2 From Cultural Socialism to the Plan Movement

5.3 What Planning?

5.4 The Plans of Labor

5.5 Socialist Goals, Fascist Means?

6 Macro-dynamics and the Problem of Unemployment

6.1 Unemployment and Rationalization

6.2 Dynamic Steps

6.3 Smoothing Dynamics

6.4 A Model of the Dutch Economy

6.5 Tinbergen's Scientific and Econometric Vision

7 The Rise of the People's Party (Volkspartei) and the Economics of the General Interest

Part II The Years of High Expertise

8 From The Hague to Geneva: The World Order of the League of Nations

8.1 International Intelligence

8.2 The First Volume of Tinbergen's Study

8.3 The Second Volume of Tinbergen's Study

8.4 Tinbergen or Tinbergen, Polak, Koopmans, Loveday, Robertson, and Frisch

8.5 A Third Volume on International Economic Order?

9 Fascism at Home

9.1 Wartime

9.2 Fascism on the Rise

9.3 The War and the Breakthrough Movement.

9.4 The Reconstruction Years

10 Tinbergen's Theory of Economic Policymaking

10.1 Economic Dynamics without Policy

10.2 Not Prediction, Task-Setting

10.3 The Theory of Economic Policy

10.4 Who Does the Planning? Centralization and Decentralization

11 The Expert in the Model, the Economist outside the Model

Part III Global Expertise

12 Opening up Vistas: India and the World

12.1 Stuck at Home?

12.2 To India?

12.3 Imagining the World Economy

12.4 Imagining World Development

13 Development Planning on Paper

13.1 Procedural Excellence

13.2 Shaping the World Economy

13.3 Planning in Space and Time

13.4 Development Economics without Culture and Morality?

14 Development Planning on the Ground: Tinbergen in Turkey

14.1 The Prehistory

14.2 A Fresh Start

14.3 The Process of Planning

14.4 The Great Resignation

14.5 The Second Five-Year Plan and Tinbergen's Departure

15 Sometime the Twain Shall Meet: The Optimal Order

15.1 Coexistence

15.2 Socialism at Home

15.3 What Is Optimal about the Optimal Order?

15.4 Above the Parties, or, Head in the Clouds

16 Expertise Far from Home

Part IV The Limits of Expertise

17 Measuring the Unmeasurable: Welfare and Justice

17.1 Ehrenfest's Intuition and Frisch's Explorations

17.2 Work Classification and Appropriate Wages

17.3 The Leiden Approach

17.4 Measuring Sustainability

17.5 Measurement and the Normative

18 Governing the Ungovernable: Can We Govern the Planet?

18.1 Planning for Peace and Prosperity

18.2 Hubris

18.3 Can We Manage the Earth?

18.4 Stability, Harmony, and Balance

19 Expert or Idealist?

19.1 Vision and Synthesis

19.2 The Wrong Nobel

19.3 Tinbergen and Expertise

Bibliography

Archives

Publications

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 11 Jun 2021).

ISBN:

1-108-85704-3

1-108-85320-X

1-108-85654-3

OCLC:

1243032946