IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eujhet/v15y2008i4p571-594.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Philosophers and practical men: Charles Babbage, Irish merchants and the economics of information

Author

Listed:
  • Frank Geary
  • Renee Prendergast

Abstract

Before the emergence of coordination of production by firms, manufacturers and merchants traded in markets with asymmetric information. Evidence suggests that the practical knowledge thus gained by these agents was well in advance of contemporary political economists and anticipates twentieth-century developments in the economics of information. Charles Babbage, who regarded merchants and manufacturers as the chief sources of reliable economic data, drew on this knowledge as revealed in the evidence of manufacturers and merchants presented to House of Commons select committees to make an important pioneering contribution to the theory of production and exchange with information asymmetries.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank Geary & Renee Prendergast, 2008. "Philosophers and practical men: Charles Babbage, Irish merchants and the economics of information," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 571-594.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:15:y:2008:i:4:p:571-594
    DOI: 10.1080/09672560802480922
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09672560802480922
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09672560802480922?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rosenberg,Nathan, 1994. "Exploring the Black Box," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521459556.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Monica Hernandez, 2017. "Inequality as Lack of Co-operation in Economic Thought," Working Papers 1718, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2017.
    2. Hupfel, Simon, 2022. "The Economists and The Combination Laws: A Reappraisal," SocArXiv uvfqa, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard E. Baldwin & Philippe Martin & Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano, 2021. "Global Income Divergence, Trade, and Industrialization: The Geography of Growth Take-Offs," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 2, pages 25-57, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Aschhoff, Birgit & Baier, Elisabeth & Crass, Dirk & Hud, Martin & Hünermund, Paul & Köhler, Christian & Peters, Bettina & Rammer, Christian & Schricke, Esther & Schubert, Torben & Schwiebacher, Franz, 2013. "Innovation in Germany - Results of the German CIS 2006 to 2010. Background report on the Innovation Surveys 2007, 2009 and 2011 of the Mannheim Innovation Panel," ZEW Dokumentationen 13-01, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Johan Hauknes & Per M. Koch, "undated". "Two sides – one coin?," STEP Report series 200318, The STEP Group, Studies in technology, innovation and economic policy.
    4. Alcott, Blake, 2008. "The sufficiency strategy: Would rich-world frugality lower environmental impact," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 770-786, February.
    5. Jochen Streb, 1999. "How to Win Schumpeterian Competition: Technological Transfers in the German Plastics Industry from the 1930s to the 1970s," Working Papers 811, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    6. Shibata, Tomoatsu & Yano, Masaharu & Kodama, Fumio, 2005. "Empirical analysis of evolution of product architecture: Fanuc numerical controllers from 1962 to 1997," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 13-31, February.
    7. André Torre, 2014. "Proximity relations at the heart of territorial development processes: from clusters, spatial conflicts and temporary geographical proximity to territorial governance," Chapters, in: André Torre & Frédéric Wallet (ed.), Regional Development and Proximity Relations, chapter 2, pages 94-134, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Joost Veenstra & Herman de Jong, 2015. "A Tale of Two Tails: Plant Size Variation and Comparative Labor Productivity in U.S. and German Manufacturing in the Early 20th Century," CEH Discussion Papers 032, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    9. Zohal Hessami, 2016. "How Do Voters React to Complex Choices in a Direct Democracy? Evidence from Switzerland," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(2), pages 263-293, May.
    10. Parayil, Govindan, 2003. "Mapping technological trajectories of the Green Revolution and the Gene Revolution from modernization to globalization," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 971-990, June.
    11. Landabaso, Mikel & Reid, Alasdair, 1999. "Developing Regional Innovation Strategies: The European Commission as Animateur," MPRA Paper 115017, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Nicola Lacetera, 2003. "Incentives and spillovers in R&D activities: an agency-theoretic analysis of industry-university relations," Microeconomics 0312004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Nightingale, Paul, 1998. "A cognitive model of innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 689-709, November.
    14. Carlos J. Serrano & Rosemarie Ziedonis, 2018. "How Redeployable are Patent Assets? Evidence from Failed Startups," NBER Working Papers 24526, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Ramani, Shyama V. & Urias, Eduardo, 2018. "When access to drugs meets catch-up: Insights from the use of CL threats to improve access to ARV drugs in Brazil," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(8), pages 1538-1552.
    16. Bosetti, Valentina & Carraro, Carlo & Massetti, Emanuele & Tavoni, Massimo, 2008. "International energy R&D spillovers and the economics of greenhouse gas atmospheric stabilization," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 2912-2929, November.
    17. Shane Greenstein, 2008. "Economic Experiments and Neutrality in Internet Access," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 8, pages 59-109, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Constant, Edward II, 2002. "Why evolution is a theory about stability: constraint, causation, and ecology in technological change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(8-9), pages 1241-1256, December.
    19. G Cameron, 1996. "Innovation and Economic Growth," CEP Discussion Papers dp0277, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    20. Ammon J Salter & David M Gann, 2001. "The Role of Middle Range Publications in the Development of Engineering Knowledge," SPRU Working Paper Series 58, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:15:y:2008:i:4:p:571-594. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REJH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.