In this paper it will be argued that Albert O. Hirschman’s research work is a remarkable instance of a methodological shift that began in the Fifties, and of which there seems to be scarce awareness nowadays notwithstanding its relevance for some of the issues that are in the agenda of contemporary economics. In his work - so as in the work of other economists of his generation - systems theory was used as a general methodology to frame the study of structural change in the economy. The methodological questions raised by the study of ‘economic evolution’, extensively discussed nowadays, were very much in evidence in economics already in the Fifties in the theory of economic development. Contrary to what it often said, attempts to build a theoretical interpretation of economic change were in fact conducted within this research programme. Indeed, the focus of Hirschman’s research activity has been on the explanation of the relationship between the evolution of the social system and the economic process, and systems theory has been the methodological perspective he has relied upon in the study of this relationship. He was certainly not alone while walking along this pathway. Yet, more than other contemporary economists, Hirschman addressed, although with some elusiveness, a fundamental issue in the study of economic evolution, and namely the micro-foundation of economic change. Most of his research ought to be properly understood as an attempt to put forward micro-founded (meta-)theory of economic evolution. To discuss the whole corpus of Hirschman’s research work would be a too demanding task. The aim of this paper is in fact more modest. It intends to call attention to the methodology that Hirschman elaborated to address the issue of explaining ‘economic evolution’ – and to interpret it as a response to a class of why-questions that have constantly been prominent in the agenda of economists in the last decades.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Economia in its series Working Papers with number
132.
Find related papers by JEL classification: B3 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Thought: Individuals B4 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development O3 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change
Did you know? You can include your works in the database easily by uploading them on the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (MPRA) if you do not have access to an institutional RePEc archive.