IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jhisec/v35y2013i01p63-76_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

€Œthe Merchants Of Cadiz And Lisbon†: Parsimony, The Rate Of Profit, And Accumulation In Wealth Of Nations

Author

Listed:
  • WATERMAN, A.M.C.

Abstract

In Wealth of Nations, a high rate of profit is associated with sluggish or even negative growth, and vice versa. This is because capital accumulation (and therefore population growth) is driven by parsimony of the masters; and the incentive to self-denial is eroded by a high income too easily obtained. The causal relation between parsimony, the rate of profit, and accumulation is explicated in this article; Adam Smith’s observations concerning “the merchants of Cadiz and Lisbon†examined critically; and some conjectures offered as to why Smith’s successors should have rejected parsimony as a useful concept.

Suggested Citation

  • Waterman, A.M.C., 2013. "€Œthe Merchants Of Cadiz And Lisbon†: Parsimony, The Rate Of Profit, And Accumulation In Wealth Of Nations," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 63-76, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:35:y:2013:i:01:p:63-76_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1053837212000636/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:cup:jhisec:v:35:y:2013:i:01:p:63-76_00. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/het .

    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.