The Inexhaustible Mine?

Why study the history of economic thought (HET)? We offer two novel contributions to the literature justifying HET. First, we provide a broad survey of the historical and contemporary justifications for HET, distilling three central categories of arguments: (1) HET fosters economic research, (2) it is useful for understanding the sociology of the organization and evolution of economics, and (3) it helps economists serve as more effective public intellectuals. Second, we address the critique of HET that it is akin to prospecting a stripped mine whose valuable insights have long since been extracted and incorporated into modern research. We argue that the notion of diminishing returns to HET applies only in a narrow, Malthusian sense. Economists are not uniform inputs, technological advances have lowered the costs of studying HET, and the field continues to grow as new influences on key thinkers emerge and economic thought evolves. Far from exhaustion, our survey and extension demonstrate that HET remains a productive resource for economists.