Equality, Fairness, and the Origins of Economic Thought: A Study in Justice and Early American Economics

The first essay, Equality, Equity, and the Distribution of Income, reflects Cicarelli’s lifelong interest in the conceptual and empirical foundations of distributive justice. In this work, he revisits more than a century of analysis on the Lorenz curve and the Gini ratio, tracing the evolution of modern approaches to measuring inequality. He moves beyond standard metrics by proposing a novel framework for evaluating fairness in income distribution—one that aspires not merely to quantify disparity, but to illuminate the ethical considerations underlying public policy. The essay stands as a testament to his conviction that economics is inseparable from questions of justice, dignity, and social responsibility. The second essay, Philosophical Origins of Seventeenth-Century American Economic Thought, explores the intellectual roots of Puritan and Quaker contributions to early American economic life. In a period defined by protohistory—where practice far outpaced formal writing—Cicarelli employs inferential historical method to reconstruct economic reasoning from sparse but meaningful textual remains. His analysis reveals why Quaker ideas, despite being less voluminous, ultimately exerted deeper influence on American economic development than the more doctrinal Puritan tradition.