How I Do Economics

  • G. C. Harcourt
Chapter

Abstract

Because I am what cricketers call an all-rounder, it is an especially pleasant task the editors have set me. As an undergraduate at Melbourne University in the early 1950s, I decided that I wanted to become a theoretical economist, though I had also thought of becoming an economic historian and I initially wanted to write my fourth year undergraduate dissertation on a topic in the history of economic thought. (I was dissuaded from doing so by a wise teacher who said that HET topics required maturity — in my case a never-never state, for I feel that I have gone straight from my first childhood to my second with nothing in between.) Nevertheless, as one of my two specialisations in my third and fourth (honours) years, I took History of Economic Thought. The other specialisation was Mathematical Economics. In those days the distinction between theoretical and mathematical economists did not exist, though we were told that the maths of our high priest, Paul Samuelson, in the Foundations … (1947) was said sometimes to be clumsy and inelegant.

Keywords

Economic Journal Surplus Labour Bretton Wood System Oxford Economic Paper Undergraduate Dissertation 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© G.C. Harcourt 2001

Authors and Affiliations

  • G. C. Harcourt
    • 1
    • 2
  1. 1.Jesus CollegeCambridgeUK
  2. 2.University of AdelaideAustralia

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