Category: Marshall2020

Marshall’s legacy

After 18 months of reading and commenting on every single chapter (except the mathematical appendix) Alfred Marshall’s (AM’s) Principles of Economics (1920), I read some essays on what others thought about AM.

NB: My overall impression is that PoE was worth my time, but probably not worth the time of anyone except those interested in the history of economic thought. Yes, it’s interesting to read how AM explained and explored elasticity, the role of time, the representative firm, and so on, but I doubt that those benefits justify the time it takes to read 70+ chapters on topics that can be found in (over)simplified forms in modern textbooks. That said, I think that anyone looking into canonical concepts in economics should read what AM had to say about them. (NB: AM sometimes uses different terms so “control F” won’t help you!)

Here are my notes and some excerpts from five commentaries:

J.M. Keynes (1924). “Alfred Marshall, 1842-1924” [pdf].
  • This 60-page biography, published a few months after AM’s death, offers many insights into AM’s upbringing and thinking. He was planning to become a priest but turned to mathematics and then economics. His respect for history and the idiosyncratic details of “the everyday business of life” meant, in today’s jargon, that AM was more institutionalist than modeller.
  • Every summer, AM walked in the Alps, to clear his head and strengthen his body. His long life attests to those vacations.
  • The socialists assumed human nature would change with the ownership of capital. AM was skeptical. He studied actual business and workers.
  • AM published very slowly. Most of his ideas were known (via his lectures) well before PoE appeared. Jevons (according to JMK) was impatient and shallow compared to AM. Mixed speeds and energies meant that some people misattributed discovery.
  • AM was first to popularise mathematical diagrams for explaining economic ideas, but he hesitated to lean too much on mathematical descriptions of real life:
  • Page 333:

    Marshall… always felt a slight contempt from the intellectual or aesthetic point of view for the rather “potty ” scraps of elementary algebra, geometry, and differential calculus which make up mathematical economics.1 Unlike physics, for example, such parts of the bare bones of economic theory as are expressible in mathematical form are extremely easy compared with the economic interpretation of the complex and incompletely known facts of experience,2 and lead one but a very little way towards establishing useful results.
    Footnote 1: Mathematical economics often exercise an excessive fascination and influence over students who approach the subject without much previous training in technical mathematics. They are so easy as to be within the grasp of almost anyone, yet do introduce the student, on a small scale, to the delights of perceiving constructions of pure form, and place toy bricks in his hands that he can manipulate for himself, which gives a new thrill to those who have had no glimpse of the sky-scraping architecture and minutely embellished monuments of modern mathematics.
    Footnote 2: Professor Planck of Berlin, the famous originator of the Quantum Theory, once remarked to me that in early life he, had thought of studying economics, but had found it too difficult! Professor Planck could easily master the whole corpus of mathematical economics in a few days. He did not mean that! But the amalgam of logic and intuition and the wide knowledge of facts, most of which are not precise, which is required for economic interpretation in its highest form, is, quite truly, overwhelmingly difficult for those whose gift mainly consists in the power to imagine and pursue to their furthest points the implications and prior conditions of comparatively simple facts which are known with a high degree of precision.

  • AM: “Economics is not a body of concrete truth, but an engine for the discovery of concrete truth.” But his desire to do good meant that (according to JMK) “he had an inclination to undervalue those intellectual parts of the subject which were not directly connected with human well-being or the condition of the working classes…” and thus slow intellectual progress [pp 344-5].
  • AM’s inclusion of time and (dis)economies of scale really fleshed out the reality of production in economics.
  • AM’s understated writing style reduced his wow-factor with some but also helped his ideas spread among non-academics and skeptics.
  • AM’s lecturing style was far less refined or formal than his writing style. AM  wanted students to “think with him” (page 359) rather than copy complete thoughts. This style challenged under-prepared students but spurred the curious to explore the material. (I try to teach in this way, but now it’s called “co-creation.”)
  • AM wrote in favor of allowing women to work and contribute to society but opposed giving them degrees (!). He also wrote in favor of economics as a separate study from politics, i.e., splitting departments of political economy. It’s easy to see the error in his perspective on women (or eugenics), but I am still in the minority in calling for more political economy.
  • AM was lucky to have a best-selling book in his final years, as he had not saved enough money to retire. (Pensions were not a thing in the early 20th century!)
J.A. Schumpeter (1940). “Alfred Marshall’s Principles: A Semi-Centennial Appraisal.“
  • “AM was one of the first economists to realize that economics is an evolutionary science” [p 237]. This observation or claim is important when it comes to understanding the differences between economists who focus on equilibrium [the destination] and those (like AM) who focus on the processes affecting movements (in any direction) and/or goals [the journey].
  • AM’s focus on the engine of analysis rather than the truth of the destination meant that his ideas could be used by anyone, at any time, to understand more about an economic topic.
  • AM, playing the role of guide, suggested ideas or paths worth pursuing. Those who followed him could fruitfully spend years tying up the loose ends he uncovered.
  • AM’s ideas on returns to scale, substitution, competition and time (evolution!) have endured. His focus on facts, quantification and results helped make economics useful.
G.F. Shove (1942). “The Place of Marshall’s Principles in the Development of Economic Theory.“
  • AM wrote “an apologia for economics… a kind of Counter-Reformation” to demonstrate the underlying value of economics, which had been buried in obscure theories. AM wanted economics to “deal with man as he is, seen in the round” [p 310].
  • AM discussed long-term supply and demand, but he put little weight on equilibrium, since underlying tastes and technologies changed too fast for stability to endure.
  • AM established a third era of economic thought that built on earlier Classical (Smith) and Ricardian (Ricardo).
  • AM developed the idea of bidding for monopoly rights that is — in the case of water utilities — one way that markets can discipline monopolistic industries.
  • AM understood and discussed problems with imperfect markets, although later economists contributed more to this topic.
  • AM argued, from a biological-evolutionary perspective, that it was “better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong,” but later economists (see 1944 and 1946 links in the footnote at the end of this post) would revert to the security of precise (and wrong) mathematical equilibria.
  • That said, others have embraced AM’s manner of using statistics and data to check theory — methods that have exploded in popularity with econometrics and (better, IMO) experimental economics.
  • AM’s caution in regard to equilibrium would have been helpful in dealing with the Great Depression and WWII. Keynes escaped the suffocating assurance of supply=demand, but many other economists could not.
  • Post-AM economists brought much-needed attention to the dynamics inherent to negotiations among players with major market power and the role(s) of money and finance in the real economy. AM built the foundations they needed.
  • Plenty of other challenges (e.g., group-action, heterogeneous agents, collective control and mass bargaining) still need attention. It got attention from Samuelson (public goods, 1954), Vernon Smith (experimental markets, 1955/1964), Olson (collective action, 1965), and the Ostroms (common-pooled goods, 1977).
C.W. Guillebaud (1952) “Marshall’s Principles of Economics in the Light of Contemporary Economic Thought”.
    • AM’s PoE was “still a standard textbook” in 1952, but CWG advised students to skip most of AM’s (now outdated) moralising about behavior and society. This advice might have made reading less boring, but it seems to have been costly, if we look at the contemporary amorality of many economists. (I didn’t find AM’s writing too boorish, but the 1950s were go-go years…)
    • AM focussed on partial-equilibrium analysis because general-equilibrium was far too unstable to ever arrive:

      The Marshallian world is a more complex matter. It is not in the least static – it is in fact a world of ceaseless movement and change. Population is increasing (or it might be diminishing), capital is growing, tastes are changing, technique is altering. Some industries are expanding, while others are contracting, and the same is true of the individual firms within each industry. Not only is there seasonal and frictional unemployment of labour (the ins and outs) but there is also structural unemployment due to changes in tastes and demand on the one side, and in technique and inventions on the other. But the aggregate volume of unemployment is not so large as to indicate an overall shortag of effective demand. [p 115]

    • CWG gives (p 123) a nice summary of the short vs long run:

      In the case of the market we are dealing with a stock of goods that are already in existence and which are the fruits of past production.
      In the case of the short period we are dealing with a flow of output from a substantially fixed stock of specialised instruments of production.
      In the case of the long period we are dealing with a flow of output from a flow of all the factors of production that are required to produce that output.

      R.H. Coase (1975). “Marshall on Method”
    • As promised, Coase uses most of this (short) article to discuss AM’s methods, which were mostly NON-methods, i.e., AM “would have nothing to do with controversies between deductive schools, inductive schools, historical schools and so on. There was work for all, and he welcomed all. Constructive work was what he wanted” [p 27].
    • What about inductive vs deductive? AM states his ideas in a letter (~1903) to Keynes’s father [pp 26-7]:

      … You make all your contrasts rather too sharply for me. You talk of the inductive & the deductive methods: where as I contend that each involves the other, & that historians are always deducing, & that even the most deductive writers are always implicitly at least basing themselves on observed facts… It is a mere question of arrangement: but I think it is a very important one practically. I think the right order is first to emphasize the mutual dependence of induction & deduction, & afterwards to show in what kinds of inquiry the economist has to spend the greater part of his time in collecting arranging & narrating facts, & in what kinds he is chiefly occupied in reasoning about them & trying to evolve general processes of analysis & general theories which shall show the Many in the One & The One in the Many.

      My second point is that you continually use the word theory where I shd use analysis. This seems to me in itself to cause confusion wh is increased by the fact that later on you exclude modern facts from history; & yet you do not boldly say that theyare part of theory. If they are then I agree with you that a study of theory shd come before a study of history. But I do not myself like to put the case in this way.

      My own notion is [and here Marshall is I take it describing how economics should be presented to students]

      i. Begin with analysis, which is an essential introduction to all study of facts whether of past or present time, with perhaps a very short historical introduction.
      ii. Go on to call to mind the students knowledge of the economic conditions wh he lives. Show the relations in wh they severally stand to one another & carry analysis further, making it more real & concrete.
      iii. Build up a general theory or process of reasoning applicable to Value Money Foreign Trade etc, with special reference to the conditions in wh the student lives, & pointing out how far & in what ways, it can be made to bear on other conditions.
      iv. Give a general course of economic history.
      vi. Consider economical conditions in relation to other aspects of social life.
      vii. Treat of the economic aspects of practical of practical questions in general & social reform in particular.

    • As Coase observes, AM was primarily concerned with understanding and explaining the real economic system that people live, not the abstract, theoretical system beloved by academics. Indeed: “Though a skilled mathematician, he used mathematics sparingly. He saw that excessive reliance on this instrument might lead us astray in pursuit of intellectual toys, imaginary problems not conforming to the conditions of real life: and, further, might distort our sense of proportion by causing us to neglect factors that could not easily be worked up in the mathematical machine” [p 30].
    • Thus, Coase arrives [p 30] at my favorite advice from AM (1906):
        1. Use mathematics as a shorthand language, rather than as an engine of inquiry.
        2. Keep to them till you have done.
        3. Translate into English.
        4. Then illustrate by examples that are important in real life.
        5. Burn the mathematics.
        6. If you can’t succeed in (4), burn (3). This last, I did often.

…and that ends my summary of commentary by five major economists on Alfred Marshall.

My one-handed conclusion, after 18 months of reading Marshall, is that he was one of the truly great thinkers, practitioners and expositors of economics.

This post is the last in a series for the Marshall 2020 Project, i.e., an excuse for me to read Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890 first edition/1920 eighth edition), which dominated economic thinking until Van Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) and Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis (1946) pivoted economics from institutional induction to mathematical deduction.

Ricardo’s doctrine as to taxes and improvements in agriculture

Appendix L

§1. Ricardo claimed that expensive food harmed the nation far more than it benefitted the landlords profiting from higher food prices.  (This makes sense… read more about the Corn Laws and how their repeal in 1846 massively helped the poor.)

Ricardo then says that higher taxes on domestic grain (“corn”), in the special case of no imports and perfectly inelastic demand, will only result in higher prices to consumers. Relaxing these restrictions, higher taxes would result in producing shifting to other crops (“substitution”) and lower prices for producers (“incidence”), both of which illustrate the limits to the power of taxes as well as the dead weight losses (from changes in production) that taxes bring.

Finally, Ricardo claims that higher returns to capital will result in LESS investment in each area, as capital is removed for use elsewhere and local profits are maintained. This is slightly counter-intuitive, but not if you think of profit seeking being a more important goal than grain production.

Overall, Ricardo — Marshall claims — had deep and interesting insights into what would (today) be called general equilibrium theory.

/fin

This is where my year-and-a-half “review” of Marshall stops.  There’s one chapter left — the Mathematical Appendix — but I can’t be bothered to review, interpret (there are many novel symbols and expressions) and compare that Appendix to the current practice of (over) using mathematics in economics. I am sure that it has many interesting insights, but those are best left to others who are into the math.

This post is the last penultimate in part of a series for the Marshall 2020 Project, i.e., an excuse for me to read Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890 first edition/1920 eighth edition), which dominated economic thinking until Van Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) and Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis (1946) pivoted economics from institutional induction to mathematical deduction.

Certain kinds of surplus

Appendix K

§1. This chapter is not very interesting. Marshall merely notes that surplus from infra marginal activities (work, production and consumption) accrues to workers, capitalists and consumers, respectively, before falling to zero “at the margin.”

He warns against double-counting the surplus of a consumer from Product A against the surplus to that consumer (as worker on Service B) or to the capitalist in the process of producing A.

This post is part of a series in the Marshall 2020 Project, i.e., an excuse for me to read Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890 first edition/1920 eighth edition), which dominated economic thinking until Van Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) and Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis (1946) pivoted economics from institutional induction to mathematical deduction.

The doctrine of the wages-fund

Appendix J

§1. This appendix covers a strange (and now forgotten?) debate over capital and labor. Although capital complements labor, some economists seemed to think that the “wages fund” (money available for wages) is limited by the amount of capital. This makes no sense to me in aggregate but it can matter in particular circumstances.

§2. In aggregate, wages depend on the balance of supply and demand (e.g., population versus economic activity), always mediated by relative market power.

§3. There is a connection between the markets for commodities and the markets for the capital and labor inputs to those commodities, but those connections are weaker or stronger depending on a number of factors (time, trade, substitutes, etc.). Many economists have wasted their time trying to identify the connection (e.g., Marx with labor theory of value).

§4. When is comes to divvying up the “national surplus” among various factors of production, relations are neither simple nor stable. There are many elements to consider.

This post is part of a series in the Marshall 2020 Project, i.e., an excuse for me to read Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890 first edition/1920 eighth edition), which dominated economic thinking until Van Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) and Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis (1946) pivoted economics from institutional induction to mathematical deduction.

Ricardo’s theory of value

Appendix I

§1. Ricardo didn’t spell out all his assumptions, connect his theories with the real world, or bring logical vigor to his 1820 Principles of Political-Economy, which has led to — according to Marshall — unfair critiques that focussed on his inconsistencies rather than his larger ideas.

§2. Marshall gives many examples of where Ricardo’s partial or over-simplified statements led to confusion. The most significant misunderstanding was where Marx, using Ricardo’s own words, concluded that Ricardo thought that value arose only through labor inputs whereas Ricardo considered other inputs’ influences in other parts of his work.

§3. Marshall spends a few pages documenting arguments about the relations between production cost (supply), utility value (demand) and price, which reconciles the two in the same way as each blade of scissors (Marshall’s analogy) jointly produce a cut.

This post is part of a series in the Marshall 2020 Project, i.e., an excuse for me to read Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890 first edition/1920 eighth edition), which dominated economic thinking until Van Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) and Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis (1946) pivoted economics from institutional induction to mathematical deduction.

Limitations of the use of statical assumptions in regard to increasing return

Appendix H

§1. Production with increasing returns to scale (or marginal returns) creates a problem with the supply curve (sloping down?) and implies (natural) monopoly power.

§2. Marshall says it would be hard to find equilibrium if demand and supply are both sloping down. Later economists “fixed” this problem, I think, by holding scale constant in the short run (via fixed costs) and then allowing for flat or rising marginal costs. It seems that Marshall was looking at the long run, i.e., where there are no rigidities from fixed costs.

§3. Whoops! Marshall didn’t make that mistake. He discusses how rigidities are likely to affect production (scale) and thus allow for equilibrium (rising supply costs). That said, he does note that some industries with rapidly falling supply costs can result in “plunging” market prices as supply runs ahead of demand. This can happen with new technologies (e.g., cheap airlines) or trade (cheap good from China), for example.

§4. Marshall ends by arguing that declining marginal costs are unlikely in the long run for an entire industry, since demand would never exceed supply. That said, some firms in the industry might have cost advantages, and thus the opportunity to earn quasi-rents in the short run compared to firms on the margin, assuming all receive a market price.

This post is part of a series in the Marshall 2020 Project, i.e., an excuse for me to read Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890 first edition/1920 eighth edition), which dominated economic thinking until Van Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) and Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis (1946) pivoted economics from institutional induction to mathematical deduction.

The incidence of local rates, with some suggestions as to policy

Appendix G

§1. By “rates”, Marshall means local [property] taxes. He begins by noting that taxes that cost more than they give are “onerous” whereas those that give back more than they cost (easy when they are focussed on collective goods rather than private subsidies) are “beneficial”. Since rates are local, they will attract/repel workers and citizens based on that benefit/cost calculation.

§2. A building on land will be more/less profitable over the long term (think net present value) if it fits/misses the neighbourhood’s character, and this character changes over time.

§3. Onerous rates can reduce the value of a building to those who may rent it; even beneficial rates can be bad if they deliver value far later than they are collected.

§4. It’s a good idea to have the same national tax on building values (close to my idea), whereas local rates (on building and/or land value) may need to vary with local conditions. Hopefully they are beneficial!

§5. The incidence (burden) of rates will balance out over time, but it can be onerous (or beneficial) in the short run, which will tend to affect decisions on where to live/work/build.

§6. Speculation occurs at the border between town and outlying areas (e.g., farms), i.e., where the gap between current (use) value and future (converted) value is greatest.

§7. Landlords and farmers tend to share the burdens of rates over the long term, due to lower turn over of occupation.

§8. Rates on residential property should be higher than those on commercial property because turnover is lower in the former (benefits and costs can sync over time) and competition for location is higher in the “commercial” sectors (where rent is an important part of costs/profits).

…while taxes, and especially graduated taxes on expenditure in general [e.g., VAT], present great technical difficulties to the tax collector; and further cost much more to the consumer directly and indirectly than they bring into the revenue; taxes on houses are technically simple, cheap in collection, not liable to evasion, and easy of graduation (p 661).

§9. Marshall says, again, that the costs and benefits of rates need to be balanced over the long run, to make sure that those who pay also receive the benefits from their contributions.

This post is part of a series in the Marshall 2020 Project, i.e., an excuse for me to read Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890 first edition/1920 eighth edition), which dominated economic thinking until Van Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) and Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis (1946) pivoted economics from institutional induction to mathematical deduction.

Barter

Appendix F

In this very short appendix, Marshall explains how the exchange rate in a barter economy (e.g., apples for nuts) will be somewhat arbitrary compared to prices in an economy using money.

In a barter economy, each side has a willingness to trade based on the marginal utilities (MU), since (assuming one has nuts to trade for apples) MU is rising as their stock of nuts is falling, and MU is falling as their stick of apples is rising. In a monetary economy, prices are more stable because (it is assumed) the stocks of both apples and nuts are “unlimited” because apple traders can use cash to buy anything, not just nuts.

This post is part of a series in the Marshall 2020 Project, i.e., an excuse for me to read Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890 first edition/1920 eighth edition), which dominated economic thinking until Van Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) and Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis (1946) pivoted economics from institutional induction to mathematical deduction.

Definitions of capital

Appendix E

§1. Definitions are not always clear or agreed upon. Capital goods (e.g., machines) are not the same as trade capital (e.g., funds used to buy inventory). Machines owned and used by a business are not the same as a hobbyist’s machines (or are they?)

§2. Capital contributes to production over time, as it’s not “used up” immediately. As such it represents “stored value” from prior work (this idea leads Marxists to claim that capital is merely “stored labor” but that ignores the many other components that go into making goods, such as managerial skill, innovation, market making, etc.)

§3. There are many definitions, but I can’t be bothered to split those hairs 😉

This post is part of a series in the Marshall 2020 Project, i.e., an excuse for me to read Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890 first edition/1920 eighth edition), which dominated economic thinking until Van Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) and Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis (1946) pivoted economics from institutional induction to mathematical deduction.

Uses of abstract reasoning in economics

Appendix D

§1. This annex begins with the most concise definition of the relation between inductive and deductive reasoning that I’ve ever read:

Induction, aided by analysis and deduction, brings together appropriate classes of facts, arranges them, analyses them and infers from them general statements or laws. Then for a while deduction plays the chief rôle: it brings some of these generalizations into association with one another, works from them tentatively to new and broader generalizations or laws and then calls on induction again to do the main share of the work in collecting, sifting and arranging these facts so as to test and “verify” the new law (p 644)

Marshall then goes on to contextualise the value of mathematics:

It is obvious that there is no room in economics for long trains of deductive reasoning: no economist, not even Ricardo, attempted them. It may indeed appear at first sight that the contrary is suggested by the frequent use of mathematical formulæ in economic studies. But on investigation it will be found that this suggestion is illusory… as [the mathematician is] often unaware how inadequate the material is to bear the strains of his powerful machinery (p 644).

§2. Marshall’s comment on money as a measure of motive opens with a delight:

If we shut our eyes to realities we may construct an edifice of pure crystal by imaginations, that will throw side lights on real problems; and might conceivably be of interest to beings who had no economic problems at all like our own. Such playful excursions are often suggestive in unexpected ways: they afford good training to the mind: and seem to be productive only of good, so long as their purpose is clearly understood.

For instance, the statement that the dominant position which money holds in economics, results rather from its being a measure of motive than an aim of endeavour, may be illustrated by the reflection that the almost exclusive use of money as a measure of motive is, so to speak, an accident, and perhaps an accident that is not found in other worlds than ours. When we want to induce a man to do anything for us we generally offer him money. It is true that we might appeal to his generosity or sense of duty; but this would be calling into action latent motives that are already in existence, rather than supplying new motives…But political services are more frequently rewarded by such honours than in any other way: so we have got into the habit of measuring them not in money but in honours. 

[snip]

It is quite possible that there may be worlds in which no one ever heard of private property in material things, or wealth as it is generally understood; but public honours are meted out by graduated tables as rewards for every action that is done for others’ good. If these honours can be transferred from one to another without the intervention of any external authority they may serve to measure the strength of motives just as conveniently and exactly as money does with us. In such a world there may be a treatise on economic theory very similar to the present, even though there be little mention in it of material things, and no mention at all of money.

It may seem almost trivial to insist on this, but it is not so. For a misleading association has grown up in people’s minds between that measurement of motives which is prominent in economic science, and an exclusive regard for material wealth to the neglect of other and higher objects of desire. The only conditions required in a measure for economic purposes are that it should be something definite and transferable.

I find these observations interesting for two reasons: First, economists often need to remind “civilians” that we study choices and happiness, not [typically] money, which is used as an accounting unit. (Studies of money supply, velocity, inflation, and so on do focus on money, but they are a small share of all economic studies.) Second, people are not just motivated by money: In 2005, Akerlof and Kranton argued that identity can be used as motivation. They received a lot of attention for their “discovery”, but it seems — yet again — that they have only rediscovered something Marshall wrote down 85 years earlier. (They cite Pareto 1920 but not Marshall.)

§3. Marshall ends the appendix with some notes on how some outsiders (and economists) misperceive economics as only focussed on money when there are long traditions of studying other motives, history and institutions in addition to money.

This post is part of a series in the Marshall 2020 Project, i.e., an excuse for me to read Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890 first edition/1920 eighth edition), which dominated economic thinking until Van Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) and Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis (1946) pivoted economics from institutional induction to mathematical deduction.