Abstract
What can we take away from reading an obscure treatise, written some four hundred years ago? One might expect that it would allow us to measure the progress that has been made in economics since that time. However, what it does is make very evident how much economics has changed from a practical subject that deals with economic policy to improve living conditions, to a theoretical subject carried on primarily for the amusement of its practitioners.
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Notes
Rosselli, A., “Early Views on Monetary Policy: The Neapolitan Debate on the Theory of Exchange” History of Political Economy Vol. 32 No. 1, 2000, provides a useful guide to conditions prevailing at the time, but even this does not provide a clear guide to understanding de Santis’s argument on the issue.
Serra, A., A Short Treatise on the Wealth and Poverty of Nations, ed. S. A. Reinert, trans. Jonatan Hunt, London: Dehli: Anthem, 2011, p. 195.
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© 2016 Jan Kregel
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Kregel, J. (2016). Serra’s Breve trattato and the Theory of Economic Development. In: Patalano, R., Reinert, S.A. (eds) Antonio Serra and the Economics of Good Government. Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137539960_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137539960_16
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