Journal Article

Kindleberger: Economics and History

Findlay, Ronald

2005

Overview

Charlie Kindleberger was a beloved teacher and mentor to all his generations of students. The author will try to give a sense of Kindleberger's unique contribution to the discipline, which he believes was the restoration of history as an essential dimension of the economic analysis of international trade, business cycles, financial panics, economic development, or indeed, of almost any economic phenomenon whatsoever. Kindleberger's mind was never compartmentalized between an economic and an historical part. The two were always fused together no matter was the subject he was considering. For example, formal trade theorists usually treat transport costs as a mere nuisance, to be handled if strictly necessary by the \"melting iceberg\" assumption. Kindleberger, however, uses the existence of transport costs, and changes in their levels and structure, to note how they affect the economic horizons of producers and consumers and from this, he deduces the striking proposition that trade can profitably be viewed as a \"learning process.\" Kindleberger noted the great historical significance of transport innovations and traced some of their consequences.

• Publisher: International Atlantic Economic Society,Springer,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Academic disciplines / Appreciation / Business cycles / Capital markets / College professors / Colleges & universities / Consumers / Costs / Deaths / Economic development / Economic history / Economic theory / Economics / Economists / Emigration / Innovations / International finance / International trade / Kindleberger, Charles / Kindleberger, Charlie / Student teacher relationship / Tariffs / Teachers / Technological change / Terms of trade / Theorists / Transport costs / Transportation