Thursday, September 5, 2013

First short essay assignment

The second option, I think, is somewhat easier but that can of course be accounted for in grading.


Assignment: Write a short essay (approximately 2,500 words or five pages) answering one of the following questions:

1.      Economic science is cumulative. Economists modify and formalize the work of earlier economists. Adam Smith, as an early economic thinker, has naturally been taken up and elaborated on by many authors. Choose one of the “Modern Smithians” discussed in class (Paul Krugman, Vernon Smith, Kenneth Arrow, Paul Romer, or Joseph Stiglitz/Andrew Weiss) and write about:

a.       The methodological or stylistic similarities and/or differences between your chosen author and Adam Smith, and

b.      The substantive similarities and/or differences between your chosen author and Adam Smith.

Be sure to use quotes from Adam Smith and from your chosen author in a well-written and properly cited presentation of your arguments.

 
2.      Adam Smith begins the Wealth of Nations with a detailed analysis of the division of labor. The division of labor is one of the most important common threads running through his economic thought. Explain Smith’s perspective on

a.       The relationship between the division of labor and trade (either domestic or international trade),

b.      The relationship between the division of labor and economic growth, and

c.       The role that the division of labor plays in producing a unified Smithian theory of trade and economic growth. That is to say, how does the division of labor account for the interrelationship between trade and growth for Adam Smith.

Be sure to use quotes from Adam Smith in a well-written and properly cited presentation of your arguments.

 

3 comments:

  1. It seems to me that you want your students to focus on specific aspects of the edifice provided in The Wealth of Nations. Will there be any possibility for your students to write essays on Adam Smith's position on money and banking?

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  2. No Coase/North/Williamson/Demsetz/Acemoglu discussed as modern-day Smithians?

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    1. I did discuss Coase at the last minute (inspired by his death) on division of labor and its relation to his theory of the firm. Obviously Williamson could have been there as well, but it was just a brief discusion. I'm not sure we're covering stuff in Smith that would have made North and Acemoglu relevant. Same with Demsetz. The connection there, I think, is less obvious. Smith is the theorist of the division of labor, hence modern versions in Krugman and Romer. He is one of the more famous early proponents of what Mandeville called the private vice/public virtue relationship - the social optimality of market exchange - hence modern versions in Vernon Smith and Ken Arrow.

      Those are the themes we are hitting particularly hard (along with trade and growth, which again circles back to Krugman and Romer), so these were the authors that made sense. He isn't the seminal theorist of property rights or institutions, for example, so I don't think the case is as strong for these guys.

      Stiglitz and Weiss are on there because we discussed economists' perspectives on interest rates on the first day (just as an illustration of how economic thinking has changed between Aquinas and today). Since they were exposed to that - and the close similarities between what Smith said and what Stiglitz said - I wanted to give them the chance to write about him too.

      Buchanan was on the list, but I didn't have time in the schedule to talk a whole lot about Smith on government, so I cut him. Otherwise he would have been on there.

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