... to
AN ESSAY
ON THE
NATURE
ftf
SIGNIFICANCE
OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE
BY
LIONEL ROBBINS
Professor
of
Economics
in the
University of London
SECOND EDITION, REVISED
AND
EXTENDED
MACMILLAN
AND ... .11 5
5.
The
Inevitability
of
Economic
Law
. . .12 1
6.
The
Limitations
of
Economic
Law . . .12 6
7.
The
Possibility
of a
Theory
of
Economic Develop...
... diminution of the value of capital. This is
one of the most elementary deductions from the theory
of economic equilibrium. The history of this country
since the War is one long vindication of its ... Robertson,
How do
We
Want Gold to Behave?
reprinted in the
International Gold
Problem,
pp. 18 -46.
vi THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE 14 7
ments&qu...
... still an economic problem of
deciding
between
the " ;economic& quot; and the "non -economic& quot;.
One of the main problems of the Theory of Production
lies half outside Professor Cannan's ... this decision on the whole complex
of "scarcity relationships" on wages, on profits, on
prices, on rates of capitalisation, and the organi...
... is
one of the limitations of conduct. But the scarcity of
our own time and the services of others is just as
important. The scarcity of the services of the school-
master and the sewage man have ... 22 SIGNIFICANCE OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE OH.
which gives them their status as economic goods;
it is their relation to valuations. It is their rela-
tionship to given...
... between them. The nature of
Economic Theory is clear. It is the study of the
formal implications of these relationships of ends and
means on various assumptions concerning the nature
of the ultimate ... changing network of economic relation-
ships,
2
the effect on values in the economic sense of
changes in ends and changes in the technical and soci...
... Both the
concept of world money income and the national money
income have strict significance only for monetary
theory the
one
in relation to the general theory of in-
direct exchange, the other ... other. Anyone who has lived in a household
in which there was more than one servant will realise the force of this
consideration.
64 SIGNIFICANCE OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE OH...
... individuals can
1
See Knight,
Bisk,
uncertainty, and Profit; Hicks, The Theory of Profit
(Economica, No. 31, pp. 17 0 -19 0).
' See Mises, The Theory of Money, pp. 14 7 and 200; Lavington, The
English ... xxiï., 19 09).
80 SIGNIFICANCE OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE OH.
tions of the broad principles of the natural sciences, so
in the application of economic pr...
... this reason
the methods of economic science although not the
10 4
10 0 SIGNIFICANCE Oï` ECONOMIC SCIENCE OH.
whenever human activity has an economic aspect, the
rest being assumptions of a more ... misappre-
hension. The propositions of the theory of variations
do not involve the assumption that men are actuated
only by considerations of money gains and lo...
... of the economic subjects entering the market.
It is a function of the availability of other foods. It
is a function of the quantity and quality of the popu-
lation. It is a function of the distribution ... an economic good and carrion a disutility. Still
less do they inform us concerning the intensity of the
demand for caviare or the demand to be rid of...
... v
ECONOMIC GENERALISATIONS AND REALITY 13 5
capable of objective definition. And this is not true.
So far from providing a justification for this kind
of economic explanation, economic analysis ... Economic Outlook, pp. 59-62).
13 6
13 8 SIGNIFICANCE OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE OH.
have seen, is derived from the conception of a scarcity
of means in relation to the ends...