Review by Choice Review
This imaginative and provocative work mathematically restates the mainstream of economic analysis from William Petty's mercantilism to Milton Friedman's monetarism. Using the calculus, each theory is formulated mathematically. The assumptions, consistency, and predictions of each model are carefully discussed. The premises and conclusions of each model are examined in light of the original texts, a prudent and useful approach for theory developed prior to the conventional use of mathematics in economic analysis. The evolution of economic ideas is organized around the three dimensions of economic theory: macro-quantity and price (unemployment and inflation theory); micro-quantity and price (allocation theory and the theory of relative prices); and the time dimension of theory, static and dynamic equilibrium. Economic analysis is viewed by Brems as a progression of emphases from mercantilist unemployment and allocation theory to Hume's inflation theory and eventually the classical theory of relative prices. The two parts of micro-theory merge in both their static and general equilibrium forms during the neoclassical period. Seventeenth and eighteenth century macro-theory is then reborn in Keynes's unemployment theory and Friedman's monetarist inflation theory. Upper-division and graduate audiences.-F. Petrella Jr., College of the Holy Cross
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
