Out now

Cambridge Journal of Economics special issue on "Whig History and the reinterpretation of economic theory" is now out at http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/content/current and will be on open access until July.

Editors Alan Freeman, Victoria Chick, and Serap Kayatekin.

Authors Peter Boettke, Christopher Coyne, Peter Leeson, Amiya Bagchi, Hugh Goodacre, Jérôme Blanc, Ludovic Desmedt,Serap Ayşe Kayatekin, William Dixon, David Wilson, Andrew Kliman, Alan Freeman, Victoria Chick, Geoff Tily.

A definitive response to Samuelson's 1987 'out of the closet' programme which in many senses defined economics as it is today.

From the editor's Introduction:

"Over a quarter of a century has passed since the 1987 publication of Paul A. Samuelson’s historiographical manifesto ‘Out of the closet: A program for the Whig history of economic science’, summarising arguments that had developed during a 16-year debate provoked by his 1971 Journal of Economic Literature article on the Marxian transformation problem. Samuelson’s intervention marked a defining turning point in the evolution of contemporary economic thought.

"In the wake of the economic turmoil that opened with the 2007 financial crash, 20 years after Samuelson’s manifesto, criticisms of the quality of economic thought have multiplied. This special issue of Cambridge Journal of Economics offers a timely re-appraisal of the impact of the Whig-historical programme on the economic thinking and practices that have become the target of today’s critics."