Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T20:26:49.971Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Practical Economics of Walter Bagehot

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Extract

Walter Bagehot is an excellent example of the mid-Victorian polymath. He was a banker, journalist, editor, biographer, literary critic, economist and political analyst. The educated reader of today remembers him as the author of The English Constitution, which, though published in 1867, remains one of the best introductions to the workings of the Westminster political system. Economists, on the other hand, vaguely recall him as the monetary commentator who wrote Lombard Street (1873b) and edited The Economist (1861–1877). Only a few historians of economic thought cite Bagehot for his participation in the English Methodenstreit. He played a significant role in this largely forgotten Victorian debate between the historical and orthodox economists. He was one of the first orthodox economists to respond to the historicist challenge, and, in doing so, he articulated a highly controversial relativist interpretation of the orthodox doctrines. Specifically, in response to the historicist claims that recent evidence gathered from custom-bound societies falsified the orthodox

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bagehot, W. 1848a. “Currency Monopoly” in John-Stevas, St. 1978, 9, 235271.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1848b. “Principles of Political Economy” in John-Stevas, St. 1978, 11, 157–94.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1852a. “Letters on the French Coup d'État of 1851” in John-Stevas, St. 1968, 4, 2984.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1852b. “Oxford” in John-Stevas, St. 1974, 7, 327–70.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1853. “Shakespeare—The Individual” in John-Stevas, St. 1965, 1, 173214.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1856. “Mr. Macaulay” in John-Stevas, St. 1965, 1, 397428.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1859. “Mr. James Deacon Hume” in John-Stevas, St. 1978, 11, 395400.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1860. “Memoir of the Right Honourable James Wilson” in John-Stevas, St. 1968, 3, 323–64.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1865. “Mr. Mill's Address to the Electors of Westminster” in John-Stevas, St. 1968, 3, 541–46.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1867a. The English Constitution, in John-Stevas, St. 1974, 5, 161409.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1867b. “Physics and Politics, No. I: The Pre-Economic Age,” Fortnightly Review, n.s., 2, 518–38.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1868a. “Physics and Politics, No. II: The Age of Conflict,” Fortnightly Review, n.s., 3, 452–71.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1868b. “Mr. Mill on Ireland” in John-Stevas, St. 1968, 3, 547–53.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1869. “Physics and Politics, No. III: Nation-Making,” Fortnightly Review, n.s., 6, 5872.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1871a. “Physics and Politics, No. IV: Nation Making,” Fortnightly Review, n.s., 10, 696717.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1871b. “Mr. Lowe as Chancellor of the Exchequer” in John-Stevas, St. 1968, 3, 571–74.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1872a. “Physics and Politics, No. V: Conclusion: The Age of Discussion,” Fortnightly Review, n.s., 11, 4670.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1872b. Physics and Politics, in John-Stevas, St. 1974, 7, 13144.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1873a. “The Late Mr. Mill” in John-Stevas, St. 1968, 3, 555–59.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1873b. Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market, Kegan Paul, London, 1878.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1874. “The Advantages and Disadvantages of Becoming a Member of Parliament” in John-Stevas, St. 1974, 5, 5459.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1875. “The Late Professor Cairnes” in John-Stevas, St. 1978, 11, 401–3.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1876a. “The Postulates of English Political Economy, No I” in John-Stevas, St. 1978, 11, 222–54.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1876b. “The Postulates of English Political Economy, No. II” in John-Stevas, St. 1978, 11, 255–79.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1876c. “The Centenary of ‘The Wealth of Nations’” in John-Stevas, St. 1968, 11, 113–19.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1876d. “Adam Smith as a Person” in John-Stevas, St. 1968, 3, 85112.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W. 1880. Economic Studies, in John-Stevas, St. 1978, 11, 221394.Google Scholar
Blaug, M. 1979. “Review of The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot, Volumes 9, 10, 11,” Economica, 46, 446–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briggs, A. 1955. Victorian People. A Reassessment of Persons and Themes, 1851–67, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1965.Google Scholar
Bryce, J. B. 1914. “Lord Bryce on Walter Bagehot,” in John-Stevas, St. 1986, 15, 6877.Google Scholar
Buchan, A. 1960. The Spare Chancellor. The Life of Walter Bagehot, Michigan State University Press, Lansing.Google Scholar
Burrow, J. 1966. Evolution and Society. A Study in Victorian Social Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1970.Google Scholar
Coats, A. W. 1954. “The Historist Reaction to English Political Economy 1870–1890,” Economica, n.s., 2, 143–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collini, S., Winch, D., and Burrow, J.. 1983. The Noble Science of Politics. A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giffen, R. 1880. “Bagehot as an Economist” in John-Stevas, St. 1978, 11, 199221.Google Scholar
Granville, G. L. 1877. “Earl Granville on Bagehot, 1877” in John-Stevas, St. 1986, 15, 6061.Google Scholar
Hutton, R. H. 1877a. “Obituary of Walter Bagehot” in John-Stevas, St. 1986, 15, 2834.Google Scholar
Hutton, R. H. 1877b. “Obituary of Walter Bagehot” in John-Stevas, St. 1986, 15, 3441.Google Scholar
Hutton, R. H. 1877c. “Memoir of Walter Bagehot” in John-Stevas, St. 1986, 15, 83127.Google Scholar
Jevons, W. S. 1876. “The Future of Political Economy,” Fortnightly Review, n.s., 20, 617–31.Google Scholar
Keynes, J. M. 1915. “Review of the Works of Walter Bagehot,” Economic Journal, 25, 369–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keynes, J. M. 1891. The Scope and Method of Political Economy, Augustus M. Kelley, New York, 1965.Google Scholar
Koot, G. M. 1975. “T.E. Cliffe Leslie, Irish Social Reform, and the Origins of the English Historical School of Economics,” History of Political Economy, 7, 312–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koot, G. M. 1980. “English Historical Economics and the Emergence of Economic History in England,” History of Political Economy, 12, 174205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koot, G. M. 1987. English Historical Economics, 1870–1926: The Rise of Economic History and Neomercantilism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Mannheim, K. 1935. Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, London, 1944.Google Scholar
Marshall, A. 1885. “Preface to The Postulates of English Political Economy by W. Bagehot, Student Edition,” in John-Stevas, St. 1978, 11, 195–96.Google Scholar
Mill, J. S. 1843. A System of Logic, in Robson, J. N., ed., The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, 7–8, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 19731974.Google Scholar
Mill, J. S. 1848. Principles of Political Economy, edited by Ashley, W., Augustus M. Kelley, New York, 1987.Google Scholar
Northcote, S. 1877. “Sir Stafford Northcote's Tribute to Bagehot in the House of Commons 1877” in John-Stevas, St. 1986, 15, 55.Google Scholar
Popper, K. 1957. The Poverty of Historicism, Ark Paperbacks, London, 1986.Google Scholar
Rostow, W. W. 1943. “Bagehot and the Trade Cycle,” in The Economist, 1843–1943. A Centenary Volume, Oxford University Press, London, 155–74.Google Scholar
Sayers, R. S. 1978. “Bagehot as an Economist” in John-Stevas, St. 19651986, 9, 2743.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. 1954. History of Economic Analysis, Allen and Unwin, London, 1986.Google Scholar
John-Stevas, St., N.A.F. 1965. “Walter Bagehot, A Short Biography” in John-Stevas, St. 19651986, 1, 2983.Google Scholar
John-Stevas, St., N.A.F. 1974. “The Political Genius of Walter Bagehot” in John-Stevas, St. 19651986, 5, 35159.Google Scholar
St. John-Stevas, N.A.F., ed. 19651986. The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot, 1–15, The Economist, London.Google Scholar
Wilson, W. 1889. “A Literary Politician” in John-Stevas, St. 1986, 15, 151–68.Google Scholar
Wilson, W. 1898. “A Wit and Seer” in John-Stevas, St. 1986, 15, 169–88.Google Scholar