Economists and Their Travels, or the Time When JFK Sent Douglass North on a Mission to Brazil
Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Forthcoming
The Center for the History of Political Economy WP No. 2017-17, 9/2017
64 Pages Posted: 4 Oct 2017 Last revised: 7 Jan 2018
Date Written: September 1, 2017
Abstract
The role of traveling as a source of discovery and development of new ideas has been controversial in the history of economics. Despite their protective attitude toward established theory, economists have traveled widely and gained new insights or asked new questions as a result of their exposure to “other” economic systems, ideas and forms of behavior. That is particularly the case when they travel to new places while their frameworks are in their initial stages or undergoing changes. This essay examines economists’ traveling as a potential source of new hypotheses, from the 18th to the 20th centuries, with a detailed case study of Douglass North’s 1961 travel to Brazil.
Keywords: Travel, Economic Theories, Douglass North, Brazil, Otherness
JEL Classification: B00, B30, B41
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation