The Programming Approach and the Demise of Economics: Volume I: A Revival of Myrdal, Frisch, Tinbergen, Johansen and Leontief - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Professor Franco Archibugi is the Founder and Chairman of the Planning Studies Centre in

Rome, Italy. Prior to this he taught economics at the University of Florence, Italy and planning

at the Universities of Calabria, Palermo, and Naples, Italy. He studied history and philosophy at

the Universities of Rome and Heidelberg, and economics at the London School of Economics.

He is the author of many books and papers on socio-economic, environmental and urban

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In this book – the first of three volumes – Franco Archibugi sets out to create an epistemology

of economics, arguing for a radical overturning of the conventional analysis from a

“positive” approach to a “programming” approach. This overturning leads to a reappraisal

of the foundations of Economics itself, and to an improved integration of Economics as an

autonomous discipline alongside Sociology, Political Science, Operational Research, Social

The author interrogates how scientific the social sciences really are before proposing a new

scientific paradigm for the social sciences, a political preference function and a general

programming approach. The chapters revisit hitherto neglected economists like Gunnar

Myrdal, Ragnar Frisch, Vassili Leontief, and Leif Johansen, using their theory to overturn the

epistemological approach of the entire science of economics.

Volume IIexplores oppositions to the traditional and conventional teaching of economics,

whilst Volume III presents a concrete and practical example of how to build a Planning

Accounting Framework (PAF), as associated with Frisch’s ‘plan-frame’ (explored in Volume II),

to demonstrate the extent to which decisions and negotiations can be routed in the social

sciences.