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Robert Bigg

@robertbigg.bsky.social
998 followers 448 following 400 posts

History of Economics; Information Systems &c. Still looking through post-Keynesian tinted glasses: we have been seduced by the maths not convinced by the poets. Currently working on Alvin Hansen, Sidney Alexander, & Theodor Gregory. rbigg.github.io

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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Disequilibrium perhaps had its heyday In the 70s/80s, for example, Frank Hahn looked at conjectural equilibria & found “if it will prove possible to make conjectures less arbitrary it will have to be done in a Marshallian way. This is not a conclusion congenial to a general equilibrium man.”
Hahn in Toics in Disequilibrium Economics ed Strøm & Werin, Macmillan 1978
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
And what you rarely see is some sort of balance sheet approach, which might be a lot more informative. Alvin Hansen suggested a current and capital account approach to the US budget post the Great Depression, not that it came to anything!
UK Balance Sheet, Net Worth via ONS
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
This week’s interesting titles! Leigh’s short history is a great intro: putting the econ into an historical, social, institutional, & technological setting. Whereas Decolonizing Econ seeks to challenge our whole Eurocentric approach. They have an element of a return to political economy in common.
New books: Andrew Leigh History of Economics, Dutt, Alves, Kesar, & Kvangraven Decolonizing Econ, and Bolton & Huang Money Capital.
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
Back where we had our wedding reception 40 years ago… changed a bit since!!
Happy Anniversary written on a plate of cakes
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
Looking forward to getting further into this book by @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social Encouraged by the introduction including “What does ‘better’ mean?” (NB in 1957 Hansen would have already included nutrition, health, education, recreation…) and “The fundamental issue is the definition of value”.
Cover of Diane Cooke’s The Measure of Progress
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
As students we spend Sunday reading the two main broadsheets, The Observer & Sunday Times over a long shared lunch, this picture must have been from 1977-8.
Reading the Sunday papers as students (1978)
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Looking forward to the contents of this delivery for tea later… the Chelsea buns come with an extra pot of sticky sauce. #Fitzbillies
Fitzbillies Cambridge box of teatime delights
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
No.9
Chick, Macroeconomics after Keynes
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
No.8 (it seems our instigator has dropped out already, but one or two more old classics won’t go amiss)
Eshag , From Marshall to Keynes
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
No.7
Shackle, The Years of High Theory
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
No.6
Paul Davidson, Money & the Real World
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
No.5
Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
No.4
F Lavington, The Trade Cycle (1922)
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
No.3
Criticism & the Growth of Knowledge, eds Lakatos & Musgrave
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
Not sure how we’re doing the sequence, as per comment above hashtag? Or thread…?- anyhow No.2
Douglas Hofstadter Gödel, Escher, Bach
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
Keynes, A Tract on Monetary Reform
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 03/10/2024
Silk Roads at the British Museum is a fascinating exposition of the interaction of trade, culture, technology, and thought: from East to West. Very busy having only just opened, so must return later. Just as uplifting was the reopened old British Library Reading Room, such a great room for working!
The old British Library Reading Room at the British Museum, fond memories of following in the footsteps of the greats…
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 16/08/2024
As an appetizer for the weekend, or just a timeline break, a vista from near Ashover Rock in Derbyshire earlier this week. The annual Ashover Show is quite an event too!
View from near Ashover Rock, Derbyshire, UK.
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 09/08/2024
I can offer you a southern one near here, obviously not quite the same grimness! But nonetheless some still relying on horse power.
Kennet & Anon Canal, near NewburyHorse drawn canal boat on the Kennet & Avon
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 09/08/2024
You could always go further northeast, this is near Barnsley… but no canal!
Cannon Hall, near Barnsley, UK
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 23/07/2024
Here is a prescient gem from 1930 on economic self-sufficiency
Gregory on economic self-sufficiency in 1930
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 23/07/2024
A very 30s dust jacket for this collection of reprinted articles from 1925-33. A great introduction and a few gems!
Cover of TE Gregory- Gold, Unemployment and Capitalism
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 19/07/2024
TE Gregory, now largely forgotten, was the archetypal defender of the gold standard well past its expiry date. However his 1933 comments on the aims of monetary policy, not simply as price stability but as a broader stability have perhaps endured, even if overly optimistic in a preKeynesian age.
Gregory on monetary policy aims in 1933
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 19/07/2024
In 1933 TE Gregory published a collection of earlier articles as a book, quite common in the period. Thus the introduction is of interest. This is quite a comment on the interaction of economics and economic history. Here he credits his links with Lilian Knowles, Foxwell & Cannan
Extract of 1933 introduction by TE Gregory on history and economics
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 09/07/2024
Robert Cord’s next volume in the Palgrave Companion series is now out, this time on the development of Harvard Economics.
Cover of Palgrave Companion to Harvard Economics, July 2024
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 12/02/2024
Following this up with a related, and equally fascinating, analysis by Claire Priest of the foundation of American capitalism in property rights (including slaves) and the development of credit.
Cover image of Claire Priest’s book Credit Nation on the development of American capitalism
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 07/02/2024
Also Hansen’s 1947 AER article on cost functions has some references to empirical work including discussions & questionnaires by RA Lester, work by the NBER and a Congressional Committee under Ed Mason…
Page from Hansen’s 1947 AER article on cost functions and empirical evidence
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 17/01/2024
Finding “The Wealth of a Nation” by Geoffrey Hodgson to be a fascinating and insightful read. A much wider political-economic history leading up to the Industrial Revolution. Seems like I keep coming across enlightening aspects of institutionalist approaches at the moment!
Cover image - The Wealth of a Nation
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 23/12/2023
Keynes on the Book Trade in 1927 and why books were not too dear then (and perhaps now?) open.substack.com/pub/robertbi...
Cover image of Books and the Public (1927)
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 05/12/2023
Maria Pia Bridge, Porto, attributed to Eiffel
Maria Pia Bridge, Porto
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 24/11/2023
As something of an interlude, a tale about TE Gregory’s first wife, and a tenuous Berkshire connection… open.substack.com/pub/robertbi...
Wilma, Theodor, and Laurie
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 16/11/2023
Very pleased to repost this from that other site… And a link to the home page on the publisher’s site: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
PalgraveEcon tweet about Hansen book
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 27/10/2023
Here’s a later one from the NIESR Review that should be easily accessible
Clare Group article intro from NIESR Review
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 14/10/2023
DH Robertson on the feelings of revisiting the General Theory debates in response to Hansen’s Guide to Keynes. And some comments on Keynesianism.
DH Robertson’s letter to Alvin Hansen regarding the latter’s Guide to Keynes and the General Theory
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 10/10/2023
So with some trepidation, mixed with a little relief, I clicked the final submit button. Proofs done on the Hansen book. I fully expect to wake up one morning remembering what I must have forgotten etc. I managed to get a reference to Thomas Hart Benton into the introduction too.
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 30/09/2023
Hansen proofs have finally arrived! That gives a sense of reality, but nonetheless still scary to turn them round in time! In the meantime here’s the cover and contents to whet your appetite🤞…
Alvin Hansen book coverAlvin Hansen book contentsAlvin Hansen book contentsAlvin Hansen book contents
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 22/09/2023
A very short note on the “jazz economics” of the late 1920s. robertbigg.substack.com/p/jazz-econo... (Experimenting on Substack….)
Image of substack post on Jazz Economics and the Depression
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 23/08/2023
Arthur Marget’s comments on method at the 1928 Harris Foundation Round Tables, with an endorsement from the LSE’s TE Gregory. The 1928 sessions covered Foreign Investments, including contributions from Cassel, Gregory, and Kuczynski. The round table organising committee included Marget & Viner.
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Robert Bigg @robertbigg.bsky.social · 23/08/2023
Wonderful anecdote from Jacob Viner about Pigou at the 1928 Harris Foundation round tables: “I am not in the habit of reading the books I myself have written.”
Jacob Viner anecdote at 1928 Harris Round Tables vol.1 p.146
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