Alfred Marshall’s Last Challenge: His Book on Economic Progress

This text presents Alfred Marshall’s final, unfinished, and unpublished book. His main volume, Principles of Economics, was first published in 1890, and was, for a long period of time, the textbook par excellence on which generations of economists were trained. Despite its success and its importance, the book, in its eight editions, testifies to some extent to the failure of Marshall’s original editorial project which should have consisted of multiple volumes and culminated with the publication of a final work on economic progress. Marshall’s death in 1924 made it impossible to realize his project, but many notes written for it have survived. These notes, collected here, constitute a fundamental element in fully understanding the thought and perspectives of this great economist and in appreciating his great modernity and wisdom.

About the Author :
Katia Caldari is Associate Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Padova, Italy. She obtained her PhD in History of Economic Thought at the University of Florence, Italy. Her main publications include: “At the Origin of Industrial District: Alfred Marshall and the Cambridge School” (with F. Belussi, 2009); “Marshall and Complexity: A Necessary Balance between Process and Order” (2015); “Dealing with Time in Economic Analysis: Some Marshallian Insights” (2017); and “Alfred Marshall and François Perroux: The Neglected Liaison” (2018).Tamotsu Nishizawa is Professor at Faculty of Economics of Teikyo University, Tokyo. He was Professor and Director of the Institute of Economic Research at Hitotsubashi University, and Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge. His main publications include Economic Thought of Alfred Marshall and the Historical School (2007, in Japanese), and he is the editor of the books No Wealth but Life: Welfare Economics and the Welfare State in Britain (with R. E. Backhouse, 2010), Marshall, Marshallians and Industrial Economics (with T. Raffaelli and S. Cook, 2011), and Liberalism and the Welfare State (with R. E. Backhouse et al., 2017).

Review :
"A wealth of thought-provoking topics is to be found in these pages. As those who are acquainted with Marshall’s manuscripts know, he can be a much more engrossing writer than appears from his often overwritten published texts. Most of these fragments are jotted down in lively, spontaneous prose, ideologically candid, always acute, and at times paradoxical. We must be grateful to Caldari and Nishizawa for bringing back to life this source of knowledge of the past and intellectual stimulus for our times."Marco Dardi, University of Florence