Christopher Bliss (Professorial Fellow) has worked further on the theory of convergence of similar income generating units which start from different initial conditions. A paper which describes stationary densities generated by a convergence process disturbed by random shocks in detail is under journal consideration. Earlier work has shown that full equilibrium solutions are highly conservative where inequality is concerned. These investigations have worked with additive separable preferences, as are always used in the literature. Therefore it is natural to ask what are the most general preferences that support non-convergence. The answer is Koopmans-separable preferences, and a paper under final preparation demonstrates this conclusion.

Two events have drawn me back to the capital theory area, in which I was a prominent protagonist in the 1960s and 1970s. The first is the preparation of an editorial introduction to an Edward Elgar readings collection on Capital Theory. The other is writing a contribution to the forthcoming Oxford Review of Economic Policy issue on The Real Rate of Interest. These have been fascinating exercises, because capital theory as it was traditionally conceived is now barely extant. Looking afresh at the field, I am inclined to conclude that neoclassical capital theory is far from being satisfactory. However the problems lie on the suppy side (provision of capital by aggregate saving) and not on the demand side (capital goods market equilibrium), where most old writers, from Wicksell and Keynes, to Joan Robinson, placed their emphasis.

Finally the preparation of an entry for the New Dictionary of National Biography on Michael Farrell took me again back to the past, and to 1960s Cambridge divisions. Although Farrell was on the losing side of the power divide at the time, when self-styled Keynesians largely controlled the Cambridge Faculty, it is striking that in terms of current citations Farrell’s reputation has stood up better than most of his then intellectual opponents.

Publication

‘Galton’s Fallacy and Economic Convergence’, Oxford Economic Papers, 51, 1999.