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Spiritualism was a popular cultural movement that flourished in the late-19th century across the United States and eventually Europe. While there were many facets of its philosophy, the primary conviction behind Spiritualism was that spirits of the dead could communicate with the living through human mediums. Although this basic definition of Spiritualism is virtually uncontested in contemporary scholarship, the cultural causes of the movement remain a highly debated topic. Historians have proposed a variety of theories for Spiritualism's inception, but none have yet to explore the economic motivations behind the movement. Spiritualism was, in fact, a vital commercial enterprise that spurred entrepreneurial and consumption opportunities for thousands of nascent capitalists. During the movement's prime, a host of Spiritualist merchandise was mass produced and marketed, including talking boards, spirit photographs, séances, and planchettes. Together, these products were produced and consumed in what became an "economy of the supernatural"--a thriving industry based on the desire to communicate with deceased humans. Through analysis of product advertisements and opinions raised about the issue found in mass media, this thesis will demonstrate that economic motivation was behind every aspect of Spiritualist practice. No part of the movement was left untouched by the desire for financial gain. Furthermore, this thesis argues that while various cultural forces influencing Spiritualism would diminish over time, the movement was able to sustain itself through the development of an economy of supernatural products and services, many of which continue to be produced to this very day. / History

This dissertation investigates the reasons behind combined military and naval offensive expeditions that Great Britain conducted outside of Europe during the Great War. It argues that they were not unnecessary adjuncts to the war in Europe, but they fulfilled an important strategic purpose by protecting British trade where it was most vulnerable. Trade was not a luxury for the British; it was essential for maintaining the island nation's way of life, a vital interest and a matter of national survival. Great Britain required freedom of the seas in order to maintain its global trade. A general war in Europe threatened Great Britain's economic independence with the potential of losing its continental trading partners. The German High Seas Fleet constituted a serious threat that also placed the British coast at grave risk forcing the Royal Navy to concentrate in home waters. This dissertation argues that the several combined military and naval operations against overseas territories constituted parts of an overarching strategy designed to facilitate the Royal Navy's gaining command of the seas. Using documents from the Cabinet, the Foreign and Colonial Offices, the War Office, and the Admiralty, plus personal correspondence and papers of high-ranking government officials, this dissertation demonstrates that the Offensive Sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defense drafted the campaign plan. Subsequently, the plan received Cabinet approval, and then the Foreign Office, the Admiralty, and the Colonial Office coordinated with allies and colonies to execute the operations necessary to prosecute the campaign. In Mesopotamia, overseas expeditions directed against the Ottoman Empire protected communications with India and British oil concessions in Persia. The combined operations against German territories exterminated the logistics and intelligence hubs that supported Germany's commerce raiders thereby protecting Britain's world-wide trade and its overseas possessions. / History

Between 1820 and 1840, there arose in England a small school of economic thought, intensely anti-capitalistic, known as the Ricardian socialists. Their basic idea was the laborers' right to their whole product. One somewhat obscure member of this group was Piercy Ravenstone who wrote A Few Doubts on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy in 1821 and Thoughts on the Funding System and Its Effects in 1824. In this thesis, I have put forth Ravenstone's system in detail by thoroughly examining both of his works. His basic approach is to demolish the Malthusian population theory, putting in its place a theory which shows that exploitation through rent, taxes and profit is the cause of worker misery. Before examining Ravenstone's work, I have described the historical events which led to early socialist ideology and have given a general overview of Ricardian socialism and its connection with the more classical economics. Profiles of the 2 more well-known members of the school are given and thoughts of Karl Marx on the work of these men are briefly discussed. The conclusion reached is that Ravenstone was not a true socialist but rather was somewhat right-wing. Although he shared many socialist criticisms of capitalist society, he espoused a society of individual workers in both manufacturing and agriculture rather than Owenist establishments or communism. / Master of Arts

Master of Arts / Department of Economics / Lance J. Bachmeier / This thesis examines the properties of two short-term interest rates: the federal funds rate and the rate of return on 90-day Treasury securities (T-Bills). Findings indicate strong evidence of cointegration among the two series. This result leads us to consider whether future movements in T-bill returns are predictable using the same methods used to predict the target federal funds rate. The “Taylor Rule,” introduced by Taylor (1993), assumes the Federal Reserve considers inflation and the output gap in their deliberation of how to adjust the federal funds target rate. We do an in-sample analysis followed by an out-of-sample forecasting comparison. Findings show that, in addition to inflation and the output gap, the unemployment rate and stock market contain valuable information for forecasting future T-bill rates.

Neste estudo é feita uma apresentação de alguns aspectos da obra de Herbert A. Simon que foram julgados de particular importância para a economia. A teoria comportamental do autor é o eixo em torno do qual estes aspectos resultaram girar. Esta teoria por sua vez foi aqui dividida em dois temas: o da racionalidade e o da organização. Estes temas são duas partes essenciais da teoria e devem caminhar sempre juntos no sentido de que, respectivamente, tratam da estrutura da teoria e do contexto ao qual ela se aplica. No que diz respeito ao tema da racionalidade, são tratados aqui os argumentos de Simon relativos às restrições ao exercício da racionalidade pelos agentes associadas às suas capacidades cognitivas. Em particular, Simon argumenta que a hipótese de onisciência, implicada pelas hipóteses de racionalidade da teoria econômica neoclássica, gera problemas para a teoria, tanto em sua faceta normativa quanto na positiva. São também apresentados os conceitos de racionalidade restrita e de racionalidade procedimental. Este último foi desenvolvido por Simon a partir do primeiro, tendo em vista principalmente as dificuldades da teoria econômica de lidar com situações de incerteza. Na medida em que as restrições à racionalidade são admitidas pela teoria, o comportamento passa a depender fortemente tanto do contexto em que ocorre quanto das características psicológicas (cognitivas) do agente. Grande parte do trabalho de Simon em economia girou em torno do conceito de organização. De fato, organizações constituem um contexto predominante do comportamento econômico, tanto mais quanto grandes organizações têm dominado o cenário nas últimas décadas. Neste sentido, é questionada também a predominância do conceito de mercado sobre o de organização na teoria. Esta dependência que o comportamento econômico tem do contexto leva Simon a argumentar em favor de uma aproximação entre economia e empiria, em particular do estudo empírico de como o comportamento se dá na prática – ou seja, onde empiria não deve ser tomada como sinônimo de econometria. Uma contextualização histórica do trabalho de Simon também foi realizada. Foram explorados aí alguns temas. Primeiro, foi conceituado o “regime da Segunda Guerra Mundial" surgido em torno da confluência entre as empreitadas científica e militar durante a Segunda Guerra. Em segundo lugar, a importância deste regime para a carreira de Simon foi discutida, em particular a disponibilidade do computador, a partir de meados da década de 1950, para sua pesquisa. Em terceiro lugar, foi identificada e descrita como importante manifestação desse regime a “pesquisa operacional" e foram traçadas algumas de suas implicações para a economia em particular e, de maneira mais vaga, para as ciências sociais em geral. / This study presents some aspects of Herbert A. Simon’s work that were thought to have particular importance to economics. The author’s behavioral theory is the axis around which these aspects orbit. This theory, in turn, was divided here into two themes: rationality and organization. Both of them are essential parts of the theory and always work hand in hand in the sense that, respectively, they are the structure of the theory and the context to which it applies. Concerning rationality, Simon’s arguments about the constraints to the exercise of rationality related to the agents’ cognitive limitations are presented. In particular, he argues that the hypothesis of omniscience, implied by the neoclassical economic theory hypothesis of rationality, causes trouble to the theory, in either its normative or positive side. The concepts of bounded rationality and procedural rationality are also presented. The latter was developed by Simon based on the former in an attempt to circumvent the difficulties of the economic theory to deal properly with uncertainty. When the bounds to rationality are admitted by the theory, behavior then depends strongly on the context in which it occurs and on the agent’s psychological (cognitive) characteristics. A major part of Simon’s work in economics dealt with the concept of organization. Indeed, organizations constitute a predominant context to economic behavior, especially when we consider the role large organizations have been playing in the last decades. Proceeding in that line of thought, the preponderance in economics of the concept of market over the concept of organization is questioned. The aforementioned dependency of behavior to the context leads Simon to argue in favor of an approximation of economics and empiric work, especially concerning how behavior is to be found in practice – or else, where empiric work is not to be taken as synonym for econometrics. Simon’s work was historically contextualized and some themes were explored as related to this context. First, the “World War II regime", emerging out of a confluence of the military and scientific enterprises in the war, was conceptualized. Second, the importance of this regime to Simon’s career was stressed, and particularly important was the availability of the computer for his research from the mid-fifties on. Third, an important manifestation of this regime, “operations research", was identified and described. Some of its implications for economics in particular and, in a vaguer manner, for the social sciences in general were also traced.

In Marxist and Dependence theories, revolution has been prescribed as a panacea for developing countries' social evils. However, there is little work dedicated to evaluation of the results of those events that permit the validation of theory. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to assess the outcomes of the Nicaraguan Revolution (1979-1990) and test this assumption. The assessment was made according to Edward Muller's theoretical framework. It is centered in the idea that revolutions destroy social capital. Their successes depend on the skill of revolutionary leadership in distinguishing obsolete from other forms of valuable social capital. The latter has to be fostered as the base of the revolution's future development. The indicators used were: (1) The extent at which the revolutionary leadership keeps its promises and delivers public goods; (2) The evaluation of power, strength, and centralization of the revolutionary state vs. the ancient regime; (3) The performance of the revolutionary economy; (4) The extension of the policies of land distribution, and; (5) The effects of the revolutionary policies in income distribution, inequality, and the creation of new opportunities for the citizenry. The conclusions were: (1) The Sandinista leadership did not deliver the promises of mixed economy, political pluralism and on alignment; (2) The revolutionary state was: strongest, more centralized and powerful than the Somoza regime; (3) The economic performance was poor, and unable to meet the needs of the people; (4) The policies of land reform were effective in distributing land, but failed in the creation of a new social class of farmers. It became a counterinsurgency land reform directed to create an available political clientele for the ruling party; (5) The contradiction between macroeconomics and distributive microeconomics policies, canceled out the effect of the latter, inducing a process of income concentration; (6) The insertion of the Nicaraguan crisis in the East-West confrontation accentuated dependence; (7) The empirical evidence supports Moller and Weede's theoretical assertion (1995) in the sense that the Sandinista leadership was not able to discriminate between obsolete social capital from valuable social capital, that existed embedded in pre-revolutionary institutional structure. Its attempt to subordinate civil society and substitute it with a spurious civil society ended with the destruction of valuable social capital needed for growth and development.

We first demonstrate the importance of the doctrines of the quantity theory and the long-period stationary state in the formulation of Marshall's, Wicksell's, and Keynes' pre-General Theory monetary theories. We analyze the anomalous events characterized by these writers as short-period phenomena. From the perspective built up around the quantity equation and its long-period context, business cycles represent economic convolutions in which the behavioral mechanisms of the long-period break down. We demonstrate the theoretical breakdown; importantly, it is not reflected in the work of these writers that they understood that their explanations of short-period events undermined the long-period theorizing they carefully built. Second, it is argued that Keynes saw the General Theory as a theory of the short-period in contrast to the long-period monetary frameworks. We use the General Theory's criticisms of classical monetary theory to establish this point.

Diss. Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2006.

Neste estudo é feita uma apresentação de alguns aspectos da obra de Herbert A. Simon que foram julgados de particular importância para a economia. A teoria comportamental do autor é o eixo em torno do qual estes aspectos resultaram girar. Esta teoria por sua vez foi aqui dividida em dois temas: o da racionalidade e o da organização. Estes temas são duas partes essenciais da teoria e devem caminhar sempre juntos no sentido de que, respectivamente, tratam da estrutura da teoria e do contexto ao qual ela se aplica. No que diz respeito ao tema da racionalidade, são tratados aqui os argumentos de Simon relativos às restrições ao exercício da racionalidade pelos agentes associadas às suas capacidades cognitivas. Em particular, Simon argumenta que a hipótese de onisciência, implicada pelas hipóteses de racionalidade da teoria econômica neoclássica, gera problemas para a teoria, tanto em sua faceta normativa quanto na positiva. São também apresentados os conceitos de racionalidade restrita e de racionalidade procedimental. Este último foi desenvolvido por Simon a partir do primeiro, tendo em vista principalmente as dificuldades da teoria econômica de lidar com situações de incerteza. Na medida em que as restrições à racionalidade são admitidas pela teoria, o comportamento passa a depender fortemente tanto do contexto em que ocorre quanto das características psicológicas (cognitivas) do agente. Grande parte do trabalho de Simon em economia girou em torno do conceito de organização. De fato, organizações constituem um contexto predominante do comportamento econômico, tanto mais quanto grandes organizações têm dominado o cenário nas últimas décadas. Neste sentido, é questionada também a predominância do conceito de mercado sobre o de organização na teoria. Esta dependência que o comportamento econômico tem do contexto leva Simon a argumentar em favor de uma aproximação entre economia e empiria, em particular do estudo empírico de como o comportamento se dá na prática – ou seja, onde empiria não deve ser tomada como sinônimo de econometria. Uma contextualização histórica do trabalho de Simon também foi realizada. Foram explorados aí alguns temas. Primeiro, foi conceituado o “regime da Segunda Guerra Mundial” surgido em torno da confluência entre as empreitadas científica e militar durante a Segunda Guerra. Em segundo lugar, a importância deste regime para a carreira de Simon foi discutida, em particular a disponibilidade do computador, a partir de meados da década de 1950, para sua pesquisa. Em terceiro lugar, foi identificada e descrita como importante manifestação desse regime a “pesquisa operacional” e foram traçadas algumas de suas implicações para a economia em particular e, de maneira mais vaga, para as ciências sociais em geral. / This study presents some aspects of Herbert A. Simon’s work that were thought to have particular importance to economics. The author’s behavioral theory is the axis around which these aspects orbit. This theory, in turn, was divided here into two themes: rationality and organization. Both of them are essential parts of the theory and always work hand in hand in the sense that, respectively, they are the structure of the theory and the context to which it applies. Concerning rationality, Simon’s arguments about the constraints to the exercise of rationality related to the agents’ cognitive limitations are presented. In particular, he argues that the hypothesis of omniscience, implied by the neoclassical economic theory hypothesis of rationality, causes trouble to the theory, in either its normative or positive side. The concepts of bounded rationality and procedural rationality are also presented. The latter was developed by Simon based on the former in an attempt to circumvent the difficulties of the economic theory to deal properly with uncertainty. When the bounds to rationality are admitted by the theory, behavior then depends strongly on the context in which it occurs and on the agent’s psychological (cognitive) characteristics. A major part of Simon’s work in economics dealt with the concept of organization. Indeed, organizations constitute a predominant context to economic behavior, especially when we consider the role large organizations have been playing in the last decades. Proceeding in that line of thought, the preponderance in economics of the concept of market over the concept of organization is questioned. The aforementioned dependency of behavior to the context leads Simon to argue in favor of an approximation of economics and empiric work, especially concerning how behavior is to be found in practice – or else, where empiric work is not to be taken as synonym for econometrics. Simon’s work was historically contextualized and some themes were explored as related to this context. First, the “World War II regime”, emerging out of a confluence of the military and scientific enterprises in the war, was conceptualized. Second, the importance of this regime to Simon’s career was stressed, and particularly important was the availability of the computer for his research from the mid-fifties on. Third, an important manifestation of this regime, “operations research”, was identified and described. Some of its implications for economics in particular and, in a vaguer manner, for the social sciences in general were also traced.