WILLIAM J. BARBER is the Andrews Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA. He has published widely on topics in the history of economic thought, on issues in development economics, and on the role of economists as policy advisers. He has been named a Distinguished Fellow of the History of Economics Society. He served as a member of the research team, headed by Gunnar Myrdal, that produced the three-volume study Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations.

'The publication of the first installments in Palgrave Macmillan's new series, "Great Thinkers in Economics," should be a major event for historians of economics.' - Roger Blackhouse, University of Birmingham

• Preface Prologue Beginnings and Early Intellectual Influences Early Challenges to Orthodoxy: The Political Element in the Development of Economic Theory Theorizing about Macro-Economic Instability: Monetary Equilibrium Structuring Counter-cyclical Fiscal Policies in the 1930s The Population Question and Swedish Social Policy in the 1930s An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy Minister of Commerce and Economic Policy-making for Post-war Sweden, 1944-47 International Civil Servant and Studies of the International Economy, 1947-57 Asian Drama: Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations (1968) Economic Policy Advice-giving for the Rich and the Poor in the 1960s and 1970s Epilogue