Tugan-Baranovsky as a Pioneer of Trade Cycle Analysis

Abstract

Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranovsky (1865–1919) has not unjustly been calle the greatest Russian economist of all time (Jasny 1972, p. 159). This neglecte the fact that he was born near Kharkov and towards the end of his life came to see the Ukraine as his homeland, but the evaluation itself is not so far from the truth. However, opinion about the precise importance of Tugan-Baranovsky work to the development of trade cycle analysis has varied widely. J. M. Keynes and A. H. Hansen were both highly respectful of Tugan's contribution. For example, in the Treatise on Money, Keynes wrote in regards to business cycle theory that he was “in strong sympathy with the school of writers … of which Tugan-Baranovski was the first and most original” (Keynes 1930, vol. 2, p. 100 In his 1951 work, Business Cycles and National Income, Hansen was enthusiastic describing Tugan as “cutting his way though the jungle to a new outlook” (Hansen 1951, p. 281). This suggests that some aspects of both British an American Keynesianism might have originated in Tugan's work, or at least bee influenced by it. W. W. Rostow was also impressed by Tugan's approach, statin that it “took business cycle analysis some distance beyond Juglar and Marx” (Rostow 1990, p. 261).