Charles Kindleberger has recently been singled out as having envisioned the present international monetary system in which the US dollar is the dominant global currency and the Federal Reserve plays the role of global lender of last resort, providing dollar liquidity to other central banks through swap transactions during crises. I show how Kindleberger's views on exchange rate systems were influenced by those put forward by Ragnar Nurkse in the 1940s. I then compare Kindleberger's views on exchange rate systems with those of Milton Friedman during the 1950s and 1960s. I show that what I call “the revisionist view” of Kindleberger's contributions to the international financial system is on the mark only up to a point. It overlooks Kindleberger's positions that were not borne out. Moreover, it should make some room for Friedman, who foresaw the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system and the move to flexible exchange rates by the industrial countries. Friedman also predicted that the dollar would remain the main global currency but, in contrast to Kindleberger, foresaw that it would do so under a regime of flexible exchange rates.

In reconstructing the history of Peruvian neoliberalism since the late 1930s, this article demonstrates that Peru represents the first historical case of a dictatorship—specifically Odría's 1948 coup d’état—supporting free-market policies in South America, predating Chile's experience in 1973. Furthermore, it identifies a continuity between these policies and those of Peru's democratic regime in the late 1950s, particularly through the antistructuralist views on economic development shared by figures such as Pedro Beltrán and Rómulo Ferrero, as well as ordoliberals affiliated with the Peruvian Christian Democracy. This history challenges the narrative that Latin American neoliberalism was merely the passive adoption of ideas transferred from the United States and Europe. Instead, Peruvian neoliberals actively leveraged their connections with American and German counterparts to legitimize their policies domestically and present their neoliberal blueprints as successful economic models abroad. Drawing on Peck's concept of neoliberalization, this article employs a dynamic interpretive model to illustrate neoliberal policies as a feedback loop, moving from ideas to structures and back again. It demonstrates how neoliberals have shaped fiscal and monetary policies, the role of the state, and economic development within a unique Latin American context.

The origins of environmental economics are commonly traced to Arthur Cecil Pigou's work on externality theory and policy. Aired in casual remarks, conjectures, and speculations, this view seems to have produced no commensurate gains in either clarity or evidence. Recent research on the history of externalities and environmental economics draws on work customarily published in specialized scholarly journals or books regarded as original and innovative and challenges the continuity of a “Pigouvian tradition” in externality theory and policy. This article enters the conversation by shifting the vantage point of inquiry from scientific innovation to scientific reproduction, namely, to the textbook pedagogical regime of postwar economics. Because textbooks were and remain the primary media for training economics students, this question translates as the following problem: What is the evidence for the prominence of Pigou's analytical treatment of externalities in postwar textbooks in introductory, environmental, and urban economics as well as public finance? The findings support the case that Pigouvian externality analysis was a significant component of pedagogy in the period, an important piece of equipment in professional training and academic socialization, and a presumptive credential of competence in beginning a career.

Anointed by Keynes to complete the index to The General Theory in 1935, David Bensusan-Butt made an early claim to academic fame. His subsequent career dabbling within the worlds of public policy and research was similar to that of his idol, Keynes. He made lasting contributions to taxation policy and at a higher level of abstraction, growth theory. As an aesthete, Bensusan-Butt embraced Keynes's skepticism of the Benthamite calculus. His lifetime preoccupation to recast the methodology of modern economics ended in failure.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Herbert Scarf, Lloyd Shapley, and Martin Shubik adapted the concept of the “core” from cooperative game theory as a basis for proofs of general equilibrium. Application of the core to equilibrium is an early instance of the meeting of game theory and economics, and one where game theory was aimed at a “big question” in economic theory. This development was seen as a major step forward for economic theory and was met with enthusiasm by economic theorists at the time. This article uses archival resources and unpublished correspondence between Scarf, Shapley, and Shubik to provide an account of their development of applications of the core to general equilibrium. Research in economic theory eventually shifted away from the core and equilibrium as the general equilibrium research program declined and noncooperative game theory became the favored approach to modeling interaction. However, Scarf and Shubik moved on from the core and equilibrium and grew pessimistic toward it (and related concepts) in the decades that followed for reasons that differ from the broader trends in the field. It is shown that Scarf's and Shubik's evolving views can be attributed to subtle and unwelcome features of the concept of the core and general equilibrium.