I am making an attempt to understand at least the essentials of probability theory, philosophy of probability and, ultimately, Keynes’s theory of probability at the moment.
That being so, I post this preliminary bibliography below. Suggestions are welcome!
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bunge, M. 1981. “Four Concepts of Probability,” Applied Mathematical Modelling 5: 306–312.
Bunge, Mario. 1988. “Two Faces and Three Masks of Probability,” in Evandro Agazzi (ed.), Probability in the Sciences. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht and London. 27–50.
Fine, T. 1973. Theories of Probability. Academic Press, Waltham, MA.
Galavotti, M. C. 2005. Philosophical Introduction to Probability. CSLI Publications, Stanford.
Gillies, D. 1973. An Objective Theory of Probability. Methuen, London.
Gillies, D. 2000. Philosophical Theories of Probability. Routledge, London.
Hacking, Ian. 1975. The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference. Cambridge University Press, London.
Hacking, Ian. 2006. The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference (2nd edn.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Howson, C. and Urbach, P. 1993. Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach (2nd edn.). Open Court, La Salle, IL.
Mellor, D. H. 2005. Probability: A Philosophical Introduction. Routledge, London.
Salmon, Wesley Charles. 1967. Foundations of Scientific Inference. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.
Savage, Leonard Jimmie. 1972. The Foundations of Statistics (2nd rev. edn.). Dover, New York.
Skyrms, B. 2000. Choice and Chance (4th edn.). Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.
von Plato, J. 1994. Creating Modern Probability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Weatherford, Roy. 1982. Philosophical Foundations of Probability Theory. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
KEYNES AND PROBABILITY
Basili, M. and C. Zappia. 2010. “Ambiguity and Uncertainty in Ellsberg and Shackle,” Cambridge Journal of Economics 34: 449–474.
Bateman, Bradley W. 1987. “Keynes’s Changing Conception of Probability,” Economics and Philosophy 3: 97-119.
Bateman, Bradley W. 1988. “G. E. Moore and J. M. Keynes: A Missing Chapter in the History of the Expected Utility Model,” American Economic Review 78: 1098–1106.
Brady, Michael Emmett, 1983. The Foundation of Keynes’s Macrotheory: His Logical Theory of Probability and its Application in the General Theory and After, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Riverside.
Brady, Michael Emmett, 1987. “J. M. Keynes’ Theory of Evidential Weight: Its Relation to Information Processing Theory and Application in the General Theory,” Synthese 71: 37–60.
Brady, Michael Emmett, 1988. “J. M. Keynes’s Position on the General Applicability of Mathematical, Logical and Statistical Methods in Economics and Social Science,” Synthese 76.1: 1–24.
Brady, Michael Emmett and Howard B. Lee, 1989. “Dynamics of Choice Behavior: The Logical Relation between Linear Objective Probability and Nonlinear Subjective Probability,” Psychological Reports 64: 91-97.
Brady, Michael Emmett, 1990. “The Mathematical Development of Keynes’s Aggregate Supply Function in the General Theory,” History of Political Economy 22.1: 167-172.
Brady, Michael Emmett, 1993. “J. M. Keynes’s Theoretical Approach to Decision-Making under Conditions of Risk and Uncertainty,” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44.2: 357–376.
Brady, Michael Emmett, 1994. “Keynes, Pigou and the Supply Side of the General Theory,” History of Economics Review 21: 34–46.
Brady, Michael Emmett, 1994. “A Note on the Keynes-Pigou Controversy,” History of Political Economy 26.4: 697–705.
Brady, Michael Emmett, 1994. “On the Application of J. M. Keynes’s Approach to Decision Making,” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 8.2: 99–112.
Brady, Michael Emmett, 2010. “A Comparison-Contrast of Adam Smith, J.M. Keynes and Jeremy Bentham on Probability, Risk, Uncertainty, Optimism-Pessimism and Decision Making with Applications Concerning Banking, Insurance and Speculation,” SSRN Working Paper Series.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1728225
Brady, Michael Emmett and Rogério Arthmar, 2010. “Keynes’ Lower-Upper Bound Interval Approach to Probability,” SSRN Working Paper Series (February 2).
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1546726
Brady, Michael Emmett, 2010. “How to Use Keynes’s Conventional Coefficient of Risk and Weight, c, to clear up Misunderstandings and Confusions about Keynes’s Views on the use on his Principle of Indifference Versus the use of Laplace’s Principle of Nonsufficient Reason,” SSRN Working Paper Series (November 27).
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1716043
Brady, Michael Emmett, 2011. “Comparing J. M. Keynes’s and F. von Hayek’s Differing Definitions of Uncertainty as it relates to Knowledge: Keynes’s Unavailable or Missing Knowledge Concept versus Hayek’s Dispersal of Knowledge Concept,” SSRN Working Paper Series.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1751569
Brady, Michael Emmett, 2011. “Keynes, Mathematics and Probability: A Reappraisal,” SSRN Working Paper Series, August 31.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1920569
Brady, Michael Emmett. 2011. “The ‘Early’ Logical Empiricism of J. M. Keynes versus the Rhetoric of Subjectivism,” SSRN Working Paper Series, August 31
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1920578
Brady, Michael Emmett. 2012. “John Maynard Keynes’s Upper and Lower Valued Probabilities: A Study of How Statisticians, Philosophers, Logicians, Historians, and Economists Failed to Comprehend Keynes’s Breakthrough Application of G.Boole’s Interval Approach to Probability in the 20th Century,” January 30
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1996129
Carabelli, Anna M. 1988. On Keynes’s Method, Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Carabelli, Anna M. 2002. “Speculation and Reasonableness: a non-Bayesian Theory of Rationality,” in S. Dow and J. Hillard (eds.), Keynes, Uncertainty and the Global Economy: Beyond Keynes (Vol. 2), Edward Elgar, Cheltenham UK and Northampton MA. 165–185.
Cottrell, A. 1993. “Keynes’s Theory of Probability and its Relevance to His Economics: Three Theses,” Economics and Philosophy 9: 25–51.
Crocco, M. 2000. “The Future’s Unknowability: Keynes’s Probability, Probable Knowledge and the Decision to Innovate,” in F. Louçã and M. Perlman (eds.), Is Economics an Evolutionary Science? Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.
Crocco, M. 2002. “The Concept of Degrees of Uncertainty in Keynes, Shackle, and Davidson,” Nova Economia 12.2: 11–28.
Davis, John B. 1994. Keynes’s Philosophical Development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Davis, John B. 2003. “The Relationship between Keynes’s Early and Later Philosophical Thinking,” in Jochen Runde and Sohei Mizuhara (eds.), The Philosophy of Keynes’ Economics: Probability, Uncertainty and
Convention. Routledge, London and New York. 100–110.
Davidson, P. 1982–1983. “Rational Expectations: A Fallacious Foundation for Studying Crucial Decision-making Processes,” Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics 5.2: 182-198.
Davidson, Paul. 1991. “Is Probability Theory Relevant for Uncertainty? A Post Keynesian Perspective,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5.1: 129-143.
De Carvalho, Fernando J. Cardim. 1988. “Keynes on Probability, Uncertainty, and Decision Making,” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 11.1: 66-81.
Dequech, David. 1997. “Uncertainty in a Strong Sense: Meaning and Sources,” Economic Issues 2.2: 21–43.
Dequech, David. 2008. “Varieties of Uncertainty: A Survey of the Economic Literature,”
http://ideas.repec.org/p/anp/en2008/200807211223070.html
Dequech, David. 2011. “Uncertainty: A Typology and Refinements of Existing Concepts,” Journal of Economic Issues 45.3: 621-640.
Dickens, Edwin. 2008. “Keynes’s Theory of Probability, Investment Behaviour, and Behavioral Finance,” in L. Randall Wray and Mathew Forstater (eds.), Keynes and Macroeconomics After 70 years: Critical Assessments of the General Theory, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA.
Dow, Sheila C. 1994. “Uncertainty,” in Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer (eds.), The Elgar Companion to Radical Political Economy. Edward Elgar, Aldershot. 434–438.
Dow, Sheila C. 1995. “Uncertainty about Uncertainty,” in S. C. Dow and J. Hillard (eds.). Keynes, Knowledge and Uncertainty. Edward Elgar, Aldershot. 117–127.
Dow, Sheila C. 2012. “Uncertainty about Uncertainty,” in Sheila C. Dow, Foundations for New Economic Thinking: A Collection of Essays. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. 72–82.
Dow, Sheila C. 2012. Foundations for New Economic Thinking: A Collection of Essays. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Ellsberg, Daniel. 1961. “Risk, Ambiguity and the Savage Axioms,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 75: 643–669.
Ellsberg, Daniel. 2001. Risk, Ambiguity and Decision. Garland, New York and London.
Feduzi, Alberto. 2007. “On the Relationship between Keynes’s Conception of Evidential Weight and the Ellsberg Paradox,” Journal of Economic Psychology 28: 545–565.
Fitzgibbons, Athol. 1988. Keynes’s Vision: A New Political Economy, Clarendon, Oxford.
Gerrard, B. 2003. “Keynesian Uncertainty: What Do We Know?,” in Jochen Runde and Sohei Mizuhara (eds.), The Philosophy of Keynes’ Economics: Probability, Uncertainty and Convention. Routledge, London and New York. 239–251.
Gillies, Donald. 2006. “Keynes and Probability,” in R. Backhouse and B. Bateman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Keynes Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York. 199-216.
Gillies, Donald. 2003. “Probability and Uncertainty in Keynes’s Economics,” in Jochen Runde and Sohei Mizuhara (eds.), The Philosophy of Keynes’ Economics: Probability, Uncertainty and Convention. Routledge, London and New York. 111–129.
Gilles, Dostaler. 2007. Keynes and his Battles. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.
Hailperin, Theodore. 1986. Boole’s Logic and Probability: A Critical Exposition from the Standpoint of Contemporary Algebra, Logic, and Probability Theory (2nd rev. edn.), North-Holland, Amsterdam and New York.
Jespersen, Jesper. 2009. Macroeconomic Methodology: A Post-Keynesian Perspective. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA. Appendix 1. pp.126-131
Keynes, J. M. 1921. A Treatise on Probability (1st edn.), Macmillan, London.
Lawson, Tony. 1985. “Uncertainty and Economic Analysis,” Economic Journal 95: 909-927.
Lawson, Tony. 1988. “Probability and Uncertainty in Economic Analysis,” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 11.1: 38-65.
Lawson, Tony. 1993. “Keynes and Conventions,” Cambridge University Review of Social Economy 51: 174-200.
McCann, Charles R. 1994. Probability Foundations of Economic Theory. Routledge, London.
McCann, Charles, R. 2003. “On the Nature of Keynesian Probability,” in Jochen Runde and Sohei Mizuhara (eds.), The Philosophy of Keynes’ Economics: Probability, Uncertainty and Convention. Routledge, London and New York. 37-45.
Mandelbrot, Benoit B. and Richard L. Hudson. 2004. The (Mis)behavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin, and Reward. Basic Books, New York.
Meeks, J. G. T. 1991. “Keynes on the Rationality of Decision Procedures under Uncertainty: The Investment Decision,” in J. G. T. Meeks (ed.), Thoughtful Economic Man: Essays on Rationality, Moral Rules and Benevolence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. l26-160.
Moggridge, D. E. 1992. Maynard Keynes: An Economist’s Biography, Routledge, London. pp. 143-166.
O’Donnell, R. M. 1989. Keynes: Philosophy, Economics and Politics: The Philosophical Foundations of Keynes’s Thought and their Influence on his Economics and Politics, Macmillan, Basingstoke.
O’Donnel, R. 2003. “The Thick and the Think of Controversy,” in Jochen Runde and Sohei Mizuhara (eds.), The Philosophy of Keynes’ Economics: Probability, Uncertainty and Convention. Routledge, London and New York. 85–99.
Ramsey, F. P. 1989 [1922]. “Mr Keynes on Probability,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40.2: 219-222.
Roncaglia, Alessandro. 2009. “Keynes and Probability: An Assessment,” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 16.3: 489-510.
Rotheim, Roy J. 1988. “Keynes and the Language of Probability and Uncertainty,” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 11.1: 82-99.
Rowbottom, D. P. 2007. “The Insufficiency of the Dutch Book Argument,” Studia Logica 87.1: 65-71.
Runde, Jochen. 1990. “Keynesian Uncertainty and the Weight of Arguments,” Economics and Philosophy 6.2: 275–292.
Runde, Jochen. 1991. “Keynesian Uncertainty and Stability of Beliefs,” Review of Political Economy 3: 125–145.
Runde, Jochen. 1994. “Keynes After Ramsey—In Defence of A Treatise on Probability,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 25.1: 97-121.
Runde, Jochen. 1995. “Risk, Uncertainty and Bayesian Decision Theory: A Keynesian View,” in S. C. Dow and J. Hillard (eds.), Keynes, Knowledge and Uncertainty. Edward Elgar, Aldershot, UK. 197–210.
Runde, Jochen. 1995. “Chances and Choices: Some Notes on Probability and Belief in Economic Theory,” The Monist 78: 330–351.
Runde, Jochen. 1998. “Frank Knight’s Discussion of the Meaning of Risk and Uncertainty,” Cambridge Journal of Economics 22.5: 539-546.
Runde, Jochen. 2000. “Shackle on Probability,” in Stephen F. Frowen and Peter Earl (eds.), Economics as an Art of Thought: Essays in Memory of G. L. S. Shackle. Routledge, New York.
Runde, Jochen and Sohei Mizuhara (eds.). 2003. The Philosophy of Keynes’ Economics: Probability, Uncertainty and Convention. Routledge, London and New York.
Ryder, J. M. 1981. “Consequences of a Simple Extension of the Dutch Book Argument,” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 32.2: 164–167.
Syll, Lars Pålsson. 2007. John Maynard Keynes SNS Förlag, Stockholm.
Skidelsky, R. J. A. 1992. John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour, 1920–1937 (vol. 2), Macmillan, London.
My Posts
“Degrees of Uncertainty,” November 24, 2011.
“Michael Emmett Brady on Keynes’s Probability Theory in Mises and Rothbard,” November 29, 2011.
This:
ReplyDeletehttp://speedy.sh/F3E5e/Professor-Tinbergen-s-Method.pdf
It's not to do explicitly with Keynes' probability theory but it is widely known to be his best, albeit negative, exposition of methodology in economics.
Personally, I think you get a very good idea from it of what Keynes opposed static, deterministic theories in both the social and the moral sciences (which is what probability theory is, by the way).
What econometrics does is basically what probability theory does: it eliminates uncertainty by conceiving of the world as a mass of numerical data with all the relevant information being contained in the numbers. Keynes' probability theory and his critique of econometrics are linked at the most fundamental level.
I'll try to write a blog post on this tomorrow if I have the time.
And if this seems a bit weird check this out:
Deletehttp://personal.strath.ac.uk/gary.koop/ec311/Topic_2_slides.pdf
The rabbit hole gets deeper... Haha!
Honestly though, I think the basic philosophical/metaphysical/methodological arguments are quite straight-forward and you don't need to spend the next two years learning advanced econometrics and probability.
A real good one is David Freedman,(2010), Statistical Models and Causal Inference. A Dialogue with the Social Sciences Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, thank you Jan - David A. Freedman is an excellent scholar, and he was the only academic statistician who defended the arguments in The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
ReplyDeleteLord Keynes...would you like to engage in e-mail correspondence?
Will look into Freedman, and am always open to discussion.
DeleteVery well then. I look forward to your response over e-mail.
DeleteAlso see:
ReplyDeleteLawson, Tony. (1993) "Keynes and Conventions," Review of Social Economy Vol. 51, No. 2 (SUMMER 1993), pp. 174-200
Davidson, Paul. (1982) "Rational Expectations: A Fallacious Foundation for Studying Crucial Decision-Making Processes," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics Vol. 5, No. 2 (Winter, 1982-1983), pp. 182-198
Runde, J. (1995) "Chances and choices: some notes on probability and belief in economic theory." The Monist: An International Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry, 78(3): 330-351
Runde, J. (1998) "Clarifying Frank Knight's discussion of the meaning of risk and uncertainty." Cambridge Journal of Economics, 22(5): 539-546
Gillies, Donald A. (1973) An Objective Theory of Probability. London: Methuen.
Hoppe, H.H. (2007) “The Limits of Numerical Probability: Frank H. Knight and Ludwig von Mises and the Frequency Interpretation,” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics (vol. 10, no. 1)
Rowbottom, Darrell P. (2007) “The Insufficiency of the Dutch Book Argument,” Studia Logica: An International Journal for Symbolic Logic, Vol. 87, No. 1, pp. 65-71.
Ryder, J.M. (1981) “Consequences of a Simple Extension of the Dutch Book Argument,” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp.164-167.
Ellsberg, Daniel. (1961) "Risk, Ambiguity and the Savage Axioms," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 75, 643-69.