Faculty News
Language in Economics
Visiting faculty member Emma Kast was featured on the public radio program Marketplace in a segment discussing the history of economic terminology.
Reports Marketplace:
“Neoclassical economics actually begins with a group of thinkers most people have probably never heard of,” said Emma Kast at Bennington College. “Their names are William Stanley Jevons, Alfred Marshall, Léon Walras. These figures were really trying to make economics into something objective and scientific.”
They adopted the use of words like “supply” and “demand.” In a lot of ways, neoclassical economics is sort of the foundation of modern economics — and the language economists use.