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Cambridge Journal of Economics Advance Access originally published online on April 26, 2007
Cambridge Journal of Economics 2007 31(4):625-647; doi:10.1093/cje/bem005
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.

The disappearance of cooperatives from economics textbooks

Panu Kalmi*

* Helsinki School of Economics

Address for correspondence: Department of Economics, Helsinki School of Economics, PO Box 1210, 00101 Helsinki, Finland; email: panu.kalmi{at}hse.fi

Discussion of cooperatives abounded in early twentieth century economics textbooks, but is virtually absent from their modern counterparts. In this paper, I assemble a dataset of economics textbooks used at the University of Helsinki during 1905–2005 and examine how the treatment of cooperatives has changed, and what factors have led to a neglect of cooperatives in textbooks. The quality and quantity of the discussion on cooperatives is noted to be much greater in books published before World War II than in post-World War II books. I argue that the main reason for the decline is the paradigm shift from institutional to neoclassical analysis, which led to a neglect of the potential of cooperatives in addressing social problems.

Key Words: Cooperatives • Textbooks • University of Helsinki

JEL classifications: A20, B10, B20, P13

Manuscript received February 21, 2006; final version received January 19, 2007.


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