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THE ECONOMICS OF BERNARD LONERGAN: CONTEXT, MODELING, AND ASSESSMENT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2022

Paul Oslington Open the ORCID record for Paul Oslington [Opens in a new window]
Paul Oslington*
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, Alphacrucis College, Sydney, Australia. Honorary Professor, PACT Charles Sturt University. Email: paul.oslington@ac.edu.au.
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Abstract

Bernard Lonergan S.J. (1904–1984) is unusual among major theologians in engaging deeply with economic theory. In the 1940s he developed his own dynamic multisectoral macroeconomic model, informed by readings of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter, and later Michal Kalecki. Lonergan’s economic research is little known because the economic manuscripts were not published in his lifetime and his interactions with professional economists were limited. In the 1970s, however, when he returned to economics he engaged with post-Keynesians and taught a graduate course on macroeconomics at Boston College until illness overtook him. This paper places Lonergan’s economic research in the context of his overall intellectual project, outlines his macroeconomic model and associated theory of the business cycle, then evaluates his contribution in relation to mid-twentieth-century macroeconomics and considers whether it has anything to offer contemporary economists. Whatever view we take of his theoretical contributions, Lonergan’s work opens up connections between economics and theology.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 2022 , pp. 182 - 204
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the History of Economics Society

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Footnotes

This paper is part of a project, “Transdisciplinary Vision of Bernard Lonergan: Theology, Economics and Finance,” supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. I have gained much from discussion with other members of the research group, which met at Australian Catholic University to discuss Lonergan’s economics. Thanks to archivists at Regis College University of Toronto and the Lonergan Archive at Marquette University for assistance with Lonergan’s papers. I am especially grateful for discussions and comments from Neil Ormerod, John Ormerod, Peter Madden, Geoff Fishburn, John Nevile, and Graham White. While I am grateful for the discussions, none of the above necessarily share the views expressed in this paper.

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