Lost Knowledge In Economics

Economists' concerns can be expected to change as the world changes. In a serious scholarly discipline, however, such changes in emphasis should be theorized and argued. They should not be just a matter of fads and the following of changes in the political environment. I am not sure economics meets this standard. Anyways, here are examples I came up with today for exploring this question:

• Managerial theories of the firm (as developed by, e.g., Robin Marris)
• Markup pricing
• Sidney Chapman's theory of the length of the working day (as opposed to the textbook analysis of tradeoffs between leisure and commodities) (Derobert (2001), (Spencer 2003), and (Walker 2007)).
• Co-operatives (Kalmi 2007).
• Sidney and Beatrice Webb's analysis of labor markets (Kaufman 2008).

References

• L. Derobert. "On the Genesis of the Canonical Labor Supply Model". Journal of the History of Economic Thought, V. 23, N. 2 (2001): 197-215.
• Panu Kalmi. "The Disappearance of Cooperatives from Economics Textbooks". Cambridge Journal of Economics, V. 31 (2007): 625-647.
• Bruce Kaufman. "How a Minimum Wage Can Improve Efficiency Even in Competitive Labor Markets: The Webbs and the Social Cost of Labor". Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Research Paper Series, Working Paper 08-16 (July 2008).
• D. A. Spencer. "The Labor-Less Labor Supply Model in the Era Before Philip Wicksteed". Journal of the History of Economic Thought, V. 25, N. 4 (2003): 505-513.
• Tom Walker. "Why Economists Dislike a Lump of Labor". Review of Social Economy, V. 65, N. 3 (2007).