ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an account of the evolution of economics as an academic subject in Scotland from the First World War up to the 1950s. It is argued that, throughout that period at least, economic studies in the Scottish universities were marked by the influence of a long-standing Scottish political economy tradition, the nature of which was outlined in the previous chapter. The impact of that tradition, both on the university economics curriculum and on the scholarly work of university economists, can be seen in a characteristic emphasis on applied, historical and philosophical aspects. By the end of the 1950s, however, that Scottish tradition had been largely displaced in the process of internationalisation of the modern American mainstream approach with its emphasis on abstract deductive theory, mathematical modelling and econometrics.
