ABSTRACT
The major Wicksellian ideas Wicksell was indeed an economist who advanced a number of seminal ideas, thus creating opportunities for pupils to develop important theoretical issues. The most prominent Swedish economist building on Wicksell was Erik Lindahl. However, it has been asserted by the Swedish economist Göran Ohlin2 that Wicksell did not get the appreciation he deserved from his Swedish contemporaries in the form of pupils and observance.3 One reason was, Ohlin argues, that many Swedes were at the time absorbed by the writings of Gustav Cassel. In Oslo the situation was not quite the same; Wicksell’s ‘Lectures’ I and II were early central books on the students’ required reading list, and particularly was the young student Ragnar Frisch most enthusiastic about Wicksell, considering him his foremost teacher. What were Wicksell’s seminal ideas? Paul Samuelson gave, I think, an adequate summary of Wicksell’s major scientific ideas in his lectures ‘Wicksell, The Economist’ (Samuelson 1963). Samuelson emphasized Wicksell’s works (and ideas) on:
1 capital and general equilibrium 2 marginal productivity 3 the impact of technological change 4 marginal cost pricing and imperfect competition 5 business cycle rhythm generated by random shocks of innovation which
impinge on an endogenous system geared to produce quasi-regular rhythms 6 the proper role of government expenditure in an affluent or less-than-affluent
society 7 the relationship between interest rates set by the central bank and cumula-
tive trends of inflation or deflation.
