ABSTRACT
This brief chapter addresses the historiographical problem raised by the attempt of two eminent scholars, Paul Samuelson and Samuel Hollander, to single out a ‘canonical classical growth model’. Samuelson (1978) elaborated the analytical structure of such a model. Hollander (Chapter 3 in this volume) provides instead the textual references which support, on the one hand, Samuelson’s work and, on the other, the existence of a single informatory principle, beginning with Smith, then on to Ricardo, Malthus, McCulloch and, to some extent, Marx. This one principle is capable of placing the opinions of many scholars on economic growth into one unique formulation.
