by Nicola Acocella published a paper in the Journal of Economic Surveys (a free, preliminary version is available here) a paper on the development of the theory of economic policy. Acocella is clearly fully aware of the differences between classical political economics and marginalism (neoclassical economics). And he dismisses the pre-margnialist views on economic policy as being unsystematic and devoid of general principles. In his words: Most classical writers and the marginalists had suggested cases where public intervention was in order. This had been so for Smith (1776), Ricardo (1817), Mill (1848), Marshall (1890), Walras (1874-1877, 1898). But these cases were mainly what Walras called ‘examples of empirical policy’ rather than consistent policy. They were certainly dictated on the
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Matias Vernengo considers the following as important: Acocella, Adam Smith, Arrow, Caffè, Economic History, Institutions, Lucas, Marshall, Pigou, Welfare Economics
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In his words:
Most classical writers and the marginalists had suggested cases where public intervention was in order. This had been so for Smith (1776), Ricardo (1817), Mill (1848), Marshall (1890), Walras (1874-1877, 1898). But these cases were mainly what Walras called ‘examples of empirical policy’ rather than consistent policy. They were certainly dictated on the basis of an analytical evaluation of the circumstances suggesting them, but were not part of a systematic and consistent assessment of the foundations and the articulation of public policy.In his view, economic policy as an autonomous discipline, meaning one based on theoretical principles, only started with Sidgwick, Marshall and Pigou, that is, with Welfare Economics or Social Choice Theory, which apparently now is referred to as Implementation Theory (I didn't know that, I might confess). So it is in the debate of the 1930s, with Robbins and his followers and critics, and more fundamentally with Arrow's Impossibility Theorem that he sees the development of the main themes of a theory of economic policy.
He also suggests that before the development of a the theory of economic policy proper "the ‘night-watchman’ position became an exception as most classical and marginalist economists tended to state a number of specific or general cases where government intervention was in order." I'm not fully convinced about that. Sure there were some views about government intervention, but for the most part the Victorian consensus, among economists (not necessarily in practice, meaning actual economic policy) was for free trade, adherence to the rules of the Gold Standard, and sound finance. The idea of the minimal state was probably dominant, and the exceptions, particularly among marginalists that dominated in the UK at least, were associated to market failures.
The two major obstacles to this dominant view that government action was possible, in Acoccela's view were due to Arrow and Lucas. In his words, these 'vital failures' were: "the impossibility of taking people’s preferences as a reference for public action, underlined by Arrow (1951) and ‘radical’ objections to effectiveness of public action of the kind raised by Lucas (1976)." I should note that it seems that, in his view, the major critiques have been successfully dealt with, by Sen and his followers in one field and New Keynesian in the other, and the current consensus would be that government action is possible and desirable.