On Ricardo’s Multilayered Method: Wage Taxation and Foreign Subsidies Considered

Wakamatsu, Naoyuki (2020): On Ricardo’s Multilayered Method: Wage Taxation and Foreign Subsidies Considered.

Abstract

This paper uses Ricardo’s work on taxation to exemplify his methodological approach of proceeding from abstract theory to practical theory and its correspondence with various facts. Ricardo’s method has been often considered abstract, based on his use of “strong cases.” However, Depoortère (2008) showed that Ricardo emphasized the relationship between theory and experience, and suggested that Ricardo’s method involved an approach leading from abstract theory to particular fact. This paper aims to further Depoortère’s conclusions, and to emphasize the multilayered nature of Ricardo’s method. While Ricardo’s method was based on “strong cases,” he made his arguments by incorporating disturbing factors into his strong cases appropriately according to circumstance.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: David Ricardo; methodology; foreign subsidy; wage taxation
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925 > B12 - Classical (includes Adam Smith); B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B3 - History of Economic Thought: Individuals > B31 - Individuals

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