Kondratiev and a new methodological agenda for economics

Abstract

This article addresses Kondratiev’s approach to the problems of economic dynamics, cycle and conjuncture in the context of a new methodological agenda which was formulated in the 1920’s in Europe and the USA by representatives of the “brilliant generation of economists,” mostly members of the econometric movement and its adherents among Russian economists. A distinguishing feature of this generation was that its representatives were striving to make economics an objective science penetrated by rigorous ways of thinking and based on a unification between the theoretical quantitative and the empirical quantitative approaches to the study of economic phenomena. This paper discusses Kondratiev’s project on the general theory of economic dynamics as an embodiment of that methodological agenda. It also highlights a free exchange of ideas between Kondratiev and economists from different countries as a breeding ground for the emergence of the project and a necessary condition for its implementation.