Welfare Property Rights and Economic Policy: Essays and Tributes in Honour of H Scott Gordon

Barbara Lenes McLennan is a graduate economics student in Edmonton.

Scott Gordon, a founding professor of economics at Carleton University,
is the subject of honor in this festschrift, which marks the 40th
anniversary of Carleton’s economics department. Gordon is best
remembered here for his analysis of the Canadian fisheries industry in
1954, and for his critique of James Coyne and Bank of Canada monetary
policy in 1961.

This volume includes the following papers: “Welfare Implications of
International Intergovernmental Cooperation” (Albert Breton);
“Origins of Theories of Organization: The Common Property Root”
(Keith Acheson and Stephen Ferris); “Keynesian Policy Analysis,
Rational Expectations, and the Bank of Canada” (Peter Howitt); and
“The Case for a Discretionary, Politically Responsible Central Bank”
(Thomas K. Rymens). Several of Gordon’s former colleagues at Carleton
provide personal reminiscences, and the book includes a complete
bibliography of Gordon’s publications.

The papers tend to present an overview of theory leading to present
dominant viewpoints, with Keynesian versus Friedmanian monetary policy
approaches receiving the most coverage. Theories about the effects of
transactions costs on standard equilibrium models are also discussed,
but with fewer decisive conclusions. Clearly this reflects the amount of
attention given to the former topic within the discipline in general.