Lecturer Emeritus, Social Theory and Practice
About
Frank Thompson is a social scientist (Ph.D., Economics, Michigan, 1998) with a broad background in the humanities (Ph.D., Philosophy, Harvard, 1973). His teaching in the Residential College, centered in political economy including normative matters, complements his courses in the LSA Economics Department devoted to economic development, inequality, and philosophical questions arising in social science, especially in economics.
Thompson’s articles have been published in both philosophy and economics journals. A current focus of his research is intergenerational justice, i.e., how much should we save and how fast should we deplete nonrenewable natural resources.
Selected Articles
“Cuban Economic Performance in Retrospect,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 37:3 (2005), pp. 311-319.
“Technical Change, Accumulation and the Rate of Profit,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 27(2), 1995, 97-126.
“Socializing the Surplus: A System of Life Estates,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 28(3), 1996, 83-91.
“Would Roemer’s Socialism Equalize Income from Surplus?,” in Equal Shares: Making Market Socialism Work, ed. Erik Olin Wright, Verso: 1996, 170-183.
“Case Study: The Economy of Cuba,” Economic Development (6th Edition), cy Michael P. Todaro, Addison-Wesley: 1997, 96-99. Updated: ibid. (7th Edition), Addison-Wesley, 1999, 105-108.
“Social Surplus in Roemer’s Market Socialism,” Research in Political Economy, 16, 1997, 203-213.
“The Composition of Capital and the Rate of Profit: A Reply to Laibman,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 30(1), 1998, 90-107.
Thompson, Frank, “Golden Age vs. Golden Rule: Capitalists vs. Workers in Growth Theory,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 35(1), 2003, 3-17.
“Morally Arbitrary Economic Advantage,” in Capitalism on Trial: Explorations in the Tradition of Thomas E. Weisskopf, ed. by Jeannette Wicks-Lim and Robert Pollin, (Elgar 2013), pp. 395-407.
