Economic Papers Hitherto Uncollected

Abstract

On 17 June 1857 Jevons wrote to his sister Henrietta: ‘the subject I have been most of all concerned in for the last six months is political economy’.¹ Three short pieces in the Sydney Empire are the first published results of that interest. As might be expected, they are examples of vigorous criticism rather than profound original thinking. Jevons had not at this time developed his own system of economic ideas, nor had he perhaps a very extensive acquaintance with those of other economists. Thus he showed no acquaintance with the theory of systematic colonisation of Edward Gibbon Wakefield,² on which the policy of an ‘upset price’ for public lands in Australia was founded, and his whole approach was empirical rather than analytical.