Unpublished Writings, 1933-2009

Scope and content:

Samuelson's unpublished and unfinished writings make up the majority of the series. To allow for better access, these unorganized files were sorted into fifteen topical groups: Economic Policy, Financial Economics, Growth Theory, History of Economic Thought, International Economics, Macroeconomics, Marx, Mathematical Economics, Population and Gender, Public Economics, David Ricardo, Piero Sraffa, Stochastic Theory, Thermodynamics, and Welfare Economics. Finally, there is a remaining group of uncategorized folders of unpublished writings, then two boxes of notes and fragmentary writings.

Jotted down on notepads and paper sheets and frequently informal in tone, these unpublished writings reflect Samuelson's interest, manifested throughout his career, in multiple areas of scientific and historical thought. The most prolific output relates to mathematics and mathematical economics. The history of economic thought also receives a great deal of attention from Samuelson, with extensive writings on classical and neoclassical economics and separate categories for his many notes and drafts on the economic thought of Karl Marx, David Ricardo, and Piero Sraffa. Samuelson contributed seminal work to the new field of biological economics, helping to shed light on sex ratios and population issues in economics, and this work is present in this series in the form of writings on population and gender and on Volterra and Lotka. The series ends with uncategorized unpublished writings on a variety of issues ranging from capitalism and utility analysis, to comments on published articles by other economists.

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