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Moore and Fourier Analysis - Turner and Wood - Final Version.pdf (262.95 kB)

New perspectives on Henry Ludwell Moore's use of harmonic analysis

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journal contribution
posted on 2019-11-06, 14:55 authored by Paul Turner, Justine WoodJustine Wood
This paper reconsiders the contribution of Henry Ludwell Moore to dynamic economics through the use of harmonic analysis. We show that Moore’s analysis is innovative in its use of the Fourier transformation for the identification of cycles with different periodicities. This enables Moore to identify cycles of longer length with more precision than would be the case for the standard methodology. We are able to replicate the main features of his results and confirm the existence of a rainfall cycle with a periodicity similar to that of the business cycle (eight years). However, we find that the evidence for a longer (thirty-three year) rainfall cycle is weaker than Moore indicates. We also argue that a central theme of Moore’s analysis, the relationship between rainfall, agricultural productivity and the business cycle, marks an early precursor of the ‘Real Business Cycle’ approach. Stigler’s (1962) dismissal of Moore’s work on cycles as ‘a complete failure’ is therefore, in our opinion rather unfair. Instead, we argue that, although his work is certainly flawed, it nevertheless deserves a place in both the history of business cycle theory and empirical economics.

History

School

  • Business and Economics

Department

  • Economics

Published in

Journal of the History of Economic Thought

Volume

42

Issue

4

Pages

507 - 520

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© The History of Economics Society

Publisher statement

This article has been published in a revised form in Journal of the History of Economic Thought https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837219000518. This version is published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND. No commercial re-distribution or re-use allowed. Derivative works cannot be distributed. © The History of Economics Society.

Acceptance date

2019-09-23

Publication date

2020-09-28

Copyright date

2020

ISSN

1053-8372

eISSN

1469-9656

Language

  • en

Depositor

Prof Paul Turner. Deposit date: 6 November 2019

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