James S. Cicarelli (1941-2023) devoted his career to understanding the moral, philosophical, and historical foundations of economic life. As a long-time faculty member and former dean at Roosevelt University, he was widely admired for his remarkable clarity of thought, generosity toward students, and unwavering commitment to intellectual fairness. His scholarship ranged across the history of economic thought, income distribution, and the philosophical roots of American economic ideas. Yet what distinguished him most was his ability to weave together economic theory, historical narrative, and ethical reflection in a manner accessible, humane, and deeply insightful. This volume, Equity, Fairness, and the Origins of Economic Thought, brings together three of his important contributions that were previously published in EconSciences journals, now presented in unified form to honor his lasting scholarly legacy.

The first essay, Equality, Equity, and the Distribution of Income, reflects Cicarelli’s lifelong interest in the conceptual and empirical foundations of distributive justice. In this work, he revisits more than a century of analysis on the Lorenz curve and the Gini ratio, tracing the evolution of modern approaches to measuring inequality. He moves beyond standard metrics by proposing a novel framework for evaluating fairness in income distribution—one that aspires not merely to quantify disparity, but to illuminate the ethical considerations underlying public policy. The essay stands as a testament to his conviction that economics is inseparable from questions of justice, dignity, and social responsibility.

The second essay, Philosophical Origins of Seventeenth-Century American Economic Thought, explores the intellectual roots of Puritan and Quaker contributions to early American economic life. In a period defined by protohistory—where practice far outpaced formal writing—Cicarelli employs inferential historical method to reconstruct economic reasoning from sparse but meaningful textual remains. His analysis reveals why Quaker ideas, despite being less voluminous, ultimately exerted deeper influence on American economic development than the more doctrinal Puritan tradition.

The final essay, Economic Thought in Eighteenth-Century America Prior to Independence, offers a sweeping overview of conditions and ideas shaping colonial economic thinking from 1700 to 1775. Against the backdrop of rapid population growth, rising literacy, and expanding commercial networks, Cicarelli identifies three currents of thought—mainstream, issue-specific, and crosscurrent—that foreshadowed the trajectory of American economics after independence. His narrative demonstrates how intellectual seeds planted in the colonial era cast “long shadows,” preparing the ground for the nation’s later economic identity.

Together, these essays reveal a scholar deeply attuned to the long arc of economic ideas and their enduring moral implications. In collecting them into this volume, we honor James S. Cicarelli not only as an economist, but as a careful historian, a generous teacher, and a voice committed to fairness in both scholarship and society. May this book preserve and extend the influence of his work for future generations of researchers, students, and readers.