The contributions of the Ukranian economist, Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky (sometimes spelt "Tugan-Baranawsky" or some variant thereof) fall into two related camps: business cycle theory and the Marxian theory of crises.
His work on business cycles, spelled out in his 1894 book, is famous for the provision of the first coherent and throughly "economic" theory of the business cycle. His theory, which relied on a Say's Law-breaking theory of credit and a primitive notion of the Keynesian "multiplier", argued that cycles were driven by an independent investment function and that, ultimately, "overinvestment" was the cause of recessions. His breakthrough work gave rise to a whole line of European business cycle theory stemming from Spiethoff through Cassel and Robertson all the way to the Kiel School and Hayek.
His theory of the cycle also provided the groundwork for his later 1905 challenge to Marx's theory of capitalist crises. His cycle theory had already demonstrated that there is not necessarily a secular movement towards "destruction" but rather only wave-like patterns in capitalist economies. In his 1905 work, he extended this to argue that there are conditions whereby capitalist economies can arrive at a "stationary state" and thus arrest their move to crisis.
Tugan-Baranovsky's challenge set the spark for a vociferous debate among Marxians between followers of his line (e.g. Hilferding) and upholders of the old inevitability doctrine (e.g. Kautsky and Adler). This was extended later to a debate on imperialism. Tugan-Baranovsky eventually abandoned his Marxian roots and adopted the more socialist views of his previous opponents, the Populists (Narodniks), on co-operative economies.
Major works of Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky
Resources of Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky