Introduction -- Technical progress, capital accumulation and income distribution in classical economics: Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx -- Joseph A. Schumpeter : an economist between Marx and Walras -- Innovations and profits : Schumpeter and the classical heritage -- On the growth of knowledge about the role of knowledge in economic growth : a critical assessment of recent literature on growth theory -- Who is going to kiss sleeping beauty? On the "classical" analytical origins and perspectives of input-output analysis -- Whither the history of economic thought? Going slowly rather nowhere?