Copeland shared the institutionalist skepticism of "economic laws" that purport to be applicable outside of specific historical institutional contexts. He viewed orthodox theory more as expressions of doctrine rather than empirical observation. For example, he saw the quantity theory of money as a mathematical device convenient for neoclassical doctrine rather than as a hypothesis that emerged from solid empirical observation of economic data. Rather than base economics on introspection and mental states that cannot be empirically verified, he wished to engage in what he viewed as a more science-based approach which necessarily proceeds first from observations about an economy's actual behavior. While organizing principles might be inferred from such observations, the institutionalist perspective was that they are in constant flux and subject to a broader social context. For this reason Copeland published not just in economic publications, but in journals of philosophy, political science, psychology, statistics and accounting. In 1949 he introduced his quadruple entry principle - a scheme enlarged on by
Hyman Minsky to emphasize the time-dated pattern of cash commitments to examine the microeconomic basis of financial system instability. Copeland further developed and applied his perspective in his book "
A Study of Moneyflows in the United States". According to Copeland, when you look at the economy from the micro perspective of money flows, it provides a powerful new way making phenomena visible that are simply abstracted away by the orthodox Keynesian and Monetarist models. Copeland's flow of funds set of accounts provides an alternative framework and analytical insights that is unavailable from either the Keynesian
NIPA framework or the monetarist
quantity theory of money framework. Copeland is recognized as an early
Post Keynesian, presenting the view that 'the changes Keynes introduced represented modifications of neoclassicism, not its rejection'. For his innovations in money flow theory, many colleagues believed that Copeland should have received the Nobel Prize. In 1944, Copeland joined Mitchell at the
National Bureau of Economic Research in order to work on money flows research, which after 1947 was continued under the auspices of the Federal Reserve. According to Jacob Cohen who in 1972 performed a review of money flow analysis since 1947, "the breadth of Copeland's moneyflows has been substantially narrowed in the hands of the Federal Reserve and foreign account-makers." As part of its integration into the
National Income and Product Accounts system, John Dawson observes that Copeland's flow of funds analysis was compromised by removal of his money circuit calculations. ==Publications==