The majority of the Writings series is composed of materials related to articles and books written by Hirschman, including offprints and drafts of articles, correspondence, reviews, research materials, and notes. The books include Exit, Voice and Loyalty, The Passions and the Interests, and Shifting Involvements. The subject of his writings is predominantly economic development in Latin America and throughout the world, and also includes economic policies, industrialization, inflation, and trade. The series also contains speech materials from Hirschman's tenure as economist for the Federal Reserve Board, papers and correspondence sent to Hirschman by other scholars to solicit his review and some of his reviews of their work, and papers written by Hirschman during his education.

These records, donated by Professor Jeremy Adelman, include a small cache of Hirschman's papers and records of events with which he was affiliated.

This series is composed of Hirschman's writings, reviews of his book The Strategy of Economic Development (1958) in various languages (including German, Italian, Portuguese, and English), and a research file of correspondence, memoranda, and reports pertaining to agricultural development efforts in Colombia by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) in the 1950s. Also of note is the Federal Bureau of Investigation file on Hirschman that was requested by Jeremy Adelman in 2006 under the Freedom of Information Act. Annotations of the FBI file on Post-it notes are Adelman's.