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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Rosinger, Elemer Elad |
| Abstract: | Recently, P Krugman has suggested that psychology should be included in the theory of economics in view of its critical role played in the behaviour of the large masses of people whose day to day participation impacts so heavily upon economic affairs. Here it is argued that such an inclusion of psychology as an important component of economic theory should further be extended to the psychology of theoretical economists as well. Indeed, the severe division of theoretical economists along various preconceived or a priori lines is still affecting with a massive negative effect our national and global economies. And while democracy may be a legitimate approach in politics, since no one can seriously claim that politics is a science, on the contrary, and precisely to the extent that economics is claimed by some to have by now reached the level of science, such arbitrary sharp divisions, mostly politically motivated, which we still have in the theory of economics may indeed require the urgent and significant consideration of the psychology of the respective theoretical economists. |
| Keywords: | psychology of theoretical economists; to be included in economics theory |
| JEL: | B0 A1 B3 A11 A14 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28148&r=hpe |
| By: | Folmer, Henk (Department of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen); Johansson-Stenman, Olof (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we first critically review conventional environmental economics. We conclude that the standard theory offers too narrow a perspective for many real world problems and that many theories are not empirically tested. Consequently, environmental economics is at risk of producing aeroplanes without engines. Next, we welcome and discuss some recent trends, particularly the rapid developments of behavioural and new institutional economics as well as the increased interest in empirical analysis. Yet, we conclude that more „logical duels between competing theories, more interaction between theory and empirics, and more integration between the social sciences are needed to achieve a better understanding of real world environmental problems and the development of adequate policy handles. Finally, we present an outline of steps towards the development of an environmental social science and briefly present the papers that make up this special issue as important building stones of such a discipline.<p> |
| Keywords: | economic methodology; environmental economics; experiments; logical duels; moral philosophy; political science; psychology; sociology; spatial sciences; surveys |
| JEL: | A12 B41 Q50 |
| Date: | 2011–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0483&r=hpe |
| By: | Ettinger, David; Jehiel, Philippe |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes an equilibrium approach to belief manipulation and deception in which agents only have coarse knowledge of their opponent's strategy. Equilibrium requires the coarse knowledge available to agents to be correct, and the inferences and optimizations to be made on the basis of the simplest theories compatible with the available knowledge. The approach can be viewed as formalizing into a game theoretic setting a well documented bias in social psychology, the fundamental attribution error. It is applied to a bargaining problem, thereby revealing a deceptive tactic that is hard to explain in the full rationality paradigm. |
| Keywords: | Bargaining Theory; deception; belief manipulation; |
| JEL: | D84 D83 C78 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:dauphi:urn:hdl:123456789/5434&r=hpe |
| By: | Harris, Jose |
| Abstract: | T.H. Marshall's reputation as an historian, social theorist, and practical interpreter of ideas about citizenship and welfare rights has probably never been higher than at the present time. Whether or not T. H. Marshall was 'right' or 'wrong' in his analysis of the questions raised in Citizenship and Social Class (1949), he has come to be seen as a key figure in sparking-off and mediating far-reaching new approaches to ideas about social welfare policy, citizenship laws, and fundamental social rights. Full discussion of Marshall's influence opens up some very large questions, going far beyond the scope of this paper. Here I want to focus on some curious historical gaps and unanswered questions in Marshalls Citizenship and Social Class-gaps that relate both to Marshall's account of the longer-term historical past and to contemporary movements in his own times. First, in a British context, I am puzzled by his narrative of the long-term evolution of citizenship and welfare rights, as these had developed from the 'early-modern' period through into the twentieth-century. And, secondly, in a wider European context, I am equally if not more puzzled by Marshall's relation to the massive debates about citizenship and rights of all kinds that was going on in Europe during the mid-to-late-1940s, at exactly the moment when he was preparing his Cambridge lectures on those same themes. -- Der Ruf von T.H. Marshall als Historiker, Gesellschaftstheoretiker und Deuter von Ideen über Bürgerrechte und soziale Klassen (1949) war wahrscheinlich nie besser als heute. Ob Marshalls Analyse in Bürgerrechte und soziale Klassen nun zutrifft oder nicht, er wird heute als einer der zentralen Denker gesehen, die unsere Ideen von Sozialpolitik, Bürgerschaft und grundlegenden sozialen Rechten angestoßen und gebündelt haben. Eine vollständige Diskussion von Marshalls Einfluss führte in eine Vielzahl großer Fragen hinein, die weit über dieses Papier hinausgehen würde. Hier möchte ich mich auf verschiedene auffällige historische Lücken und offene Fragen konzentrieren, die sich aus Bürgerrechte und soziale Klassen ergeben. Diese Lücken beziehen sich auf Marshalls Darstellung der langen historischen Wellen und auf die sozialen Bewegungen in seiner Gegenwart, also um 1949. Erstens, im britischen Zusammenhang gibt mir seine Erzählung der Langfristentwicklung von Bürgerrechten und sozialen Klassen wie sie sich von der frühen Neuzeit bis ins 20. Jahrhundert entwickelt haben, Fragen auf. Zweitens, in einem breiteren europäischen Zusammenhang frage ich besonders nach Marshalls Beziehungen zu den umfangreichen Diskussionen über Bürgerschaft und weitere Rechte aller Art, die im Europa der zweiten Hälfte der 40er Jahre stattgefunden haben, also genau zu dem Zeitpunkt als er seine Vorträge in Cambridge über diese Themen vorbereitete. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zeswps:022010&r=hpe |
| By: | Heiner Ganßmann (Institut für Soziologie, Freie Universität Berlin) |
| Abstract: | Recent search theoretical models of monetary economies promise micro-foundations and thus a decisive improvement in the theory of money compared to the traditional mainstream approach that starts from a Walrasian general equilibrium framework to introduce money exogenously at the macro level. The promise of micro-foundations is not fulfilled, however. It can be shown that search models implicitly refer to central, most likely collective, agents doing essential work to sustain the monetary economy. |
| Keywords: | micro-foundations, multi-agent modelling, model, macro, monetary economy, money, information, network |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kas:poabec:2010-9&r=hpe |
| By: | M. Cristelli; L. Pietronero; A. Zaccaria |
| Abstract: | We present an overview of some representative Agent-Based Models in Economics. We discuss why and how agent-based models represent an important step in order to explain the dynamics and the statistical properties of financial markets beyond the Classical Theory of Economics. We perform a schematic analysis of several models with respect to some specific key categories such as agents' strategies, price evolution, number of agents, etc. In the conclusive part of this review we address some open questions and future perspectives and highlight the conceptual importance of some usually neglected topics, such as non-stationarity and the self-organization of financial markets. |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1101.1847&r=hpe |
| By: | Joan Trullén (Institut d'Estudis Regionals i Metropolitans de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | The studies of Giacomo Becattini concerning the notion of the "Marshallian industrial district" have led a revolution in the field of economic development around the world. The paper offers an interpretation of the methodology adopted by Becattini. The roots are clearly Marshallian. Becattini proposes a return to the economy as a complex social science that operates in historical time. We adopt a Schumpeterian approach to the method in economic analysis in order to highlight the similarities between the Marshall and Becattini’s approach. Finally the paper uses the distinction between logical time, real time and historical time which enable us to study the “localized” economic process in a Becattinian way. |
| Keywords: | industrial district, Marshallian industrial district, methodology of economics, Schumpeter's economic analysis, historical time, economic process |
| JEL: | B31 B41 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esg:wpierm:1003&r=hpe |
| By: | Pedro Cezar Dutra Fonseca (Departamento de Economia da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS); Maria de Lourdes Rollemberg Mollo (Departamento de Economia (Department of Economics) Faculdade de Economia, Administração, Contabilidade e Ciência da Informação e Documentação (FACE) (Faculty of Economics, Administration, Accounting and Information Science) Universidade de Brasília) |
| Abstract: | The paper analyzes the debate between mettalism and “papelismo” which took place in Brazil in the second half of the 19th century and advocates that the latter was one of the currents that contributed for the genesis of developmentalism. In order to do so, it reviews the monetary controversies in England since the beginning of that century. Based on them, it identifies the theoretical origins of the Brazilian debate, highlighting the issue that refers to the neutrality or non-neutrality of money. Next, it shows how this question was adapted to the peculiarities of the Brazilian economy, emphasizing the “papelistas”’ option for growth, breaking up with the orthodoxy of that time. The influence upon the fledgeling developmentalism is empirically studied based on the speeches of Getulio Vargas, since he was the central character of the developmentalist State that was central to the Brazilian historical experience post-1930. |
| Keywords: | Brazilian economy, Latin-American economic thought, economic development, bullionism, monetary controversies. |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:brs:wpaper:348&r=hpe |
| By: | Yulia Raskina |
| Abstract: | This paper is following lectures given in 2010 at the Department of Economics of the European University at St. Petersburg in frameworks of the course Socio-economic statistics (module Natural resource statistics). |
| Keywords: | statistics, natural resources |
| JEL: | O13 E3 |
| Date: | 2010–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eus:wpaper:ec0610&r=hpe |
| By: | John Duffy; Felix Munoz-Garcia (School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates incomplete information and signaling about players?inequity aversion in the simultaneous and sequential-move prisoner?s dilemma game. We ?first evaluate the role of incomplete information according to: (1) whether uncertainty helps select the effcient equilibrium outcome, and (2) whether more cooperation can be sustained under incomplete than under complete information. We then examine the possibility of information transmission among individuals in a signaling game. A separating equilibrium can be supported in which players with high concerns about fairness bear the cost of cooperating in order to reveal their type to opponents, thus promoting cooperation in subsequent periods. We also fi?nd a pooling equilibrium in which a player unconcerned about inequity aversion initially cooperates in order to mislead the uninformed player. This misleading strategy induces cooperation from the uninformed player in the subsequent stage of the game, moment at which the unconcerned player takes the opportunity to defect. This "?backstabbing?" equilibrium helps explain frequently observed behavior in ?finitely-repeated experiments. |
| Keywords: | Prisoner?s Dilemma; Inequity aversion; Incomplete Information; Signaling |
| JEL: | C72 C73 D82 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wsu:wpaper:munoz-8&r=hpe |