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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Salvat, Christophe; Assistant, JHET |
| Abstract: | This article questions the articulation between John Stuart Mill’s initial project of creating a new science dedicated to the means of improving individual character, a science named ethology, and the treatise of political economy that he published instead. My claim is that his defence of free competition as well as some of the arguments he opposes to it, and which have often puzzled his readers, actually reveal the moral agenda of his political economy and of some of his political principles, specifically his ambivalent position towards paternalism. |
| Date: | 2020–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:tcj2f&r=all |
| By: | Feld, Lars P.; Koehler, Ekkehard; Nientiedt, Daniel; Assistant, JHET |
| Abstract: | The work of Walter Eucken (1891–1950), founder of German ordoliberalism, is often described as being in direct opposition to that of John Maynard Keynes. Our paper challenges this claim by making two main arguments. First, we show that Eucken supported a proto-Keynesian stimulus program at the height of the Great Depression, the so-called Lautenbach plan of 1931. Second, we analyze his critique of full employment policy, which reveals that Eucken’s approach to solving macroeconomic problems is fundamentally different, if not necessarily contrary to that of Keynes. |
| Date: | 2020–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:bs3w5&r=all |
| By: | Assistant, JHET; Graf, Rüdiger |
| Abstract: | The article examines an early and idiosyncratic version of behavioral economics or “empir-ical socio-economics,” which the German economist and taxation expert Günter Schmölders developed in the postwar decades. Relying on both his published papers and his lecture notes and correspondence, it scrutinizes Schmölders’ intellectual upbringing in the tradition of the Historical School of Economics (Historische Schule der Nationalökonomie) and his relation to the emerging ordoliberalism, demonstrating that the roads that led to dissatisfaction with the emerging neoclassical mainstream and the unrealistic behavioral assumptions of macro-economic models were manifold. Accordingly, it shows that behavioral economics is compati-ble with various intellectual and political backgrounds and convictions. Yet, it still forms a dis-tinct entity: Comparing Schmölders with contemporary and later behavioral economists, I will show that they shared essential methodological assumptions as well as an understanding of human beings as decision-making organisms. |
| Date: | 2020–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:vyarx&r=all |
| By: | Rahman, Jasmeen; Dimand, Robert; Assistant, JHET |
| Abstract: | We explore disciplinary boundary-making in geographical economics or “the new economic geography” with attention to the approaches taken by, and attempts at communication between, scholars with primary affiliations in economics, geography and regional science. The Dixit-Stiglitz general equilibrium approach to monopolistic competition and increasing returns was applied to agglomeration and location by Paul Krugman, who had previously pioneered the “new trade theory” building on the Dixit-Stiglitz model, and, independently and slightly earlier, by Masahisa Fujita and his student Heshem Abdel-Rahman starting from regional science, a tradition with its own departments, doctorates, conferences and journals distinct from economics and geography. Economic geography, as studied by geographers, had already taken a quantitative and theoretical turn in the 1960s, reviving an earlier tradition of German location theory overshadowed within geography after World War II by areal differentiation. Another strand of economic geography pursued by geographers was influenced by economic theory, but by non-neoclassical Marxian and Sraffian economics. Debates between these scholars raised questions whether these analyses were multidisciplinary, drawing on distinct disciplines, or crossed disciplinary boundaries (as when geographical economics in the style of economists is undertaken in geography departments) or transcends disciplinary boundaries, or involved the emergence of a new discipline. |
| Date: | 2020–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:xg5m9&r=all |
| By: | Dupont-Kieffer, Ariane; Rivot, Sylvie; Madre, Jean-Loup; Assistant, JHET |
| Abstract: | The golden age of road demand modeling began in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s in the face of major road construction needs. These macro-models as well as the econometrics and the data to be processed, were mainly provided by engineers. A division of tasks can be observed between the engineers in charge of estimating the flows within the network, and the transport economists in charge of managing these flows once they are on the road network. Yet the inability to explain their decision-making processes and individual drives gave some room to economists to introduce economic analysis, so as to better understand individual or collective decisions between transport alternatives. Economists, in particular McFadden, began to offer methods to improve the measure of utility linked to transport, and to inform the engineering approach. This paper explores the challenges to the boundaries between economics and engineering in road demand analysis. |
| Date: | 2020–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:kucbt&r=all |
| By: | Quinn, William; Turner, John D. |
| Abstract: | Bubbles have become ubiquitous. This ubiquity has stimulated research over the past three decades into bubbles in history. In this article, we provide a systematic overview of research into historical bubbles. Our analysis reveals that there is no coherent approach to the study of bubbles and much of the debate has unhelpfully focussed on the rationality/irrationality dichotomy. We then suggest a new framework for the study of historical bubbles, which helps us understand the causes of bubbles and their economic consequences. We conclude by suggesting ways in which business history can contribute to the study of historical bubbles. |
| Keywords: | Bubbles,Business History,Speculation |
| JEL: | G01 G10 N10 N20 N80 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202007&r=all |
| By: | Blandford, David; Tangermann, Stefan |
| Keywords: | International Relations/Trade, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iatrwp:305680&r=all |
| By: | Gerard Delanty |
| Abstract: | The Coronavirus (Covid-19) poses interesting questions for social and political thought. These include the nature and limits of the ethical responsibility of the state, personal liberty and collective interests, human dignity, and state surveillance. As many countries throughout the world declared states of emergency, some of the major questions in political philosophy become suddenly highly relevant. Foucault’s writings on biopolitical securitization and Agamben’s notion of the state of exception take on a new reality, as do the classical arguments of utilitarianism and libertarianism. In this paper, I discuss six main philosophical responses to the pandemic, including provocative interventions made by Agamben, Badieu, and Zizek, Latour on the governance of life and death as well as the Kantian perspective of Habermas on human dignity |
| Keywords: | Agamben, Badieu, Utilitarianism, Habermas, libertarianism, Latour, nudge theory, Zizek |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eiq:eileqs:156&r=all |
| By: | Arthur Grimes (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research); Stephen P. Jenkins (London School of Economics and Political Science, and IZA); Florencia Tranquilli (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, and Victoria University of Wellington) |
| Abstract: | We argue that the relationship between individual satisfaction with life (SWL) and SWL inequality is more complex than described by leading earlier research such as Goff, Helliwell, and Mayraz (Economic Inquiry, 2018). Using inequality indices appropriate for ordinal data, our analysis using the World Values Survey reveals that skewness of the SWL distribution, not only inequality, matters for individual SWL outcomes; so too does whether we look upwards or downwards at the (skewed) distribution. Our results are consistent with there being negative (positive) externalities for an individual’s SWL from seeing people who are low (high) in the SWL distribution. |
| Keywords: | subjective wellbeing, ordinal data, inequality, skewness, WVS |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I31 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:20_09&r=all |
| By: | Richard Bronk; Wade Jacoby |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses epistemic aspects of populism – especially its link with radical uncertainty and the tribal construction of facts – that have so far received relatively little attention. We argue that populism is less a backward-looking phenomenon feeding off existing grievances than a narrative-based reaction to an increasingly unsettled future. Many economic factors isolated as causes of populism – especially rapid technological innovation, deregulation, and the globalisation of networks – entail a high degree of indeterminacy in social systems; and the corresponding uncertainty facing voters is a catalyst for many of the pathologies of populism isolated in the literature. In particular, uncertainty undermines the credibility of experts, while the disorientation and anxiety it induces increase reliance on simple narratives to structure expectations. The paper explores the role of narrative entrepreneurs, the relationship between narratives and power, and the dynamics of narrative coups designed to create alternative facts and perform a new reality. |
| Keywords: | Uncertainty, narrative coups, tribal construction of facts, distrust of experts, populist turn |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eiq:eileqs:152&r=all |
| By: | Stark, Oded |
| Abstract: | We show that a social planner who seeks to allocate a given sum in order to reduce efficiently the social stress of a population, as measured by the aggregate relative deprivation of the population, pursues a disbursement procedure that is identical to the procedure adhered to by a Rawlsian social planner who seeks to allocate the same sum in order to maximize the Rawlsian maximin-based social welfare function. Thus, the constrained minimization of aggregate relative deprivation constitutes an economics-based rationale for the philosophy-based constrained maximization of the Rawlsian social welfare function. |
| Keywords: | Food Security and Poverty, Political Economy, Public Economics |
| Date: | 2020–10–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ubzefd:305675&r=all |
| By: | Walraevens, Benoît; Assistant, JHET |
| Abstract: | A review of “Self-Love, Egoism and the Selfish Hypothesis. Key Debates from Eighteenth-Century British Moral Philosophy” by Christian Maurer |
| Date: | 2020–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:pr6q5&r=all |
| By: | Cheney, Paul; Assistant, JHET |
| Abstract: | A review of the book "Political Economy in the Habsburg Monarchy 1750-1774: The Contribution of Ludwig Zinzendorf" by Simon Adler |
| Date: | 2020–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:fvgtm&r=all |
| By: | Thomas, Michael D.; Assistant, JHET |
| Abstract: | A review of “Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations for the Twenty-First Century" by Vernon L. Smith and Bart J. Wilson |
| Date: | 2020–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:2s8zk&r=all |