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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Alexander Dow & Sheila Dow (Department of Economics, University of Victoria) |
| Abstract: | Coase’s work took a different approach to that of standard economics and he made a series of reflections over the years setting out his methodological views. He first employed this approach in his path-breaking paper on ‘The Nature of the Firm’, which was drafted while in his first academic post, at the Dundee School of Economics and Commerce. The distinctive Scottish political economy approach still dominated economics in Scotland at the time, although the Dundee School stood apart from it. The purpose of this paper is to consider how far Coase was influenced by being in Dundee, and in particular by the Scottish political economy tradition. We find little evidence of influence from the Scottish tradition while Coase was at Dundee. Nevertheless we identify many features of Coase’s methodology which accord with the Scottish tradition. In particular we draw out the similarities with Adam Smith’s approach, which Coase had encountered before coming to Dundee. We conclude that there was a missed connection with the Scottish tradition as it had continued in Scotland into the twentieth century. |
| Keywords: | Ronald Coase, Scottish political economy, economic methodology, law and economics |
| Date: | 2021–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vic:vicddp:2005&r= |
| By: | Li, Bin |
| Abstract: | The paper outlines an original thinking theory and its applications to economics. The author ascribes the flaws and divisiveness of economics mainly to the lack of a proper theory on how a person thinks. Human thoughts shall be entities, and thinking shall be behaviors, both featuring spatiotemporal. Simulating a computer, human thinking can be Kantianly and dually interpreted as computational operations which mean that Instructions, as the innate and general thinking tools, process information or data selectively, serially, and “roundaboutly”. Conditioning with operational speed, time, space and computing economy, the architecture reasonably leads to the results of knowledge stocks, Combinatorial Explosions, subjectivities, pluralities, conflicts, innovations, developments, “Semi-internalization”, convergences, divergences, “High-order Consistency”, etc., and hence a great deal of theoretical socio-economic puzzles are basically solved, including institution, organization, money, capital, Invisible Hand, business cycle, crisis, power, government, etc. This explosive framework could be a decisive breakthrough and a deconstruction of the mainstream equilibrium paradigm, and hence a grand synthesis or unification and a new comprehensive research program of economics. |
| Keywords: | economics; economic methodology; social science; theory; time |
| JEL: | A10 B00 Z10 |
| Date: | 2020–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:110155&r= |
| By: | Wilson, Robert (Stanford Univeristy) |
| Abstract: | After rocky early years, I had a happy youth in a small town, and then stumbled through eight years at Harvard, emerging with little sense of what to do next, until I moved to Stanford where my research thrived. A minor project on adverse selection in auctions led me to join in the nascent reconstruction of economic theory using game-theoretic models, and then later, foundational topics in game theory, all focused on the role of agents’ information and their effect on incentives. I’ve enjoyed working with PhD students and been fortunate to have superb co-authors with better skills. |
| Keywords: | Auctions |
| JEL: | D44 |
| Date: | 2021–10–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2020_005&r= |
| By: | Kakkar, Shrey |
| Abstract: | This article discusses existing behavioral economics theory, focused on Rational Expectations. Macroeconomic and market consequences are considered, especially monetary policy on inflation. |
| Keywords: | Rational Expectations, Expectations, Behavioral Economics |
| JEL: | B25 C60 |
| Date: | 2021–07–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:110210&r= |
| By: | Kakkar, Shrey |
| Abstract: | This article discusses existing theories on “Innovation” since the 1940s. It differentiates between “Innovation” and “Invention”, and presents examples of innovation that are modelled by theory. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Invention |
| JEL: | B20 B25 O31 |
| Date: | 2021–07–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:110209&r= |
| By: | Nordhaus, William (Yale University) |
| Abstract: | I first saw light in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, at the dawn of World War II. My earliest memories are of the warm climate, skiing in winter, trout fishing in summer, and a fragrant alfalfa field outside my window. |
| Keywords: | long-term growth; climate change; |
| JEL: | O00 |
| Date: | 2021–10–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2018_005&r= |
| By: | Milgrom, Paul (Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | I was born in Detroit, Michigan to Abraham Isaac Milgrom and Anne Lillian Milgrom nee Finkelstein. Abraham Milgrom was born in Canada to Polish-Jewish immigrants, and Anne Finkelstein in Detroit, Michigan, to Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants. I am the second of the Milgroms’ four sons; Stuart is my older brother and Barry and Steven my younger twin brothers. We grew up in Oak Park – a suburb of Detroit – where I attended the John Dewey School followed by Oak Park High School, from which I graduated in 1966. |
| Keywords: | Auctions |
| JEL: | D44 |
| Date: | 2021–10–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2020_006&r= |
| By: | Committee, Nobel Prize (Nobel Prize Committee) |
| Abstract: | Most applied science is concerned with uncovering causal relationships. In many fields, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are considered the gold standard for achieving this. The systematic use of RCTs to study causal relationships — assessing the efficacy of a medical treatment for example — has resulted in tremendous welfare gains in society. However, due to financial, ethical, or practical constraints, many important questions — particularly in the social sciences — cannot be studied using a controlled randomized experiment. For example, what is the impact of school closures on student learning and the spread of the COVID-19 virus? What is the impact of low-skilled immigration on employment and wages? How do institutions affect economic development? How does the imposition of a minimum wage affect employment? In answering these types of questions, researchers must rely on observational data, i.e., data generated without controlled experimental variation. But with observational data, a fundamental identification problem arises: the underlying cause of any correlation remains unclear. If we observe that minimum wages and unemployment correlate, is this because a minimum wage causes unemployment? Or because unemployment and lower wage growth at the bottom of the wage distribution leads to the introduction of a minimum wage? Or because of a myriad of other factors that affect both unemployment and the decision to introduce a minimum wage? Moreover, in many settings, randomized variation by itself is not sufficient for identification of an average treatment effect. |
| Keywords: | Labor markets; natural experiments |
| JEL: | J00 |
| Date: | 2021–10–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2021_002&r= |
| By: | Morgan, Mary S. |
| Abstract: | The provocative paper by John Forrester: ‘If p, Then What? Thinking in Cases’ (1996) opened up the question of case thinking as a separate mode of reasoning in the sciences. Case-based reasoning is certainly endemic across a number of sciences, but it has looked different according to where it has been found. This paper investigates this mode of science - namely thinking in cases - by questioning the different interpretations of ‘If p?’ and exploring the different interpretative responses of what follows in ‘Then What?’. The aim is to characterise how ‘reasoning in, within, with, and from cases’ forms a mode of scientific investigation for single cases, for runs of cases, and for comparative cases, drawing on materials from a range of different fields in which case-based reasoning appears. |
| Keywords: | single cases; runs of cases; comparative cases; case-based reasoning |
| JEL: | N0 J1 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:102972&r= |
| By: | Philippe Jehiel (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Matthew Leduc (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Successive governments must decide whether to implement an affirmative action policy aimed at improving the performance distribution of the next generation of a targeted group. Workers receive wages corresponding to their expected performance, suffer a feeling of injustice when getting less than their performance, and employers do not (perfectly) observe whether workers benefited from affirmative action. We find that welfare-maximizing governments choose to implement affirmative action perpetually, despite the resulting feeling of injustice that eventually dominates the purported beneficial effect on the performance of the targeted group. This is in contrast with the first-best that requires affirmative action to be temporary. |
| Keywords: | Affirmative Action,General Equilibrium,Loss Aversion,Prospect Theory,Moral Hazard,Game Theory |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-03359602&r= |
| By: | Hövermann, Andreas; Kohlrausch, Bettina; Voss-Dahm, Dorothea |
| Abstract: | Der Arbeitskontext und eine sichere Integration in den Arbeitsmarkt können einen Schutz vor rechtspopulistischen und menschenfeindlichen Einstellungen bieten. Diese zusammenfassend als anti-demokratisch bezeichneten Einstellungen treten gehäuft auf, wenn Sicherheit, Anerkennung und Selbstwirksamkeit am Arbeitsplatz fehlen. Zentral für anti-demokratische Einstellungen sind zudem Erfahrungen mit Digitalisierung am Arbeitsplatz und Einstellungen zum sozial-ökologischen Wandel. Aber Transformationserfahrungen sind unterschiedlich: Für einige Menschen stellen sie ein enormes Bedrohungspotenzial dar, sie bergen die Gefahr einer weiteren Polarisierung der Gesellschaft - und einer Zunahme anti-demokratischer Einstellungen. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hbsfpb:007&r= |