|
on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Walter Castro; Julio Jorge Elías |
| Abstract: | The economic concept of Repugnance, developed by Alvin Roth (2007), suggests that some transactions, such as the buy and sale of kidneys for transplantation, are illegal simply because a sufficient number of people find it repugnant. In a repugnant transaction the participants are willing to transact, but third parties disapprove and wish to prevent the transaction. As Roth argued, these could have big consequences in what markets we see and can generate important social costs. For example, banning payments to organ donors is the main cause of the severe organ shortages in virtually all countries (Becker and Elias 2007), and outlawing activities such as abortion or prostitution typically drives them underground, reducing their safety and fueling crime. Could Adam Smith ideas provide a basis for deciding what should, and what should not, be up for sale? In this paper we analyze the economic concept of repugnance and its implications using insights from The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations. In terms of Smith, repugnance at the individual level is a moral sentiment. Departing from the idea of the impartial spectator, we analyze whether repugnance should translate into prohibition and affects legislation when the spectator disapproves it and how his judgement could vary across communities and time. |
| JEL: | B12 D62 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4548&r=hpe |
| By: | Davis, John B. (Department of Economics Marquette University) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses objectivity in economics. It criticizes a closed science, ‘view from nowhere’ conception of economics and defends an open science, ‘view from somewhere’ conception of objective science. It ascribes the first conception to mainstream economics, associates it with its principle practices – reductionist modeling, formalization, limited interdisciplinarity, and value neutrality – and argues their foundation is the Homo economicus individual conception. Two problematic consequences of adopting this stance are: (i) value blindness regarding the range and complexity of human values; (ii) fatalism regarding human behavior associated with employing a tenseless representation of time. The paper contrasts the principle practices of an open science, view from science conception – complexity modeling, mixed methods, strong relationships to other disciplines, and value diversity – and argues their foundation is a socially and historically embedded economics individual conception that avoids the value blindness and fatalism problems. |
| Keywords: | objectivity in science, science practices, Homo economicus, value-blindness, fatalism, science bubble |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrq:wpaper:2023-01&r=hpe |
| By: | Di Giovinazzo, Viviana |
| Abstract: | Tibor Scitovsky’s The Joyless Economy (1976) is now regarded as a landmark publication in the combined fields of economic and psychology, with standard accounts of Scitovsky’s ideas emphasizing the influence of 1960s motivational psychology literature. While this encounter is all-important, Scitovsky’s ideas need at the same time to be read in the context of the evolution of his critique of 20th century mass society. The present paper presents that critique and demonstrates its fundamental importance for Scitovsky’s diagnosis of an economy he termed joyless. Drawing upon his Memoirs, we show how Scitovsky’s ideas were initially shaped by the culture/aesthetics of his early years in Budapest, followed by his experiences of rising totalitarianism in inter-war Europe, and further affected by his move to the consumption society of post-war America. Important the way he engaged with the writings of influential contemporary cultural commentators, including André Gide, Erich Fromm, Bertrand de Jouvenel, Lewis Mumford and Bernard Rudofsky. Close scrutiny also reveals resonances between Scitovsky’s cultural concerns and those of some of the Bloomsbury Group. |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:etgfx&r=hpe |
| By: | Decker, Frank; Goodhart, Charles A. E. |
| Abstract: | This article assesses the theory of credit mechanics within the context of the current money supply debate. Credit mechanics and related approaches were developed by a group of German monetary economists during the 1920s-1960s. Credit mechanics overcomes a one-sided, bank-centric view of money creation, which is often encountered in monetary theory. We show that the money supply is influenced by the interplay of loan creation and repayment rates; the relative share of credit volume neutral debtor-to-debtor and creditor-to-creditor payments; the availability of loan security; and the behaviour of non-banks and non-borrowing bank creditors. With the standard textbook models of money creation now discredited, we argue that a more general approach to money supply theory involving credit mechanics needs to be re-established. |
| Keywords: | bank credit creation; money supply theory; credit and balances mechanics; borrowers' collateral |
| JEL: | E40 E41 E50 E51 |
| Date: | 2022–03–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:111819&r=hpe |
| By: | George S. Tavlas (Bank of Greece) |
| Abstract: | The objective of Ed Nelson’s two-volume book, Milton Friedman and Economic Debate in the United States, 1932-1972, is to provide an account of Friedman’s views in major monetary-policy debates during the period identified in the book’s title. Nelson tells the story of the development of Friedman’s monetary framework, from its Keynesian origins in the early-1940s, to its gradual absorption of monetary factors in the late-1940s, and, finally, to its monetarist character of the 1950s and after, through the windows of a selection debates that engaged Friedman. At the same time, Nelson places Friedman’s monetary contributions within the context of the modern macroeconomics literature. In this essay, I consider doctrinal issues related to Nelson’s account of the development of Friedman’s monetarist framework. |
| Keywords: | Milton Friedman; monetarism; Keynesian economics; New Keynesian model |
| JEL: | B31 E51 E52 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bog:wpaper:307&r=hpe |
| By: | Flavia Poinsot |
| Abstract: | La eponimia en economía suele estar presente a lo largo de la historia del pensamiento. El “tenedor de Hume” no es la excepción. Atribuyéndose en libros de textos únicamente a John Neville Keynes, la dicotomía ser-debe ser halla sus raíces en el pensamiento del escocés David Hume quien coloca la piedra angular en una trayectoria representacional que atraviesa el pensamiento de los clásicos hasta ser recogida y explicitada por Keynes padre. Atribuible generalmente al pensamiento ortodoxo, la dicotomía difiere del pensamiento heterodoxo donde se levantan voces discordantes. Sin embargo, la dicotomía logra zanjar las dificultades y asoma su nariz con nueva vestimenta en la teoría de la elección racional. Este trabajo analiza desde el aspecto epistemológico el surgimiento y evolución del “tenedor de Hume” el cual, se esboza, se halla implícito a lo largo del pensamiento económico. |
| JEL: | H8 Z0 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4585&r=hpe |
| By: | Yvon Pesqueux (ESD R3C - Équipe Sécurité & Défense - Renseignement, Criminologie, Crises, Cybermenaces - CNAM - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers [CNAM] - HESAM - HESAM Université - Communauté d'universités et d'établissements Hautes écoles Sorbonne Arts et métiers université) |
| Date: | 2022–10–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03828124&r=hpe |
| By: | Shaheera Bano (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics) |
| Abstract: | The current position of economics in the world is considered the only general law in the whole social sciences. Social scientists believe that many phenomena are actually challenging to explain. However, in economics, agents react to changes in incentives which gives us an important insight into a given situation. Microeconomics has made substantial scientific progress in the past 50 years. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wbrief:2022:107&r=hpe |
| By: | Paganelli, Maria Pia |
| Abstract: | Review of “Bettering Humanomics: a New, and Old Approach to Economic Science” by Deidre Nansen McCloskey. University of Chicago Press. 2021. |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:wqg4d&r=hpe |
| By: | Erasmo, Valentina |
| Abstract: | Review of PAOLO SANTORI, Thomas Aquinas and the Civil Economy Tradition: The Mediterranean Spirit of Capitalism, Routledge, London, 2021. |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:u7cb5&r=hpe |
| By: | Carret, Vincent |
| Abstract: | Review of “Jan Tinbergen (1903-1994) and the Rise of Economic Expertise” by Erwin Dekker. |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gkb5q&r=hpe |
| By: | Ross, Dorothy |
| Abstract: | Review of Philippe Fontaine and Jefferson D. Pooley (eds), Society on the Edge: Social Science and Public Policy in the Postwar United States (Cambridge University Press, 2021). |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:azxqy&r=hpe |
| By: | Kuehn, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Review of Democracy, Race, & Justice: The Speeches and Writings of Sadie T.M. Alexander, Edited by Nina Banks, Yale University Press, 2021, ISBN: 9780300246704, 320 pages |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:jzyfd&r=hpe |
| By: | BIANCHI, ANA MARIA AFONSO FERREIRA (Universidade de São Paulo) |
| Abstract: | Review of Michele Alacevich, Albert O. Hirschman: an Intellectual Biography. Columbia University Press. |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gmf3c&r=hpe |
| By: | Numa, Guy |
| Abstract: | Review of Jean-Pierre Potier, Léon Walras, économiste et socialiste libéral (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2019), pp. xx + 564, 58€ (paperback). ISBN: 9782406095934. |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:j9v6w&r=hpe |
| By: | Muceni, Elena |
| Abstract: | Review of Andrea Branchi, Pride, Manners and Morals: Bernard Mandeville’s anatomy of honour (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2022), pp. VIII + 199. |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:j5krv&r=hpe |
| By: | Bengtsson, Erik (Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Sweden is renowned for its centralized wage bargaining system, which has been studied for decades from the point of view of inflation, wage differentials and unemployment. A coordinated system in place since 1997 has been compared to the centralized system of the postwar era, while other scholars have pointed to differences in how the institutions work in practice. This paper studies media coverage of wage bargaining rounds in the 1950s-1960s and in the 2000s-2010s to investigate the social understanding of what the wage bargaining institutions are supposed to do. The results indicate that the operation of the wage bargaining system in the 2000s and that in the post-war era are in fact understood very differently: while widely shared aims for wage bargaining rounds in the 1950s and 1960s were to a high degree formulated by the trade unions, trade union influence over the agenda was significantly weaker in the 2000s and 2010s, when external experts, not the least from the financial sector, were to a much higher degree used to define and formulate what good bargaining outcomes would be. |
| Keywords: | trade unions; collective bargaining; Sweden; Social Democracy |
| JEL: | J50 N34 |
| Date: | 2023–01–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0245&r=hpe |
| By: | Novak, Mikayla |
| Abstract: | Review of Peter J. Boettke, The Struggle for a Better World (Arlington: Mercatus Center at George Mason University, 2021), pp. 340, $34.95 (hardcover). ISBN: 9781942951865. |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:wytqa&r=hpe |
| By: | Lanata-Briones, Cecilia T. |
| Abstract: | Review of “America by Numbers: Quantification, Democracy, and the Birth of National Statistics” by Emmanuel Didier |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:w7hpx&r=hpe |
| By: | Alacevich, Michele |
| Abstract: | Review of “Political Economy and International Order in Interwar Europe” edited by Alexandre M. Cunha and Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak. |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:9j3dn&r=hpe |
| By: | Bíró, Gábor |
| Abstract: | Review of Caroline Oudin-Bastide and Philippe Steiner, Calculation and Morality: The Costs of Slavery and the Value of Emancipation in the French Antilles (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. xiii+254, $76.25 (hardcover). ISBN: 9780190856854. |
| Date: | 2023–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:84ywv&r=hpe |