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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Sandye Gloria (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France) |
| Abstract: | This article examines Menger's theory of money in the lens of the philosophical concept of emergence. While Menger's theory of the emergence of money is well known, the precise nature of this process has been relatively unexplored. The article begins by situating itself within philosophical debates to understand the meaning, scope, and implications of emergence. Section 2 demonstrates that the Mengerian approach is based on an ontology, epistemology, and methodology that differ from those of his contemporaries, particularly Walras. In this approach, the concept of emergence becomes legitimate and even attains the status of an epistemic concept. Finally, we categorise the type of emergence associated with the monetary phenomenon in light of the typology presented in the first section. As a result we argue that money is a weak case of diachronic and epistemological emergence involving a top-down, selective causal effect. |
| Keywords: | Emergence, Money, Menger, Complexity |
| JEL: | B13 B41 B53 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2025-24 |
| By: | Mark Glick (University of Utah); Gabriel A. Lozada (University of Utah); Darren Bush (University of Houston Law Center) |
| Abstract: | Antitrust has adopted a normative economic theory based on maximizing economic surplus. The theory originates with Marshall but was introduced into antitrust as the Consumer Welfare Standard by Judge Robert Bork, and survives today in virtually every industrial organization textbook. This persistence is unwarranted. Welfare economists abandoned it several decades ago because the theory is inconsistent, and we review those inconsistencies. Moreover, welfare economists and moral philosophers have shown that the theory is biased in favor of wealthy individuals and corporations—the very powers the antitrust law is supposed to regulate. Finally, behavioral economists and psychologists have shown that the model of human behavior behind the economic surplus theory is simplistic and often in conflict with actual human behavior. We argue that antitrust should be brought into alignment with modern welfare economics. We also discuss how the New Brandeis Movement's proposal to replace the consumer welfare standard with the protecting competition standard could be developed to accomplish this goal. |
| Keywords: | Antitrust; consumer surplus; equivalent variation; compensating variation; cost-benefit analysis; Kaldor criterion and Hicks criterion; altruism; income inequality; rationality assumption; well-being; antitrust standards. |
| JEL: | K21 L40 D60 D61 D63 D90 |
| Date: | 2024–12–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:thk:wpaper:inetwp231 |
| By: | Davis, John B. (Department of Economics Marquette University); (Department of Economics Marquette University) |
| Abstract: | This paper, originally a presentation at the 2024 World Congress of Social Economics Summer School at University of Massachusetts-Boston, discusses how ethical values can be incorporated in empirical research. It identifies mainstream economics’ barriers to doing this, and shows they produce a view of the relationship between ethics and economics that excludes ethics from economics. Mainstream economics sees this relationship as interdisciplinary – an ethics and economics. I argue it should be seen as multidisciplinary – an ethics in economics. The mainstream regards ethical values as subjective assuming that there are no facts about ethical values. But there is considerable factual evidence about what people’s ethical values are. One influential source I review is the decades of accumulated survey research in the World Values Survey. The paper then discusses two ways researchers can incorporate evidence about values in their empirical work. First, drawing from Stratification economics, it shows how we can identify ethical values overlooked by the mainstream in discriminatory employment settings, and how this can stimulate search for new data and lead to new theoretical hypotheses. Second, it shows how experiments-based research can identify ethical values people employ in different market settings, in this example, those used to determine how people are willing to ration health care. The paper concludes with brief discussion of how, for a multidisciplinary ethics in economics, ethics can affect future economics. |
| Keywords: | ethics, economics, mainstream economics, World Values Survey, stratification economics, experimental research, future economics |
| JEL: | A12 A13 A23 B41 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrq:wpaper:2025-03 |
| By: | Voyiakis, Emmanuel |
| Abstract: | What gives the benefit principle its moral appeal as an idea of tax justice? And what can count as a benefit for that purpose? My claim is that we can trace the moral force of various versions of the principle to five ideas: individual justification, causal feedback, reciprocity, opposable valuation and non-objectionable baseline. I develop those ideas into an account of the moral permissibility of benefit-based taxation, and explain how that account addresses problems about the quantification and valuation of benefits and the relationship between benefit and the justice of the background distribution. |
| Keywords: | benefit; taxation; distribution; justification; permissibility |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2025–05–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127293 |
| By: | Goutsmedt, Aurélien (UC Louvain - F.R.S-FNRS); Sergi, Francesco; Acosta, Juan |
| Abstract: | What do economists do in central banks? Why do central banks hire economists? This book investigates the evolving role of economists and economic knowledge within central banks, arguing that their current centrality is neither self-evident nor historically inevitable. While the presence and influence of economists in central banks today may seem natural, this book shows that it is the result of a complex, gradual, and uneven historical process shaped by institutional structures, disciplinary transformations, and shifting relationships between science and policy. Drawing on a rich but dispersed body of literature, the book traces how economists progressively gained authority through the establishment of statistics departments, the adoption of macroeconometric models, and the emergence of a shared cognitive infrastructure between academia and central banks. Rather than focusing on individuals or doctrines, it examines general trends and institutional shifts across a series of national case studies to show how central banks function as boundary organizations, at the intersection of policy and science. |
| Date: | 2025–05–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:acymv_v1 |
| By: | Thierry Warin |
| Abstract: | This article provides a comprehensive historical and contemporary analysis of how international trade theory and practice have developed. It begins with the classical economic theories of the 17th to 19th centuries – spanning Italian mercantilists like Antonio Serra, French Physiocrats such as François Quesnay, English classical economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and German protectionist thinkers like Friedrich List – and examines how these early thinkers understood trade in goods versus services. The narrative then traces major shifts through the 19th and 20th centuries, highlighting the rise of industrial trade, changes in theory, and the institutionalization of global trade rules. Finally, it connects these historical foundations to the platform economy of the 21st century, in which technology and data (often dubbed “the new oil”) have dramatically reshaped what is tradable. Throughout, we discuss the surge in services trade – including the persistent U.S. surplus in services – and the challenges of measuring trade in an era of digital platforms. These measurement issues, we argue, are not mere statistical quirks but reflect deeper transformations in the global economy. The discussion proceeds in a chronological yet thematic flow, tying together the major milestones in the evolution of trade and maintaining a scholarly perspective on each phase. Cet article propose une analyse historique et contemporaine complète de l'évolution de la théorie et de la pratique du commerce international. Il commence par les théories économiques classiques du 17e au 19e siècle - couvrant les mercantilistes italiens comme Antonio Serra, les physiocrates français comme François Quesnay, les économistes classiques anglais comme Adam Smith et David Ricardo, et les penseurs protectionnistes allemands comme Friedrich List - et examine comment ces premiers penseurs comprenaient le commerce des biens par rapport à celui des services. Le récit retrace ensuite les principales évolutions au cours des XIXe et XXe siècles, en soulignant l'essor du commerce industriel, les changements théoriques et l'institutionnalisation des règles du commerce mondial. Enfin, il relie ces fondements historiques à l'économie de plateforme du XXIe siècle, dans laquelle la technologie et les données (souvent surnommées « le nouveau pétrole ») ont radicalement remodelé ce qui est échangeable. Tout au long de l'ouvrage, nous discutons de l'essor du commerce des services - y compris de l'excédent persistant des États-Unis dans ce domaine - et des défis que pose la modélisation du commerce à l'ère des plates-formes numériques. Selon nous, ces problèmes de mesure ne sont pas de simples bizarreries statistiques, mais reflètent des transformations plus profondes de l'économie mondiale. La discussion se déroule de manière chronologique et thématique, en reliant les principaux jalons de l'évolution du commerce et en maintenant une perspective scientifique sur chaque phase. |
| Keywords: | international trade, global economy, evolution, economic theories, digital transformation, commerce international, économie mondiale, évolution, théories économiques, transformation numérique |
| Date: | 2025–05–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2025s-12 |
| By: | Javdani, Mohsen (Simon Fraser University); Chang, Ha-Joon (SOAS University of London) |
| Abstract: | This study contributes to the growing debate over the narrow ideological discourse in economics education and calls for greater pluralism. Using a randomized controlled experiment with 2, 735 economics students from 10 countries, we examine how authority and ideological biases—shaped by mainstream training—affect students’ evaluations of economic statements. When source attributions are randomly switched from mainstream to non-mainstream or removed, agreement levels drop significantly, suggesting that students rely more on the perceived authority and ideological alignment of sources than on the content itself. These biases intensify with academic progression: PhD students show the strongest effects, despite being the most likely to claim they judge arguments on substance alone. Political orientation further amplifies these patterns, particularly among right-leaning students, and significant gender differences emerge, with male students showing stronger bias toward mainstream sources. Our findings highlight how ideology and authority shape economic training, limiting students' critical engagement and reinforcing a narrow intellectual framework. |
| Keywords: | economics education, economics students, authority bias, ideological bias, ideology, plurality in economics |
| JEL: | A11 A12 A13 C93 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17891 |
| By: | Kurz Heinz D.; Strohmaier Rita; Knell Mark |
| Abstract: | Technological change, an overwhelming fact in recent socioeconomic history, involves, as Joseph A. Schumpeter famously put it, âcreative destructionâ on a large scale: it gives rise to new goods, production methods, firms, organisations, and jobs, while rendering some received ones obsolete. Its impact extends beyond the economy and affects society, culture, politics, and the mind-set of people. While it allows solving certain problems, it causes new ones, inducing further technological change. Against this background, the paper attempts to provide a detailed, yet concise exploration of the historical evolution and measurement of technological change in economics. It touches upon various questions that have been raised since Adam Smith and by economic and social theorists after him until today living through several waves of new technologies. These questions include: (1) Which concepts and theories did the leading authors elaborate to describe and analyse the various forms of technological progress they observed? (2) Did they think that different forms of technological progress requested the elaboration of different concepts and theories â horses for courses, so to speak? (3) How do different forms of technological progress affect and are shaped by various strata and classes of society? Issues such as these have become particularly crucial in the context of the digitisation of the economy and the widespread use of AI. Finally, the paper explores the impact of emerging technologies on the established theoretical frameworks and empirical measurements of technological change, points to new measurements linked to the rise of these technologies, and evaluates their pros and cons vis-Ã -vis traditional approaches. |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:laedte:202503 |
| By: | Carlos Alos Ferrer; Johannes Buckenmaier; Michele Garagnani |
| Abstract: | Economic decisions are noisy due to errors and cognitive imprecision. Often, they are also systematically biased by heuristics or behavioral rules of thumb, creating behavioral anomalies which challenge established economic theories. The interaction of noise and bias, however, has been mostly neglected, and recent work suggests that received behavioral anomalies might be just due to regularities in the noise. This contribution formalizes the idea that decision makers might follow a mixture of rules of behavior combining cognitively- imprecise value maximization and computationally simpler shortcuts. The model delivers new testable predictions which we validate in two experiments, focusing on biases in probability judgments and the certainty effect in lottery choice, respectively. Our findings suggest that neither cognitive imprecision nor multiplicity of behavioral rules suffice to explain received patterns in economic decision making. However, jointly modeling (cognitive) noise in value maximization and biases arising from simpler, cognitive shortcuts delivers a unified framework which can parsimoniously explain deviations from normative prescriptions across domains. |
| Keywords: | Cognitive Imprecision, Strength of Preference, Noise, Decision Biases, Belief Updating, Certainty Heuristic |
| JEL: | D01 D81 D87 D91 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:423483206 |
| By: | Hersch, Gil; Rowe, Thomas |
| Abstract: | Questions of fair allocation arise regularly throughout our lives, ranging from the trivial to the significant, for governments, private companies, associations, families, and friends. This article discusses the nature of allocative fairness, which is focused on the fair distribution of divisible and indivisible goods. The recent literature on allocative fairness takes John Broome's discussion of fairness as the proportional treatment of claims as its starting point. On this view, a claim is a reason why an individual ought to receive a good. This article discusses the nature of allocative fairness, claims, and goods. The most prominent allocative procedures in the literature are discussed, including equal allocation, equitable allocation, markets, lotteries, and queues. |
| Keywords: | queues; allocation; equality; equity; fairness; indivisible goods; lotteries; markets; procedural fairness |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2025–05–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:128181 |