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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Hashimoto, Barry; Gray, Kevin W.; Duggal, Kabir |
| Abstract: | The meaning of the fair and equitable treatment standard in international investment law remains unsettled. One interpretation ties it to the customary minimum standard of treatment, familiar from the Neer case; another treats it as a more demanding standard deriving from autonomous treaty or customary obligations. State practice, scholarly commentary, and arbitral decisions can be marshaled for both views. In recent decades, however, tribunals have gravitated toward the autonomous interpretation, over the objections of certain writers and the sustained resistance of many states—most notably the U.S., a principal architect of international investment law and a major capital exporter. This article asks why. It surveys and synthesizes leading theories from international political economy, sociology, and law, identifying the contributions and limits of the resulting accounts. It then advances a new theory of jurisprudential drift as coordinated equilibrium maintenance, drawing on insider accounts of arbitration practice and game-theoretic models of cooperation. Senior arbitrators and elite counsel use general principles of arbitration and treaty interpretation to entrench broader interpretations of investment treaties. This equilibrium is sustained by reputational discipline within networks of specialists and practitioners, coupled with interrelated mechanisms of secrecy, judicial economy, and peer review. The article then traces the minimum standard’s doctrinal development, the rise of the modern investment treaty regime, and the evolution of fair and equitable treatment in arbitral practice, state practice, and academic commentary. It argues that prevailing legal explanations cannot account for the observed trajectory of arbitral decisions and that the proposed theory better explains the shift toward broader interpretations of the fair and equitable treatment standard in the case law. |
| Date: | 2026–04–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:9564y_v1 |
| By: | Lukas Bäuerle (Socio-Ecological Transformation Lab, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria; Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria; Department of Socioeconomics, University of Hamburg, Germany); Rouven Reinke (Department of Socioeconomics, University of Hamburg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Economic expertise in German policymaking has long been shaped by technocratic, market-liberal advisory bodies closely connected to mainstream economics. Over the past decade, however, an alternative knowledge ecosystem—the New Economy Space (NES)—has emerged, promoting heterodox, pluralist, and impact-orientated approaches to economic policy. Drawing on interviews and organisational documents, this paper maps the internal diversity of the NES and compares it with established advisory configurations. We identify three distinct modes of economic knowledge and political interventions: technical and model-driven expertise within institutionalised advisory bodies, paradigm-driven interventions by neoliberal think tanks, and pragmatic, co-creative, and problem-focused approaches within the NES. While institutionalised actors continue to hold greater resources and formal authority, the NES introduces new topics, actor constellations, and practices into economic policy debates. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ico:wpaper:180 |
| By: | Morgane Gonon (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris); Hugo Mosneron Dupin (La République des savoirs : Lettres, Sciences, Philosophie - CdF (institution) - Collège de France - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Département de Philosophie - ENS-PSL - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris) |
| Abstract: | Since the 1970s, ecological economics has promoted the materialisation of economic analysis through the lens of matter and energy flows, hybridising economic concepts with biophysical knowledge. This perspective has progressively diffused into mainstream environmental economics — a development that, at first glance, appears to constitute an ontological and epistemological victory for the embedded economy tradition. Yet re-embedding and the mobilisation of material knowledge are insufficient to strengthen economics' capacity to orient the ecological transformations that are now required. By concentrating on the economy–biosphere interface and deploying a utilitarian rationality aimed at demonstrating the economic case for preservation, materialised economics tends to render invisible the socio-economic conflicts, institutional conditions of action, and structural obstacles to reducing anthropogenic pressures. Biophysical analyses contribute primarily three types of inputs — information, prices, or optimal quantities — whose transformative reach remains limited. These limitations delineate an impossibility triangle for the discipline: simultaneously representing biophysical dynamics, socio-economic systems, and operational levers for transformation. Re-embedding renders things visible, but does not supply the conditions for implementing transformative policies. The article proposes a distinction between ecological objectives (EOs) — defined by compliance with biophysical constraints — and normative ecological objectives (NEOs), which explicitly formulate policies, regulations, or economic actors' courses of action. Material knowledge must be translated into NEOs, while economic analysis focuses on examining their socio-economic, distributional, institutional, and financial consequences. The proposed framework organises a six-step research programme oriented towards analysing the conditions of possibility for ecological transformations, rather than demonstrating their economic rationality. This reorientation refocuses economics on its proper objects — production, distribution, institutions, and conflict — while preserving the biophysical constraint, and enables the articulation of material knowledge, political decision-making, and economic analysis within a consequentialist perspective. |
| Abstract: | Depuis les années 1970, l'économie écologique a promu la matérialisation de l'analyse économique fondée sur les flux de matière et d'énergie, en hybridant les concepts économiques et les savoirs biophysiques. Cette perspective s'est progressivement diffusée jusqu'à l'économie de l'environnement dominante, ce qui constitue à première vue une victoire ontologique et épistémologique de l'économie encastrée. Cependant, le réencastement et la mobilisation de savoirs matériels ne suffisent pas à renforcer la capacité de la discipline économique à orienter les transformations écologiques nécessaires. En se concentrant sur l'interface économie-biosphère et en mobilisant une rationalité utilitaire visant à démontrer l'intérêt économique de la préservation, l'économie matérialisée tend à invisibiliser les conflictualités socio-économiques, les conditions institutionnelles de l'action et les obstacles à la réduction des pressions anthropiques. Les analyses biophysiques apportent principalement trois types de contributions — information, prix ou quantité optimale — dont la portée transformative demeure limitée. Ces limites dessinent un « triangle d'impossibilité » pour la discipline économique : représenter simultanément les dynamiques biophysiques, les systèmes socio-économiques et des leviers de transformation opérationnels. L'encastrement permet essentiellement de rendre visible, sans fournir les conditions de mise en œuvre de politiques transformatrices. L'article propose une distinction entre objectifs écologiques (OE) — définis par le respect de contraintes biophysiques — et objectifs écologiques normatifs (OEN), qui formulent explicitement des politiques, réglementations ou actions d'acteurs économiques. Les savoirs matériels doivent être traduits en OEN, tandis que l'analyse économique se concentre sur l'étude de leurs conséquences socio-économiques, distributives, institutionnelles et financières. Le formalisme proposé organise ainsi un programme de recherche en six étapes visant à analyser les conditions de possibilité des transformations écologiques plutôt qu'à en démontrer la rationalité économique. Ce déplacement recentre la science économique sur ses objets propres — production, distribution, institutions et conflits — tout en maintenant la contrainte biophysique, et permet d'articuler savoirs matériels, décision politique et analyse économique dans une perspective conséquentialiste. |
| Keywords: | Environmental economics, Ecological economics, Political ecology, Political economy |
| Date: | 2026–03–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:ciredw:hal-05567895 |
| By: | Oscar Stiffelman |
| Abstract: | In 1956 John Kelly wrote a paper at Bell Labs describing the relationship between gambling and Information Theory. What came to be known as the Kelly Criterion is both an objective and a closed-form solution to sizing wagers when odds and edge are known. Samuelson argued it was arbitrary and subjective, and successfully kept it out of mainstream economics. Luckily it lived on in computer science, mostly because of Tom Cover's work at Stanford. He showed that it is the uniquely optimal way to invest: it maximizes long-term wealth, minimizes the risk of ruin, and is competitively optimal in a game-theoretic sense, even over the short term. One of Cover's most surprising contributions to portfolio theory was the universal portfolio. Related to universal compression in information theory, it performs asymptotically as well as the best constant-rebalanced portfolio in hindsight. I borrow a trick from that algorithm to show that Kelly's objective, even in the general form, factors the investing problem into three terms: a money term, an entropy term, and a divergence term. The only way to maximize growth is to minimize divergence which measures the difference between our distribution and the true distribution in bits. Investing is, fundamentally, a compression problem. This decomposition also yields new practical results. Because the money and entropy terms are constant across strategies in a given backtest, the difference in log growth between two strategies measures their relative divergence in bits. I also introduce a winner fraction heuristic which allocates capital in proportion to each asset's probability of dominating the candidate set. The growth shortfall of this heuristic relative to the optimal portfolio is bounded by the entropy of the winner fraction distribution. To my knowledge, both the heuristic and the entropy bound are original contributions. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2604.10758 |
| By: | Moya, Dr Rhianne Rhiana Olanre |
| Abstract: | The concept of principlism is defined by Keeling and Bellefleur (2016), as “a normative ethical framework designed for practical decision making in health care.” They also highlight the approach as focusing “on what people generally agree upon” - in the form of mid level principles, and refer to Beauchamp and Childress’ statement (1994:17), that “ the rules and principles shared across these theories, typically serve practical judgment more adequately than theories”, as well as highlighting the fact that “often little is lost in practical moral decision making by dispensing with general moral theories.” Balancing principles from a practical perspective, is required for sound decision making, rather than approaching it from a purely theoretical perspective. This is particularly important in contexts where ethical principles conflict with one another. As well as explaining the four individual ethical principles, this paper highlights how such conflicts occur. Further, questions relating to the balancing of ethical principles – as well as communication barriers and issues will addressed. |
| Keywords: | principlism, dignity, autonomy, beneficence, non maleficence, justice |
| JEL: | I0 I15 I2 I24 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:127953 |
| By: | Alex A. T. Rathke |
| Abstract: | We show that a rational agent with true and refinable knowledge of events cannot know if she knows everything or not. This epistemic limitation is not resolved by introspection about tautologies or by learning about new events. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2604.15264 |
| By: | Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham |
| Abstract: | How far has the credibility revolution spread beyond applied microeconomics? I update Currie, Kleven, and Zwiers (2020b) using approximately 44, 000 papers—31, 500 NBER working papers (1982–2025) and 12, 300 articles from eleven top economics and finance journals (2011–2024)—measuring mentions of empirical methods through keyword matching. Three findings emerge. First, finance and macro/other fields differ substantially from applied micro in their mention of credibility revolution methods: as of 2024, 63 percent of applied micro papers mention experimental or quasi-experimental methods, compared to 47 percent in finance and 39 percent in macro/other. The current levels in finance and macro/other are comparable to where applied micro was in 2008–2010, though the long-run trajectories may differ. Second, growth outside applied micro is driven overwhelmingly by difference-in-differences; including DiD raises the share of finance papers mentioning any experimental or quasi-experimental method by roughly 55 percent versus 30 percent for applied micro. Other quasi-experimental methods—instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, experiments—have seen far less growth. Third, I document a striking gap between the methods studied in the Journal of Econometrics—where nonparametric estimation and asymptotic theory dominate—and those used by applied researchers, where DiD and identification strategies dominate. Published journal articles confirm these patterns are not artifacts of the NBER sample. |
| JEL: | B40 C01 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35051 |