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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Witztum, Amos |
| Abstract: | There are two elements which make Smith’s ethics unique as well as more universal in nature. The first is that it is a positive theory of ethics in the sense that it is not about what is intrinsically good or just as it is about the way in which people form their opinion about it. The second is that it is embedded in social context in the sense that what lies behind the way in which people form their moral opinion is socially dependent as well as related to the way in which people behave. From an exegetic point of view, this also helps in explaining the dissonance that may exist between Smith’s own views about morals and what he observes as the contemporary prevailing view. Applying this to his economic analysis will yield surprising conclusions which may explain why the Wealth of Nations cannot be seen as a moral advocacy of natural liberty. |
| Keywords: | ethics; material inequality; social distance; sympathy; utility |
| JEL: | A12 A13 A31 B12 B31 |
| Date: | 2023–12–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:128564 |
| By: | Laskaridis, Christina |
| Abstract: | While there has been no shortage of recent work that has tried to understand the power of economists and prevalence of economic mode of thinking, far less has been said about the instances where economists were unable to exert influence. While power struggles between economists have most often been the subject of investigation within the academe, the struggle for influence for different types of economic expertise within policy institutions is understudied. This paper examines the different understandings of debt repayment prospects that developed in the World Bank during its first twenty years of operation. The organisation’s internal structure reflected conflicts between different departments that left economists in the research department in the weaker position. Economists’ epistemic authority is intimately related to the organisation of expertise and the alignment to management’s objectives, as well as formality of economists’ tools. |
| Keywords: | World Bank; economic expertise; sovereign debt; role of economics; role of economists |
| JEL: | F3 G3 J1 |
| Date: | 2025–04–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127951 |
| By: | Vanberg, Viktor |
| Abstract: | This paper contrasts two kinds of political economy, represented by welfare economics and social choice theory on the one hand and James M. Buchanan's constitutional political economy on the other hand. It posits that the difference between the two kinds has its roots in the different normative premises on which they are based, premises that I refer to as utility- or preference-individualism and choice-individualism respectively. And I show that, because of their different normative starting points, the two kinds of political economy pursue fundamentally different research agendas. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:aluord:319640 |
| By: | Jabko, Nicolas; Schmidt, Sebastian (Johns Hopkins University) |
| Abstract: | Scholars regularly mobilise the concept of policy paradigm to characterise successive periods in which certain ideas appear to structure policymaking. While this concept proved useful to establish that ideas matter, it is time to start thinking about ideas in ways that better resonate with actors’ practices. This article introduces and empirically illustrates two conceptual alternatives. First, it looks at international monetary relations from 1944 through the early 1970s. Instead of simply labelling this period as ‘Keynesian, ’ it shows that the enduring centrality of gold was a pivotal practice among policy makers. Second, it considers the governance of the Eurozone in the run-up to the crisis of the 2010s. Rather than viewing this period as ‘neoliberal, ’ it highlights a new discursive repertoire of governance that produced both austerity and unconventional policies. In sum, practices and repertoires help to make sense of elements of continuity, ambiguity and contestation that are often obscured by ideational analysis. |
| Date: | 2025–06–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:qk9np_v1 |
| By: | Regina Grafe (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | Was intra-European competition the driving force of extra European expansion in the first globalisation? National(-ist) European historiographies since the 19th century and more recent works on the political economy of emulation among European early modern polities suggest this, as do most accounts of economic historians who see competition between Europe’s trading powers as the deus ex machina of European extra-European trade. Using the comparative history of the Spanish carrera de Indias and the English Navigation Laws as a prism, this paper challenges both the primacy of intra-European competition in the first globalisation and the methodologies that have underpinned the analysis. Section I offers a revisionist account of the historiography of the two most important regulatory systems in the Atlantic, the Spanish and the English. Section II seeks to offer a methodological alternative to those narrative accounts. It uses the notion of the “market for institutions†developed in Grafe (2015) to zoom in on the regulatory tools employed by each system. The result allows us to see the similarities and divergences in the two regulatory frameworks in a completely new way. Section III concludes. |
| JEL: | N73 N76 |
| Date: | 2025–03–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:42 |
| By: | Tobias Schmidt; Kai-Robin Lange; Matthias Reccius; Henrik M\"uller; Michael Roos; Carsten Jentsch |
| Abstract: | As interest in economic narratives has grown in recent years, so has the number of pipelines dedicated to extracting such narratives from texts. Pipelines often employ a mix of state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques, such as BERT, to tackle this task. While effective on foundational linguistic operations essential for narrative extraction, such models lack the deeper semantic understanding required to distinguish extracting economic narratives from merely conducting classic tasks like Semantic Role Labeling. Instead of relying on complex model pipelines, we evaluate the benefits of Large Language Models (LLMs) by analyzing a corpus of Wall Street Journal and New York Times newspaper articles about inflation. We apply a rigorous narrative definition and compare GPT-4o outputs to gold-standard narratives produced by expert annotators. Our results suggests that GPT-4o is capable of extracting valid economic narratives in a structured format, but still falls short of expert-level performance when handling complex documents and narratives. Given the novelty of LLMs in economic research, we also provide guidance for future work in economics and the social sciences that employs LLMs to pursue similar objectives. |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2506.15041 |
| By: | Takahiro Suzuki; Michele Aleandri; Stefano Moretti |
| Abstract: | In his book entitled ''A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive'' (1843), John Stuart Mill proposed principles of inductive reasoning in the form of five canons. To date, these canons are classic methods for causal reasoning: they are intended to single out the circumstances that are connected to the phenomenon under focus. The present paper reinterprets Mill's canons in the modern theory of social ranking solutions, which aims to estimate the power of individuals based on teams' performances. We first apply Mill's canons to determine the key success factors in cooperative performances and then characterize plurality using a strong version of Mill's first canon. Plurality is also compatible with most other canons. Thus, our results demonstrated a hidden link between classical causal reasoning and the theory of social ranking solutions. |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2505.10187 |
| By: | Snowdon, Christopher |
| Abstract: | Mancur Olson explained in The Logic of Collective Action (1965) that the free rider problem and the paradox of participation discourage rational consumers from taking collective action to oppose policies that disadvantage them. The lack of grassroots opposition to 'nanny state' policies from vapers, gamblers, drinkers, etc. seems to bear out this analysis. Proponents of government paternalism have overcome the problems Olson identified by securing funding from state agencies or by offering selective incentives to their supporters. Since consumers are unlikely to mobilise to fight for collective benefits, a grassroots movement opposing lifestyle regulation must rely on selective benefits, but this avenue has not been adequately explored by policy entrepreneurs. This paper outlines what such a grassroots organisation would look like and how it could be established. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ieadps:314034 |
| By: | Slichter, David (Binghamton University, New York); Tran, Nhan (University of Pittsburgh) |
| Abstract: | Are estimates typically closer to the true parameter value when those estimates are published in highly-ranked economics journals? Using 14, 387 published estimates from 24 large literatures, we find that, within literatures, the mean and variance of parameter estimates have little or no correlation with journal rank. Therefore, regardless of what the true parameter value is that a literature is attempting to estimate, it cannot be that estimates in higher-ranked journals are on average noticeably closer to it. We discuss possible explanations and implications. |
| Keywords: | meta-analysis, scientific methods, science of science |
| JEL: | C13 C18 A11 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17960 |
| By: | Roberto Galbiati (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Emeric Henry (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Nicolas Jacquemet (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | What actions other people judge appropriate drives pro-social behavior. We show that such judgments depend on whether the observers previously faced the situation they judge (active observers) or not (passive observers). In an online giving experiment, active observers make more polarized judgments than passive ones -those who acted pro-socially judge selfish behavior more harshly and praise pro-social actions more. Moreover, active observers persistently avoid payoff-relevant information, both as dictators, likely to maintain their self-image, and then as observers. Our results imply a new link between descriptive (what most people do) and injunctive norms (what groups deem appropriate). |
| Keywords: | Observers, Injunctive norms, Descriptive norms, Polarization, Observers Injunctive norms Descriptive norms Polarization |
| Date: | 2025–06–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-05115226 |
| By: | Spackman, Michael |
| Abstract: | Since the early days of social discounting, in the 1960s, three mutually inconsistent approaches have become globally embedded. All face significant analytical and/or practical problems. This essay reviews the issues, why the divisions persist, and the contexts in which the inconsistencies may contribute significantly to misleading analysis. It concludes that there may never be any broad global consensus on best practice, but identifies aspects where limited progress may sometimes be feasible. |
| JEL: | E6 N0 |
| Date: | 2025–01–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:128517 |