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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Cleo Chassonnery-Zaigouche (UNIBO - University of Bologna = Università di Bologna); Aurélien Goutsmedt (ISPOLE - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain, F.R.S.-FNRS) |
| Abstract: | Elisabeth Popp Berman's Thinking Like an Economist unfolds a captivating and detailed historical account of the rise of economics and economists' influence within the US Administration during the 1960s and 1970s. This transformation played a pivotal role in reshaping American policy, Berman argues. At the core of her story is the concept of an "economic style of reasoning", inspired by Ian Hacking's (1994) work. Berman's "economic style of reasoning" describes a distinct approach to policy problems, one anchored in microeconomic concepts (rather than macroeconomic ones) such as incentives, externalities, and efficiency. Crucially, the "economic style of reasoning" does not designate what some economists think, but rather, a set of ideas, related to economics but not completely overlapping with it, that are used in policy—not only by economists. Throughout 230 pages, Berman masterfully traces the progressive ascension of the economic style of reasoning within US administration, from its rise in the 1960s to its relative decline during the Reagan Presidency. "Efficiency" as a policy criterion gradually supplanted other foundational values that had long justified policy actions, values such as "rights, universalism, equity, and limiting corporate power" (4). These concepts were actually loosely used by the actors Berman is interested in. Berman posits that the dissemination of this style of reasoning exerted a profound influence by eroding the legitimacy of policy propositions rooted in alternative values, notably those championed by the left-wing of the Democratic party. One strength of the book is to show how the economic style of reasoning stuck and consolidated, even in the absence of economists, and how unusual suspects—center-left technocrats, favoring government intervention—were responsible for promoting a sense of ineluctability of its use. |
| Keywords: | Expertise, Economic expertise, Public policy, Style of reasoning, Neoliberalism |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04270601&r=hpe |
| By: | Alexandru Pătruți (Bucharest University of Economic Studies) |
| Abstract: | Review of Jon D. Erickson, The Progress Illusion: Reclaiming Our Future from the Fairytale of Economics |
| Date: | 2023–04–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04067087&r=hpe |
| By: | Rusch, Hannes (RS: GSBE UM-BIC, Microeconomics & Public Economics, RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research) |
| Abstract: | Human history as well as our present are ripe with violent intergroup conflicts. Despite more than 2, 000 years of academic engagement with this phenomenon [1] and (way too) much evidence available for analysis [2], we are still short of encompassing theories of human belligerence. Not least, theoretical progress is thwarted by the fact that intergroup conflict is an interface phenomenon: its analysis requires the methods and background knowledge of several academic disciplines. This review pushes for intensified interdisciplinary integration in the study of human warfare. It does so by presenting a selection of pathbreaking theoretical contributions from economics, political science, social psychology, and evolutionary biology, and contrasting their respective insights and blind spots against the results of recent empirical work on human behavior before, during, and after war. As a result, three key areas are identified where theoretical breakthrough is still pending: (i) individual mobilization, (ii) the ambiguous roles of leaders, and (iii) the endogenous and dynamic interaction between conflict and its participants’ malleable preferences. Thus, this review provides an overview of the research frontier and highlights crucial challenges in the theoretical study of human warfare. |
| Date: | 2023–12–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2023014&r=hpe |
| By: | Christian Tutin (LAB'URBA - LAB'URBA - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12); Anthony de Grandi (PHARE - Philosophie, Histoire et Analyse des Représentations Économiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Following de Boyer (2003), we compare Marx, Hilferding and Luxemburg on their treatment of money and economic instability. |
| Abstract: | Au chapitre 4 de La pensée monétaire, consacré à « l'analyse marxiste » de la monnaie et des banques, J. de Boyer traite des apports respectifs de Marx et d'Hilferding à l'analyse monétaire et financière. Rosa Luxemburg est abordée dans la dernière section du dernier chapitre, à propos de la formation du profit. Chez ces trois auteurs, J. de Boyer interroge le lien entre caractère monétaire de l'économie, survenance des crises et reproduction du système productif. Chez Marx, il pointe la double origine de la crise, dans une distorsion « réelle » d'un côté, entre consommation et production », et une distorsion entre les sphères réelle et financière de l'autre. D'Hilferding, il retient son analyse du capital financier et des banques, et son diagnostic de stabilisation du système grâce à la double concentration du capital industriel et du capital bancaire. Enfin, chez Rosa Luxemburg, il montre à la fois la pertinence de la question soulevée par elle, qui n'est autre que celle de la formation du profit, et sa négligence des banques, qui lui interdit de voir la réponse que peut représenter le crédit, et fragilise son diagnostic d'impossibilité de la reproduction et d'inéluctabilité de la crise. Dans cette communication, nous proposons une mise en perspective de ces trois auteurs, qui tout en partant des mêmes présupposés que J. de Boyer, insiste plus que lui sur le rôle des banques et des marchés financiers dans l'émergence des disproportions qui mènent à la crise. Suivant en cela la voie ouverte par Hilferding dans Le Capital Financier, on se propose de relier les livres II et III du Capital en expliquant l'émergence et l'aggravation des disproportions sectorielles par un mécanisme de fragilisation de la structure financière tel que le décrit Marx dans la Vème section du livre III, et dans lequel le crédit bancaire joue un rôle essentiel. L'analyse des banques, peu présente chez Marx mais entreprise par Hilferding, permet ainsi de rendre compte de la double dimension, industrielle et financière, des crises économiques. |
| Keywords: | Marx Karl, Hilferding Rudolf, Marx, Théorie des crises, Instabilité financière, Mors clés : Crise financière, crise de reproduction, capital financier, marxisme |
| Date: | 2022–07–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04284635&r=hpe |
| By: | Anthony de Grandi (PHARE - Philosophie, Histoire et Analyse des Représentations Économiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Christian Tutin (LAB'URBA - LAB'URBA - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12) |
| Abstract: | Cette communication examine la relation entre facteurs réels et facteurs monétaires dans la théorie des crises de Marx. Après une présentation des concepts avancés par Marx, notamment celui de capital fictif, est présentée sa vision de l'instabilité financière, puis le lien possible entre crise financière et crise de reproduction, en suivant les intuitions de Rudolf Hilferding. |
| Keywords: | Marx, Théorie des crises, Instabilité financière |
| Date: | 2022–05–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04284569&r=hpe |
| By: | Mathias Dewatripont; Jean Tirole |
| Abstract: | Scholars and civil society have argued that competition erodes supplier morality. This paper establishes a robust irrelevance result, whereby intense market competition does not crowd out consequentialist ethics; it thereby issues a strong warning against the wholesale moral condemnation of markets and pro-competitive institutions. Intense competition, while not altering the behavior of profitable suppliers, however may reduce the standards of highly ethical suppliers or not-for-profits, raising the potential need to protect the latter in the marketplace. |
| Keywords: | Competition, consequentialism, replacement logic, non-profits, corporate social responsability, race to the ethical bottom |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/365277&r=hpe |