Journal of Philosophical Economics最新文献

{"title":"'Why has economics turned out this way?' A socio-economic note on the explanation of monism in economics","authors":"A. Heise","doi":"10.46298/jpe.10696","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10696","url":null,"abstract":"Economic science has – lamented by some, applauded by others – turned into a monistic discipline. In this short research note, a socio-economic answer to the question of why this has happened is provided by combining an economic approach to the market for economic ideas with a sociological approach to a scientific (power) field.","PeriodicalId":41686,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Philosophical Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70491152","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of Altug Yalcintas, Intellectual Path Dependence in Economics: Why economists do not reject refuted theories, Routledge, 2016, hb, xiv + 173 pages, ISBN 978-1-138-01617-0","authors":"Valentin Cojanu","doi":"10.46298/jpe.10697","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10697","url":null,"abstract":"Review of Altug Yalcintas, Intellectual Path Dependence in Economics: Why economists do not reject refuted theories, Routledge, 2016, hb, xiv + 173 pages, ISBN 978-1-138-01617-0This book's main interrogation, 'why should economists change their minds?' (p. 29), is apparently trivial. After all, scholars of all propensities find their raison d'etre in the capacity to shape their minds along the path to knowledge. The actual practice of economists (pp. 29-31) shows indeed that this presupposition can be valid. But the author, a historian and philosopher of economics at the University of Ankara (Turkey) [1], makes every effort to convince his reader that the question is subtle (subtler, anyway than the subtitle suggests) and that it deserves thorough attention because changing one s mind is deliberative and processual rather than merely inevitable in the advancement of science.The whole argument rests on the presumed survival of 'unfit' explanations, errors that are not dislodged by mere academic dignity or decency. A perfect market of ideas ought to perform the 'function to fix errors fully' (p. 9), but this idealistic environment does not exist for two reasons. Firstly, scientists (economists) are not always rational and sciences (economics) are not always self-corrective, despite impeccable behaviour on behalf of researchers. Secondly, science is an economic activity and hence can be explained in economic terms: giving up a theorem is costly in intellectual and possibly monetary terms and may not be perceived as the best option given the low benefits it provides to the researcher. So, the economists do change their minds, but in the process they get immersed in seemingly never-ending battles of ideas on the one hand, and questionable research practices (QRP) on the other hand, with the effect that decentralized mechanisms of self-correction (e.g. open debate, peer-review, replication, or reproduction) do not always work.Established results in economics may be a result of 'powerful institutions' and discretionary financial resources (e.g. military or corporate funds) driving research to predefined objectives (pp. 8, 15-17). For Stanley Jevons, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill were 'wrong-headed' men who put economics on a wrong track, unable to understand the 'true doctrines' (p. 15). Some original works in economics, from contributors such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Joseph Schumpeter, are tainted by plagiarism (p. 16), ideologically biased editing (pp. 54-55), and external corrections (p. 54), respectively. Others are tainted by faulty handling of methodological shortcuts such as statistical tests and software packages (pp. 16-17). In short, the market's working is imperfect: economics is at times a provider of 'manipulated and erroneous ideas' (p. xi). One of the author's favourite cases of artificial idea selection, and the books leitmotif, is Ronald Coase's problem of social cost. The case is aptly chosen: besides making for a relaxing re","PeriodicalId":41686,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Philosophical Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70491220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Economic crisis, economic methodology and the scientific ideal of physics","authors":"Stavros A. Drakopoulos","doi":"10.46298/jpe.10694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10694","url":null,"abstract":"The methodological foundations of mainstream economics have been cited as one of the main reasons for its failure to account for the economic crisis of 2008. In spite of this, the status of economic methodology has not been elevated. This is due to the persistent aversion towards methodological discourse by most mainstream economists. The anti-methodology stance has a long presence as exemplified in Frank Hahn’s (1992) work. After focusing on the debate originating after the publication of Hahn’s arguments, the paper offers a categorization of the main explanations for mainstream methodological aversion. Subsequently, it suggests an explanation based on the role of the physics scientific ideal, arguing that the endeavor to achieve the high scientific status of physics by following the methods of physics, contributed to the negative mainstream attitude towards economic methodology. The relevant writings of the extremely influential mainstream economists Irving Fisher and Milton Friedman, reinforce the assertion that the alleged hard science status of economics renders methodological discussions and especially methodological criticism, rather pointless. The paper also calls for a more systematic discussion of this issue, especially in the wake of the line of argument that links the recent failings of mainstream economics to its methodological basis.","PeriodicalId":41686,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Philosophical Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70491534","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of Mary Godwin, Ethics and Diversity in Business Management Education. A Sociological Study with International Scope, Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag, 2015, eb, x + 94 pages, ISBN 978-3-662-46654-4","authors":"S. Buzar","doi":"10.46298/jpe.10698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10698","url":null,"abstract":"Review of Mary Godwin, Ethics and Diversity in Business Management Education. A Sociological Study with International Scope, Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag, 2015, eb, x + 94 pages, ISBN 978-3-662-46654-4Mary Godwyn's Ethics and Diversity in Business Management Education is part of Springer book series on CSR, Sustainability, Ethics and Governance. Godwyn's book draws on a qualitative study of business ethics programmes in 17 different countries, spanning five continents. As a sociologist, rather than a philosopher or an economist, her goal was to research the various business management education programs, but also delve into public opinion within various cultural backgrounds in order to provide the data for a rich comparative analysis. Such a goal should certainly be praised, since so much work in the field of business ethics is done almost exclusively by philosophers or economists, and it is often discussed without the benefit of solid empirical work as a building foundation. Godwyn's work is precisely that - a solid social scientific empirical foundation for a number of questions that are of great interest for researchers and teachers from various academic fields with an interest in business ethics, such as philosophy, economics, law, sociology, etc. The foremost research questions that Godwyn wanted her respondents to answer were:1. Are there different definitions and expectations for business ethics and socially normative ethics, and if so, how do they differ?2. How much does business ethics education affect business practices?3.How do larger cultural values impact the presentation and interpretation of business ethics?Based on this research, Godwyn concluded that ethical behaviour is not merely relative to space, time (in terms of geographical and historical context) and culture, but that it I..J depends upon the group with which [respondents] are currently identifying.' (p. v) In short, she found that the same person would make different decisions and have a different grounding for their ethical arguments, depending on whether they are asked the same questions as members of companies, or citizens, or consumers, etc.Godwyn presents and comments on her findings through five chapters and a conclusion. In the first chapter, A Qualitative Study of Business Ethics: A Sociologist Walks into a Business School (pp. 1- 20) she introduces the idea of ethical reasoning and behaviour as relative to the group with which a person currently identifies, and explains the basic theoretical framework of her research. This framework is crucial for explaining unethical behaviour in business, and in creating it; Godwyn relies on Hannah Arendts concept of the banality of evil, and Emile Durkheims concept of solidarity. This also makes the first chapter the most interesting and engaging from a philosophical point of view, which is why we will grant it a bit more space in this review.Ultimately, Godwyn is interested in why essentially good people do bad things in busi","PeriodicalId":41686,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Philosophical Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70491329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of Potrošačka kultura i konzumerizam [Consumer Culture and Consumerism], edited by Snježana Čolić, Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb, 2013, pb, ISBN 978-953-7964-00-9, 206 pages","authors":"Ana Maskalan","doi":"10.46298/jpe.10690","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10690","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41686,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Philosophical Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70491065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Poor countries and development: a critique of Nicole Hassoun and a defense of the argument for good institutional quality","authors":"Ronald Olufemi Badru","doi":"10.46298/jpe.10687","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10687","url":null,"abstract":"If we agree that ‘institutions are the kinds of structures that matter most in the social realm: they make up the stuff of social life’ (Hodgson, 2006, p.2), and we also agree that they largely influence, either positively or negatively, even many of the decisions relative to our personal lives, then we should conclude that emphasis on quality institutions to a people should not be wished away. Drawing on the earlier stated, the present work critically responds to the position of Hassoun (2014) that making aid conditional on good institutional quality is not good for the poor. It may be true that giving aid to the poor without consideration of the quality status of their social institutions may serve their immediate purposes, but if the poor are not to be consigned and confined to the margins of perpetual dependence, then due attention should rather be shown to ensure better reforms for their institutions, given that quality institutions largely and positively influence and sustain, in spite of other considerations, human development in the final analysis.","PeriodicalId":41686,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Philosophical Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70490696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Slow living and the green economy","authors":"Diana Ioncică, Eva-Cristina Petrescu","doi":"10.46298/jpe.10689","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10689","url":null,"abstract":"The current paper explores the relationship between some relatively new concepts in the field of economics-slow living, slow food, slow writing and the green economy. The goal of the paper is twofolddiscussing the possibilities opened by these exciting new concepts, in terms of an increase in the quality of life combined with an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, as well as ascertaining what the concepts may entail in the context in which the effects of the recent economic crisis may make green and slow living seem like a distant dream. It is this holistic view that we shall attempt to enlarge upon in the paper, with the avowed purpose of weighing out the possibilities presented in the complicated, crisis-fraught global context.","PeriodicalId":41686,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Philosophical Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70490877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The case for increasing returns (2): the methods of planning horizons","authors":"Frederic Jennings Jr.","doi":"10.46298/jpe.10686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10686","url":null,"abstract":"In neoclassical economics, substitution assumptions support equilibrium models in closed systems shunning interdependence. On these grounds an array of frames show outcomes as stable, efficient, unique and determinate. Heterodox economists say equilibrium models sidestep practical knowledge and the rich reality of economic behavior. Rigor or realism, mainstream or radical, ecological, institutional, socio-cultural: economics invites a wide diversity of assumptions, once short-term models of substitution are opened to question. The answers are blurred by applications; there is clarity in a simplicity shielded from mundane detail. This paper addresses the methodological impact of planning horizons, increasing returns and complementarity, and their proper representation in economic constructions. Horizonal economics can be construed as extending orthodox standards into a realm of time, but for its subtler ramifications. Increasing returns make our relations complementary and not substitutional, loosening the tight deductions from mainstream models of choice. The horizonal extension of our received theory of price applies time to cost and demand curves, showing Marshallian scissors (supply and demand) cut outward and downward with expanded horizons. Static conceptions appear in horizonal groups, suggesting complete theories of price should specify agents’ horizons, with no further radical impact: the trouble emerges with increasing returns and complementarity. Horizons stem from unbounded causality; if all we do ripples outward forever in nature and society, the relevant field of inquiry for economics is interdependent: this is the case for bounded rationality as an analytical limit to economic conceptions. In turn, interdependence suggests a use of network constructs to frame complex systemic cascades, and networks open a door to complementarity and increasing returns in transport and information exchange. The gaping maw of increasing returns and complementarity opens, swallowing down neat traditions such as stability, equilibrium, marginalism, partial analysis, supply and demand depictions of price, etc. The methodological lesson of this shift to network contexts and dynamic complex systems supersedes some of our favored doctrines and the analyses on which they stand. Without decreasing returns and substitution, neoclassical arguments simply do not work. Heterodox approaches – and their intelligent application – are required in this setting. The paper offers a few guidelines to an unexplored domain of fundamental departures.","PeriodicalId":41686,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Philosophical Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70491094","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rawls and Piketty: the philosophical aspects of economic inequality","authors":"Goran Sunajko","doi":"10.46298/jpe.10688","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10688","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses a key contemporary problem, that of inequality. Certainly, the most visible inequality today is economic inequality, which is not only a characteristic found today, but is also the result of a long historical development. The problem arises when inequality becomes artificial (produces itself) and thus becomes a matter of social sciences and humanities. At this point, the question of economic inequality becomes a non-economic issue and thus opens the possibility of formulating such principles that will be able to reduce the issue to a minimum. This paper discusses this possibility, while referring to Thomas Piketty's book on capital in relation to John Rawls's principles of justice to which Piketty refers to.","PeriodicalId":41686,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Philosophical Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70490755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of Dani Rodrik, Economics Rules: Why Economics Works, When It Fails, and How to Tell the Difference, Oxford University Press, 2015, hb, ISBN 978-0-19-873689-9, xi+253 pages","authors":"D. Chirițoiu","doi":"10.46298/jpe.10691","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10691","url":null,"abstract":"Review of Dani Rodrik, Economics Rules: Why Economics Works, When It Fails, and How to Tell the Difference, Oxford University Press, 2015, hb, ISBN 978-0-19-873689-9, xi+253 pagesAt the beginning of every course of economics, students are taught that free-markets are what should be aimed for. That markets have the ability to self-adjust, every intervention of the state leading to a misallocation of resources. Only later do students learn that the free-market concept may backfire by not bringing the anticipated results. Two cases are worth mentioning: (i) the one of South East Asian economies and (ii) the other of Latin America. In the first case, a pivotal role was played by the long arm of the state, which established important protectionist measures that in turn helped the countries of the region to further develop the private businesses and the well-being of labour (Lim, 1983). Those economic policies contradict the idea that free-market economic theory is the most effective way of organizing a market. In the second case, the Latin American countries applied the principles mentioned in the Washington Consensus, which mainly propose stability based on three pillars: macro-stability, liberalization, and privatisation (Williamson, 1990). However, these failed due to the fact that free markets work in the presence of healthy institutions, which were taken for granted. A malfunctioning institution cannot enforce the law, which can affect the relationship between different market actors. The problem of enforcing the contracts is one such example.These cases represent only a few of the many situations that demonstrate the failure of mainstream economic theory to deliver the promised results. Therefore, questioning the economics discipline seems to be something normal. However, the criticism towards this science has started to increase in intensity after the 2007-financial upheaval when the mainstream economic theory failed to predict it. Yet, economic science is still in high demand across the world.Often labelled as an economist that casts doubt upon the power of free market, Rodrik has brought significant contributions to political economy through his focus on growth policies, industrialization and globalization. To better understand an economic model, Rodrik analyses in his last book the way in which it is created and it can be applied within different parts of the world. In this way, the weaknesses and strengths of the discipline can be better underlined. The author wants to make economists and non-economists understand that a model and not the model is applicable in various social, political and economic contexts. The models have to be seen as a toolbox where each model can solve a specific problem within the market. As such, there is no unique tool, or universal grand theory, that can be applied in all settings.In the first chapter of the book, Rodrik attempts to offer a description of what models do. An association is made with the fables (18-","PeriodicalId":41686,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Philosophical Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70490716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}