Journal of Economic Methodology最新文献

{"title":"Reconciling the liberal tradition in normative economics with the findings of behavioural economics: on J.S. Mill, libertarian paternalism and Robert Sugden’s The Community of Advantage","authors":"M. Qizilbash","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2021.1988131","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2021.1988131","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In The Community of Advantage, Robert Sugden reconstructs and defends an account of the liberal tradition (LT) in normative economics in the light of the findings of Behavioural Economics (BE). In this paper, the LT in neo-classical welfare economics which has roots in J.S. Mill’s thought is contrasted with Sugden’s account. Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s Libertarian Paternalism (LP) arguably attempts to reconcile the LT in neo-classical welfare economics with the findings of BE and to provide it with a Millian pedigree. To the extent that it attempts this, LP is unsuccessful. While Sugden abandons core elements of traditional normative economics – notably the ‘view from nowhere’, welfarism and the preference satisfaction view of welfare – which have a Millian pedigree and advances a contractarian alternative, he successfully reconciles his reconstruction of the LT with the findings of BE and also provides it with a sound Millian pedigree.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"43 1","pages":"409 - 418"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76602403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A response to six comments on The Community of Advantage","authors":"R. Sugden","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2021.1994634","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2021.1994634","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper responds to six contributions to a symposium on my 2018 book, The Community of Advantage. I defend that book's claim that most normative behavioural economics implicitly uses a psychologically ungrounded model of an ‘inner rational agent’. I also defend the claim that, given the contractarian approach taken in the book, opportunity is normatively prior to welfare and to particular ingredients of well-being, such as health and perceptions of agency. I show how the Strong Interactive Opportunity Criterion proposed in the book can be extended to allow comparisons between the extent of opportunity provided by different economic regimes.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"1 1","pages":"419 - 430"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87425206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"In defense of behavioral welfare economics","authors":"B. Bernheim","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2021.1988133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2021.1988133","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In The Community of Advantage, Robert Sugden advocates an opportunity-oriented framework for normative analysis, positions it a substitute for behavioral welfare economics, and criticizes the latter. This paper distills the logic underpinning the main approaches to behavioral welfare economics, addresses Sugden's criticisms, and identifies some limitations of his alternative approach.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"180 1","pages":"385 - 400"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76993125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Escaping paternalism: rationality, behavioral economics, and public policy","authors":"P. Arthur","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2021.1979128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2021.1979128","url":null,"abstract":"In their new book Escaping Paternalism, Glen Whitman and Mario Rizzo try to persuade readers to be skeptical of behavioral paternalism (Rizzo & Whitman, 2019). Rizzo and Whitman describe behavioral paternalism as a new form of paternalism that uses research in behavioral economics to justify paternalist interventions; works they say advocate for behavioral paternalism include Nudge by Richard Thaler and Sunstein (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009), Inside the Nudge Unit by David Halpern (Halpern, 2015), and Against Autonomy by Sarah Conly (Conly, 2013) (p. 3). Behavioral paternalism is sold in these works as a more scientific and ethical form of paternalism than traditional paternalism because interventions aim to preserve freedom of choice and use empirical research to help agents satisfy their genuine preferences – not the preferences of paternalists. Whereas a traditional paternalist might support a ban or high tax on smoking cigarettes, believing smoking is bad for people independent of their attitude towards smoking, a behavioral paternalist prefers a nudge that requires cigarette manufacturers to post pictures of unhealthy lungs on cigarette packs. In theory, behavioral paternalists believe this nudge leaves those who still want to smoke, and might all things considered benefit from smoking, able to do so without prohibitive costs. However, despite its ostensible appeal over traditional paternalism, Rizzo and Whitman provide reasons to doubt the benefits of behavioral paternalism. They focus primarily on epistemic problems and argue that behavioral paternalists do not have the necessary knowledge of agent’s preferences and the net welfare effects of their interventions to justify their policies. And while behavioral paternalists are Rizzo and Whitman’s main targets, these epistemic and practical challenges are relevant to all pro-paternalists. Even a traditional paternalist who wishes to impose their objective values on people must have reasonable knowledge about the overall welfare effects of their interventions. However, while their arguments are relevant to paternalism broadly and behavioral paternalism specifically, the book’s title might be overstated given the scope and focus of the book. Rizzo and Whitman do not offer decisive objections against paternalism or behavioral paternalism. While the authors sow seeds of reasonable doubt, they do not establish conditions that paternalists must satisfy to justify their policies. They mention difficulties with interventions passing ‘cost/ benefit analysis,’ but do not provide details on how this cost–benefit analysis works and why a policy fails to pass a cost/benefit test. Accordingly, a pro paternalist might see Rizzo and Whitman’s challenges as an opportunity to make paternalistic policies better informed and more effective, lobbying to re-title the book Improving Paternalism. Rizzo and Whitman say,","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"1 1","pages":"431 - 435"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79939666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Lucas’ expectational equilibrium, price rigidity, and descriptive realism","authors":"M. Boianovsky","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2022.2033299","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2022.2033299","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Robert Lucas' ([1972b] 1981a) article on the neutrality of money represented the first effective challenge to Samuelson’s neoclassical synthesis methodological separation between static microeconomic optimisation and macroeconomic dynamics. Lucas rejected disequilibrium price dynamics, as expressed by the Walrasian tâtonnement and auctioneer mechanisms. Lucas’ new treatment of equilibrium as an expectational concept, determined by the rational behaviour of information processing agents, was not restricted to market clearing competitive economies. Lucas’ effort to compare alternative rational expectations models of price stickiness (including his 1972 original formulation) led him to stress the notion of descriptive realism of the models’ main assumptions, which played an important role in his original discussion of model robustness.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"1 1","pages":"66 - 85"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76161527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On the possibility of an anti-paternalist behavioural welfare economics","authors":"J. Thoma","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2021.1972128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2021.1972128","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Behavioural economics has taught us that human agents don't always display consistent, context-independent and stable preferences in their choice behaviour. Can we nevertheless do welfare economics in a way that lives up to the anti-paternalist ideal most economists subscribe to? I here discuss Sugden's powerful critique of most previous attempts at doing so, which he dubs the ‘New Consensus’, as appealing to problematic notions of latent preference and inner rational agency. I elaborate on a fundamental rethinking of the normative foundations of anti-paternalist welfare measurement that often remains implicit in the behavioural welfare economics literature Sugden discusses, but which is required to make these accounts minimally plausible. I argue that, if we go along with this rethinking, Bernheim and Rangel's [(2007). Toward choice-theoretic foundations for behavioural welfare economics. American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 97, 464–470. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.97.2.464; (2009). Beyond revealed preference: Choice-theoretic foundations for behavioural welfare economics. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124(1), 51–104. https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2009.124.1.51] choice-theoretic framework withstands Sugden's criticism. Sugden's own, more radical proposal is thus under-motivated by his critique of the ‘New Consensus’.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"126 1","pages":"350 - 363"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74489485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What’s (successful) extrapolation?","authors":"Donal Khosrowi","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2021.1952290","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2021.1952290","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Extrapolating causal effects is becoming an increasingly important kind of inference in Evidence-Based Policy, development economics, and microeconometrics more generally. While several strategies have been proposed to aid with extrapolation, the existing methodological literature has left our understanding of what extrapolation consists of and what constitutes successful extrapolation underdeveloped. This paper addresses this lack in understanding by offering a novel account of successful extrapolation. Building on existing contributions pertaining to the challenges involved in extrapolation, this more nuanced and comprehensive account seeks to provide tools that facilitate the scrutiny of specific extrapolative inferences and general strategies for extrapolation. Offering such resources is important especially in view of the increasing amounts of real-world decision-making in policy, development, and beyond that involve extrapolation.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"68 1","pages":"140 - 152"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84138684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Three accounts of intrinsic motivation in economics: a pragmatic choice?","authors":"Blaž Remic","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2021.1952291","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2021.1952291","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper argues that the concept of intrinsic motivation has been used by economists in inconsistent ways because the underlying theories of intrinsic motivation, imported into economics from psychology, are competing and mutually exclusive despite employing the same terminology. I first identify and analyze three distinct economic accounts where intrinsic motivation refers to different things due to different underlying psychological theories employed. I then discuss implications these differences have for empirical work and incentive-based policy interventions. Finally, I use this discussion as a case study to demonstrate the shortcomings of the recently proposed pragmatic synthesis between neoclassical and behavioral economics. If there are multiple and fundamentally different psychological theories of the same phenomenon, using their insights in economic analysis is hardly just a matter of a straightforward pragmatic choice among the various tools in the economist’s toolbox.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"129 1","pages":"124 - 139"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89308137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"When does complementarity support pluralism about schools of economic thought?","authors":"Teemu Lari","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2021.1945659","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2021.1945659","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT An intuitively appealing argument for pluralism in economics can be made on the grounds that schools of economic thought complement one another. Let us call this the complementarity-based argument for pluralism (CAP). The concepts of complementarity, pluralism, and school of thought are scrutinized in this paper to evaluate this argument. I argue that the complementarity of schools is relative to scientific goals, which implies that discussing complementarity of schools of economic thought requires discussing the goals of economic research. I also distinguish weak from strong complementarity and show that some alleged complementarity relations between schools are weak and thus provide little support for CAP. However, if strong complementarity relations, relative to a valuable goal, can be demonstrated to exist between specific schools, this is a strong reason for pluralism about those schools. Finally, I provide suggestions on how to distinguish strong from weak complementarity.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"6 1","pages":"322 - 335"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76020950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Building comparison spaces: Harold Hotelling and mathematics for economics","authors":"M. Gaspard, T. Mueller","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2021.1936597","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2021.1936597","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Harold Hotelling’s (1895–1973) articles in mathematical economics from the 1930s are classics. Some are keystones of entire sub-disciplines of economic theory such as location economics [Hotelling (1929). Stability in competition. The Economic Journal, 39(153), 41–57] and natural resource economics [Hotelling (1931). Review of Review of mathematical introduction to economics, by Griffith C. Evans. The American Mathematical Monthly, 38(2), 101–103. https://doi.org/10.2307/2301858]; others are associated with significant theoretical results [Hotelling (1932). Edgeworth’s Taxation Paradox and the Nature of Demand and Supply functions. Journal of Political Economy, 40(5), 577–616; (1938). The general welfare in relation to Problems of Taxation and of Railway and Utility rates. Econometrica, 6(3), 242–269]. Yet, Hotelling’s place in the rising of mathematical economics is mostly a black hole in the history of economic thought. The present paper aims to provide a better understanding of Hotelling’s part in the history of mathematical economics. Using published as well as archival materials, it traces Hotelling’s itinerary in mathematical economics, observes Hotelling using mathematics and scrutinizes Hotelling’s methodological writings to capture the meaning of his models and concepts, in particular his concept of utility as a monetary surplus.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"303 1","pages":"255 - 273"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79764219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}