[Selections by Humberto Barreto for SHOE list.]
| on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Espinel, Camila Orozco |
| Abstract: | Milton Friedman is usually presented as an economist characterized by his empirical approach to economics. His binary classification of economics into positive means and normative ends relies on the empirical content of predictions. Throughout his career, he used extensive, data-based statistical techniques. While important scholarly attention has been devoted to Friedman’s academic and political trajectories, his methodological prescriptions, and the development of economics at the University of Chicago, we know much less about the interplay of these elements. This paper proposes an intertwined reading of them. My aim is threefold. First, to understand Friedman’s work and methodological choices, I relate his empirical approach to his early training in statistics. Second, I articulate Friedman’s understanding of economics as an empirical policy science to the process of building the image of economists as neutral advisers in the policymaking process. Third, I claim that Friedman’s empirical methodological framework, developed while in the Economics Department of the University of Chicago, established the guidelines for an institutional long-term project that shaped it. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:yab86&r= |
| By: | Ballandonne, Matthieu; Cersosimo, Igor |
| Abstract: | Quantitative techniques have received increasing attention in the history and methodology of economics. Nonetheless, a “text as data” approach has mostly been overlooked and its applicability to the history of economics remains to be examined. To understand what we gain from such quantitative techniques in relation to existing historical analyses, we apply some “text as data” techniques to Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations. We explore the books’ topics, styles, and sentiments. We show how word frequency analysis can be used to examine the differences between the books, shed light on conceptual discussions and reveal an important stylistic aspect, specifically Smith’s use of personal pronouns. Style analysis shows the similarities and differences in terms of lexical richness and readability between the two books. Finally, we show the limitations of a third technique, sentiment analysis, when applied to historical economic texts. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:mg3zb&r= |
| By: | Elazar, Yiftah |
| Abstract: | What explains the ambition to get rich? Adam Smith is clear that commercial ambition, the passionate desire for great wealth, is not simply a desire to satisfy one’s material needs. His argument on what underlies it, however, is not obvious. I review three possibilities suggested by Smith’s work and the scholarly literature – vanity, the love of system, and the desire for tranquility – and conclude that none of them captures the underlying motive of commercial ambition. Instead, I argue that Smith understands commercial ambition as a misguided desire for excellence. Ambitious pursuers of wealth are driven by the desire to deserve and to enjoy recognition for their excellence, but their judgment of what is truly excellent is corrupted by the standards of a wealth-worshipping society. Instead of appealing to the moral standpoint of the impartial spectator, they construct in their minds and follow a corruptive moral guide: the wealth-worshipping spectator. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:j5pt6&r= |
| By: | Cervera-Ferri, Pablo; Insa-Sánchez, Pau |
| Abstract: | Historians of economic thought have carried out detailed studies of classical and marginalist approaches to value based on production cost and utility respectively, not to mention about the fusion of both interpretations by the neoclassical school. This is not the case with rareness value, a theory commonly attributed to Léon Walras, although Aristotle surely had rareness in mind when he first attempted to explain chrematistics. This article focuses on how our understanding of rareness has evolved from the earliest economic formulations to those of Auguste and Léon Walras, contesting Rothbard’s thesis that there is only one way in which the transmission of the utility theory of value can be tracked from scholasticism to the Austrian school. On the contrary, the concept of rareness continued to figure in some theories of value of the French Enlightenment, especially those that emerged within Calvinist circles, and was recovered in times of reaction against the dominant classicism. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:5nwcb&r= |
| By: | Khalil, Elias |
| Abstract: | Friendship-and-love expresses musings about wellbeing—while “wellbeing” is the economist’s substantive satisfaction. Insofar as altruism is about wellbeing, it must differ from friendship-and-love. However, what is the basis of the difference between substantive satisfaction and friendship-and-love? The answer can be found in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, chapter 2: how “mutual sympathy” differs from “sympathy.” Smith scholars generally miss the uniqueness of “mutual sympathy” and, indeed, fold it under Smith’s “sympathy” (and “empathy”)—with one exception. Robert Sugden highlights the uniqueness of mutual sympathy. However, he goes to the other end, i.e., folds it under Smith’s sympathy-and-empathy”. This paper aims to avoid the folding in either direction. While mutual sympathy originates love-based sociality (friendship-and-love), sympathy-and-empathy originates interest-based sociality (wellbeing that includes altruism). This paper concludes that friendship is neither reducible to altruism nor vice versa. Further, this paper distinguishes this problem from the question regarding the socialization of the individual. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:ygpmq&r= |
| By: | Drakopoulos, Stavros A. |
| Abstract: | Τhe idea that social influences and social interactions play a central role on individual economic decisions has had a long presence in the history of economics. With the emergence of marginalism, this idea went into background and the concept of atomistic individual became established in mainstream economic rationality. Starting in the 1970’s, there were some attempts to reintroduce non-atomistic preferences in mainstream microeconomic theory in the form of social interactions, interdependent preferences, keeping up with the Joneses, social identity, social preferences, and status concerns. Social preferences have started to have a growing impact among mainstream microeconomics with the advent of behavioral economics, but still they are not in the hard core of the standard theory of choice. The paper argues that atomistic preferences are still prevalent, especially in the form of the assumption of representative agent. It also focuses on the role of methodological individualism and on the theoretical implications of relaxing the assumption of atomistic individual, as main explanations of the resilience of the mainstream economic rationality. |
| Keywords: | Economic Rationality; Individual Preferences; Methodological Individualism, Representative Agent |
| JEL: | B20 B40 D10 D91 |
| Date: | 2022–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112944&r= |
| By: | Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime (Goldsmiths, University of London); Bee, Michele |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a genealogy of the concept of homo œconomicus as it emerged from the methodological debate on the economic agent of political economy. If Mill gave birth to the economic man in his 1836 Essay “On the Definition of Political Economy,” he certainly did not baptize him. The expression was introduced by Francis A. Walker after Mill passed away in the 1870s. Economic man acquired its Latin name of homo œconomicus under the pen of French Catholic economist Claudio Jannet in 1878. Yet, only at the end of the century did Maffeo Pantaleoni (1889) proudly reclaim homo œconomicus as a building block of pure economics. In reaction to the evolutionary hedonism of Pantaleoni, Vilfredo Pareto then cleansed the concept of homo œconomicus and realized the Millian project of an abstract science based on an economic agent. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:nf8xw&r= |
| By: | Fiorito, Luca |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a reconstruction of the debate on “social value” among early marginalists in the US. This will be done in three steps. The first section analyses John B. Clark’s approach to social value as presented in his Distribution of Wealth; the second section deals with other influential contemporaries who adopted a similar social value perspective, with a main focus on Edwin R. A. Seligman; the third section discusses those critics who, with due differences in emphasis and style, animated the debate over social value, reviewing (among others) the contributions of Herbert J. Davenport, Joseph Schumpeter, Benjamin Anderson, John Maurice Clark, and George P. Watkins, the final section presents some conclusions. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:kznuj&r= |
| By: | Agulhon, Sophie; Mueller, Thomas Michael |
| Abstract: | During his first presidential term, faced with antitrust law reform, Woodrow Wilson had to deal with the reconstitution of conflicting values. On the one hand, the importance of efficiency, guaranteed by the role of experts capable of effectively managing public administration, on the other hand, the importance of public and democratic participation, and therefore respect for traditional democratic values. Wilson will face a theoretical impasse in defining concepts such as competition and fairness when developing antitrust laws and will have to put his theory of administration to the test. He will opt for a pragmatic approach, based on managerial ideas and integrating the figure of the manager, expert in know-how. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:nzjsv&r= |
| By: | Curott, Nicholas A.; Snow, Nicholas A. |
| Abstract: | In this paper we argue that Irving Fisher (1867-1947) is an unacknowledged pioneer of modern behavioral economics. Fisher’s behavioralist orientation is evident in his writings on alcohol prohibition. In these works, Fisher argued that behavioral anomalies prevent individuals from making rational choices regarding alcohol consumption. Fisher thought these anomalies arose from three sources: 1) incomplete information; 2) limited cognitive abilities; and 3) lack of will power. These are essentially the same barriers to rational choice identified by modern day New Paternalists. Therefore, we argue that Fisher’s work on Prohibition was a pioneering academic achievement that anticipated recent developments in economics, and not an unscientific diatribe, as previous commentators have presumed. Unlike modern day ‘New Paternalists,’ however, Fisher rejected minor alterations to the choice architecture and advocated outright prohibition instead. This helps to illustrate a potential slippery slope problem with modern new paternalist arguments that should be addressed. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:dv97k&r= |
| By: | Gonzálvez, Francisco Jorge Rodríguez |
| Abstract: | This study addresses the incompatibility question between the corporate organization of industry and a system based on the general recognition of economic rights and freedoms in Continental Western Europe. A dissociation/identification model based on a comparative analysis verifies the consistency of the premise that makes the emergence of economic rights only possible after suppressing the corporations of trades. The model stems coherently from the ideas of eighteenth-century political economists and crystallizes in reform policies aimed at eliminating corporate elements contrary to economic freedoms. The results directly link the intellectual model and the actual expressions of economic rights within the declarations written at the end of the old regime. While dissociation creates an opportunity for corporate continuity within a framework of recognized economic freedoms, the French identification model implies the suppression of corporations. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:r9t3e&r= |
| By: | Stephanie A. Heger; Robert Slonim |
| Abstract: | Guided by Bem’s (1972) self-perception theory, we design an experiment to ask whether morally-motivated behaviour, e.g., charitable giving, is history-dependent. Using a popular policy nudge, the default option, we exogenously vary altruism “now” and show that giving “now” causes a 66%- 200% increase in the probability of giving “later”; that is, altruism begets altruism. We further show that, consistent with self-perception theory, the choice to behave altruistically “now”, rather than the nudge itself, is the crucial element in the causal relationship. These findings are consistent with a model of positive path-dependence, which we interpret as moral consistency. |
| Keywords: | altruism, nudge, moral consistency |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9522&r= |
| By: | Ciccone, Michele |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to be a preliminary critical discussion about one of the main accepted results of Ricardo’s theory of money and interest, i.e., that the ‘natural’ rate of interest is determined by the profit rate. It will be argued that some logical inconsistencies seem to affect Ricardo’s representation of the tendency of the market rate of interest to the natural rate, with the latter ultimately determined by the rate of profits. According to Ricardo, exogenous changes in the supply of, or demand for money generate short-run changes of the money-prices ratio and the market interest rate, and permanent changes in the price level play the role of bringing them back to their natural values (the natural rate of interest being taken as a fraction of the natural profit rate). We will try to show that the convergence process envisaged by Ricardo seems to be not free from some critical considerations about its internal coherence if one takes into due account what he conceives to be the specific inducement for the public to borrow a larger quantity of money at a lower interest rate—namely, an above normal difference between profit rate and interest rate, together with the behavior of the banking system and with the main institutional features of a monetary system. |
| Keywords: | David Ricardo, natural and market rates of interest, quantity theory of money |
| JEL: | B0 B31 E4 E40 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112887&r= |
| By: | Carlson, Benny |
| Abstract: | The 1929 stock market crash on Wall Street is one of the most spectacular economic events of all times. In Sweden, leading economists got involved in a lively debate on the events on Wall Street before, during and after the crash. Three of them were particularly active. Gustav Cassel and Bertil Ohlin were not overly worried since they regarded the stock market mania and the panic as phenomena more or less disconnected from the rest of the economy. Their theoretical argument was that booms and busts upon a stock market cannot create or destroy capital or purchasing power. Johan Åkerman on the contrary warned repeatedly that a serious stock market crash was in the making and, once it had happened, that it would in many ways affect the entire economy. |
| Date: | 2022–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:78ahc&r= |
| By: | Ahmet Faruk Aysan (HBKU - Hamad Bin Khalifa University); Ali Polat; Hasan Tekin; Ahmet Tunalı |
| Abstract: | In recent years, geopolitical risk (GPR) has been a crucial factor in investment decisions and stock markets. Therefore, we explore the research on the GPR by employing bibliometric and scientometric analytical techniques. We find 366 scientific contributions in December 2021 from the Scopus database by searching "Geopolitical risk" in abstracts, keywords, and titles. Our findings show that GPR research has gained momentum in the last three years. Specifically, the journal Defence and Peace Economics has one of the highest numbers of research and citation on GPR. Authors in Asia also dominate the GPR literature. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by presenting the existing research that may give new insights for prospective studies in GPR. |
| Keywords: | G12,Scopus JEL codes: C22,Geopolitical risk,Defence and peace economics,Bibliometric analysis,G18,G41 |
| Date: | 2022–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03638273&r= |
| the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand. |