New Horizons in Economic Thought PDF Download

Author: Warren J. Samuels
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
George A. Akerlof, Jon Elster, Albert O. Hirschman, Edward Leamer, Harvey Leibenstein, Charles E. Lindblom, John Roemer, Tibor Scitovsky and Amartya Sen are among the economists covered in this appraisal of contemporary economic thought.

Author: William A. Jackson
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1849802114
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
. . . the book is excellent in setting out and explaining a fundamental critique of economics one moreover that has been missed by most other current critics of the field. Making this case is an achievement. Hopefully, it will have a greater impact than its author probably expects. Journal of Cultural Economics Economics evolved by perfecting the taking of culture out of its reductionist and virtual world. But culture has recently been reintroduced, both as a sphere of application for an otherwise unchanging methodology and as a weak form of acknowledging that the economic alone is inadequate as the basis even for explaining the economy. This volume is an essential critical starting point for understanding the changing relationship between economics and culture and in offering a more satisfactory and stable union between the two. Ben Fine, University of London, UK Economics, Culture and Social Theory examines how culture has been neglected in economic theorising and considers how economics could benefit by incorporating ideas from social and cultural theory. Orthodox economics has prompted a long line of cultural criticism that goes back to the origins of economic theory and extends to recent debates surrounding postmodernism. William A. Jackson discusses the cultural critique of economics, identifies the main arguments, and assesses their implications. Among the topics covered are relativism and realism, idealism and materialism, agency and structure, hermeneutics, semiotics, and cultural evolution. Drawing from varied literatures, notably social and cultural theory, the book stresses the importance of culture for economic behaviour and looks at the prospects for a renewed and culturally informed economics. The book will be invaluable to heterodox economists and to anyone interested in the links between culture and the economy. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, arguing against the isolation of economics, and will therefore hold wide appeal for social scientists working in related fields, as well as for economists specialising in cultural economics and economic methodology.

Author: Jürgen G. Backhaus
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Exploring the theoretical roots of the evolutionary approach, this book demonstrates how it fits squarely into the theoretical mainstream. Focusing on the institutions of evolutionary change and the processes - such as competition - that generate change, it takes account of important European contributions to the discipline, hitherto overshadowed by the American paradigm. As such, the book serves to broaden the current discourse. Whilst evolutionary economics itself is a well researched and widely documented field, this book should be credited with establishing a history of evolutionary economic thought.

Author: David Castells-Quintana
Publisher: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
ISBN: 8449098777
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
We all want to have a prosperous life. We want to be happy. The pursuit of prosperity has indeed been a long quest for the human race. But what does it mean to be prosperous? Is it having material possessions such as clothes, furniture and electrical appliances? Or jewellery, cars and property? We want a vast range of things. We also crave new experiences, whether it’s playing sport, going to the cinema or traveling to new places. And we usually want it all; the more the better. And often, all is not enough. In 'Our Elusive Quest for Prosperity', David Castells-Quintana brings together, in a brief and easy-to-read book, centuries of economic thought: from the ideas of past empires and civilizations, the economic thinking of medieval times, the lessons of classical economists, Marxism, neoclassical economics and Keynesianism, to the neoliberal revolution and the most important contributions of modern times. All to help us understand the meaning of true wealth, the way we collectively work to achieve it, and the challenges we face in our elusive quest for shared prosperity and individual welfare.

Author: B. Nooteboom
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781783477555
Category : Capitalism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this thought-provoking book, Bart Nooteboom offers a radical critique of the principal intellectual and moral assumptions underlying economic science, unravelling the notion of markets: how they work and fail, and how they may be redirected to better serve us. Initially, the inadequacy of economic science in the wake of recent financial and economic crises is outlined. Few economists predicted the crises and subsequent economic thought has been nebulous, failing to apprize guidance, understanding and prevention for the future. Established practices in finance and business continue regardless, and confusion has bred among policy makers, the public, and even economists on what markets actually are. Bart Nooteboom employs an Aristotelian virtue ethic, with a view to multiple dimensions of 'the good life', upturning the utilitarian ethic that dominates economic science and modern politics. The critique makes a corrective-turn, transforming economic thought into an integrative, ethical and interdisciplinary behavioural science of markets. Nooteboom's interdisciplinary approach makes this book an appealing read to economists, sociologists and political scientists with an interest in market processes. People concerned about how markets are developing and policy makers will welcome this topical work to gain fresh insights into collaborative and ethical market policy. This timely book will vitalize debate about markets, what they do and how they may work better.

Author: Steven Pressman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134780818
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 539

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Book Description
This book is an ideal reference tool, providing brief biographical data on the economists who have shaped the discipline. It also includes description and analysis of the major features of their economic thought. It provides balanced coverage of all the major traditions and a wide range of economists with more space being devoted to seminal theorists who opened up new horizons for economics. This book features: * lists of the writers works * guides to further reading * a glossary of economic terms. Also available: Fifty Major Philosophers 0415031354 £10.99 Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers 0415074088

Author: Iwo Amelung
Publisher: Routledge Studies in the History of Economics
ISBN: 9781032103990
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Western literature on the history of Chinese economic thought is sparse, and comparisons with the history of Western economic thought even more so. This pioneering book brings together Western and Chinese scholars to reflect on the historical evolution of economic thought in Europe and China. The international panel of contributors cover key topics such as currency, usury, land tenure, the granary system, welfare, and government, and special attention is given to monetary institutions and policies. The problem of "good government" emerges as the unifying thread of a complex analysis that includes both theoretical issues and applied economics. Chinese lines of evolution include the problem of the agency of the State, its ideological justification, the financing of public expenditure, the role played by the public administration, and the provision of credit. The early radical condemnation of usury in the Near East and in the West gives way to theoretical justifications of interest-taking in early capitalist Europe; they, in turn, lead to advances in mathematics and business administration and represent one of the origins of modern economic theory. Other uniting themes include the relationship between metallic and paper money in Chinese and European experiences and the cross-fertilization of economic practices and ideas in the course of their pluri-millennial interactions. Differences emerge; the approach to the organization of economic life was, and still is, more State-centred in China. The editors bring together these analytical threads in a final chapter, opening wider horizons for this new line of comparative economic research which is important for the understanding of modern ideological turns. This volume provides valuable reading for scholars in the history of economic thought, economic history and Chinese studies.

Author: Carsten Herrmann-Pillath
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 178254836X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 695

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Book Description
ÔThis book is an ambitious intellectual enterprise to build a naturalistic foundation for economics, with amazingly vast knowledge of physical, biological, social sciences and philosophy. Readers will discover that approaches and insights emergent in institutional studies, (social)-neuroscience, network theory, ecological economics, bio-culture dualistic evolution, etc. are persuasively placed in a grand unified frame. It is written in a good Hayekian tradition. I recommend this book particularly to young readers who aspire to go beyond a narrowly specified discipline in the age of expanding communicability of knowledge and ideas.Õ Ð Masahiko Aoki, Stanford University, US ÔCarsten Herrmann-PillathÕs new book is an in-depth application of natural philosophy to economics that draws up an entirely new framework for economic analysis. It offers path-breaking insights on the interactions between human economic activity and nature and outlines a convincing solution to the long-standing reductionism controversy. A must-read for everyone interested in the philosophical underpinnings of economics as a science.Õ Ð Ulrich Witt, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany ÔÒBig pictureÓ philosophy of economics drifted into a dull cul-de-sac as it became obsessively focused on falsifiability and rationality. In this book Carsten Herrmann-Pilath pushes the field back onto the open highway by locating economics in the larger frameworks of metaphysics, evolutionary dynamics and information theory. This is large-scale, ambitious synthesis of ideas of the kind we expect from time to time to see devoted to physics and biology. Why should economics merit anything less? But of course this kind of intellectual tapestry must await the appearance of an unusually devoted scholar with special patience and eccentric independence from the pressure for quick returns that characterizes academic life. In the person of Hermann-Pilath this scholar has appeared. No one who wants to examine economics whole and in its richest context should miss his virtuoso performance in this book.Õ Ð Don Ross, University of Cape Town, South Africa and Georgia State University, US ÔHerrmann-PillathÕs work attempts to bring to bear upon the discipline of economics perspectives from other discourses which have been burgeoning recently Ð namely, thermodynamics, evolutionary biology, and semiotics, aiming at a consilience contextualized by economic activity and problems. This marks the work as a contemporary example of natural philosophy, which is now at the doorstep of a revival. The overall perspective is that human economic activity is an aspect of the ecology of the earthÕs surface, viewing it as an evolving physical system mediated through distributed mentality as expressed in technology evolution. Knowledge is taken to be ÔphysicalÕ with a performative function, as in PeirceÕs pragmaticism. Thus, the social meanings of expectations, prices, and credit are found to be rooted in energy flows. The work draws its foundation from Hegel and C.S. Peirce and its immediate guidance from Hayek, Veblen and Georescu-Roegen. The author generates an energetic theory of economic growth, guided by OdumÕs maximum power principle. Economic discourse itself is reworked in the final chapter, in light of the examinations of the previous chapters, naturalizing economics within an extremely powerful contemporary framework.Õ Ð Stanley N. Salthe, Binghamton University, US ÔAn Oscar-winning performance in the Òtheatre of consilience.Ó ItÕs hard to know which to praise first: Carsten Herrmann-PillathÕs humility or his ambition. He says his book Òis not a great intellectual featÓ because he pursues the Òhumble taskÓ of putting together Òthe ideas of others.Ó When he finally gets to economics he tries to Òbe as simple as possibleÓ and to conceive of economics in terms of the basics, at Òundergraduate level, so to say.Ó On the other hand, the scale of his ambition is to rethink the foundations of economics from first principles, while, at the same time, holding a running dialogue between contemporary sciences and classic philosophy. HeÕs much too modest, of course, because Foundations is a major achievement, but his modesty points to what makes it such a powerful treatise: the book is not about his preferences or prejudices; it is a Òscientific approach that aims at establishing truthful propositions about reality.Ó That is much harder to achieve than grand theories or Òcomplicated mathematics,Ó because it amounts to a new modern synthesis of the field Ð an achievement on a par with Julian HuxleyÕs, whose own modern synthesis of evolutionary theories in the 1940s allowed for the explosive growth of the biosciences over the next decades. The structure of the book is simple enough, providing a framework for the Ònaturalistic turnÓ in economics. Starting from material existence, causation and evolution, Herrmann-Pillath takes us through four fundamental concepts Ð individuals, networks, institutions and technology Ð before coming finally to the Òrealm of economics proper,Ó i.e. markets. However, Herrmann-Pillath believes that the Òfoundations of economics cannot be found within economicsÓ but only in dialogue with other sciences, or what he calls the Òtheatre of consilience.Ó ItÕs a theatre in which various characters come and go, where dialogue ebbs and flows, conflicts arise and are resolved, and where individual actions can be seen as concepts as, leading to higher levels of meaning as the plot unfolds. The magic of theatre, of course, is that the point of intelligibility, where the characters, actions and narrative resolve into meaningfulness, is projected out of the drama itself, into the spectator. ThatÕs you, dear reader. So it is with economics as a discipline. Economics is a player in a much larger performance about what constitutes knowledge, and how we know that. It is also a player in the economy it seeks to explain. To understand why money, firms, growth, prices, markets and other staples of economic thought emerge and function the way they do, it is necessary situate the analysis beyond economics (and the economy), and to engage with developments across the human, evolutionary and complexity sciences. This is what Herrmann-Pillath does, analyzing a breathtaking range of illuminating and sometimes challenging work along the way. We are treated to new ideas about the externalized brain, the evolution of knowledge in the Earth System (i.e. not just among humans), the role of signs and performativity in these processes, as well as that of Òenergetic transformations.Ó But Herrmann-Pillath is not satisfied with the ÒmodestÓ task of bringing the best of modern scientific thought to bear on economic concepts and performances; he really does harbor a deeper purpose. The clue is in his apparently quixotic desire to hang on to philosophical insights associated with pre-evolutionary thinkers like Aristotle and Hegel, and his apparently eccentric desire to place the semiotic philosophy of C.S. Pierce at center stage. But the patient observer will see that he is not seeking to change the facts by imposing idealist notions on them after the event. Instead, he is arguing for a change in the way we perform ourselves in the face of these facts. He is looking for a modern-day equivalent of Confucius or Socrates: one who can imagine values and beliefs that Òdefine the human species in a new way.Ó For those who have eyes to see, as the drama unfolds, it may be that we have found such a figure in Carsten Herrmann-Pillath himself, modesty, ambition and all. This is ÒCultural ScienceÓ as it should be done.Õ Ð John Hartley, Curtin University, Australia and Cardiff University, UK

Author: Elizabeth Popp Berman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691248885
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
The story of how economic reasoning came to dominate Washington between the 1960s and 1980s—and why it continues to constrain progressive ambitions today For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold political vision on the left, and what shrunk the very horizons of possibility? In Thinking like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way of thinking—an “economic style of reasoning”—became dominant in Washington between the 1960s and the 1980s and how it continues to dramatically narrow debates over public policy today. Introduced by liberal technocrats who hoped to improve government, this way of thinking was grounded in economics but also transformed law and policy. At its core was an economic understanding of efficiency, and its advocates often found themselves allied with Republicans and in conflict with liberal Democrats who argued for rights, equality, and limits on corporate power. By the Carter administration, economic reasoning had spread throughout government policy and laws affecting poverty, healthcare, antitrust, transportation, and the environment. Fearing waste and overspending, liberals reined in their ambitions for decades to come, even as Reagan and his Republican successors argued for economic efficiency only when it helped their own goals. A compelling account that illuminates what brought American politics to its current state, Thinking like an Economist also offers critical lessons for the future. With the political left resurgent today, Democrats seem poised to break with the past—but doing so will require abandoning the shibboleth of economic efficiency and successfully advocating new ways of thinking about policy.

Author: Michel Beaud
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134711522
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
Economic Thought Since Keynes provides a concise overview of changing economic thought in the latter part of the twentieth century. Offering a concise biography of 150 influential economists since Keynes, it is an invaluable reference tool.