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Articles 1 - 5 of 5
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(Wp 2018-05) Specialization, Fragmentation, And Pluralism In Economics, John B. Davis
(Wp 2018-05) Specialization, Fragmentation, And Pluralism In Economics, John B. Davis
Economics Working Papers
This paper investigates whether specialization in research is causing economics to become an increasingly fragmented and diverse discipline with a continually rising number of niche-based research programs and a declining role for dominant cross-science research programs. It opens by framing the issue in terms of centrifugal and centripetal forces operating on research in economics, and then distinguishes descriptive from normative pluralism. It reviews recent research regarding the JEL code and the economics’ J. B. Clark Award that points towards rising specialization and fragmentation of research in economics. It then reviews five related arguments that might explain increasing specialization and fragmentation …
(Wp 2018-03) Comment On White On The Relationship Between Economics And Ethics, John B. Davis
(Wp 2018-03) Comment On White On The Relationship Between Economics And Ethics, John B. Davis
Economics Working Papers
This short comment on Mark White’s comment on the relationship of economics and ethics focuses on the nature of economics and ethics as an emergent field of investigation. It discusses different types of between-discipline fields, and compares crossdisciplinary and transdisciplinary interpretations of economics and ethics. The ‘domestication’ thesis associated with borrowing across disciplines is examined in terms of the idea of a metaphorical transfers. Institutional constraints on between-discipline developments are evaluated relative to increasing specialization within and across disciplines. The transdisciplinary interpretation of economics and ethics is given a complexity theory explanation.
(Wp 2018-04) Economics And Economic Methodology In A Core-Periphery Economic World, John B. Davis
(Wp 2018-04) Economics And Economic Methodology In A Core-Periphery Economic World, John B. Davis
Economics Working Papers
This paper uses a core-periphery distinction to characterize contemporary economics, economic methodology, and also today’s world economy. First, it applies the distinction to the organization of contemporary economics through an examination of the problem of explaining economics’ relations to and boundaries with other disciplines. Second, it argues that economics’ core-periphery organization is replicated in a similar organization of the use and practice of contemporary economic methodology in economics Third, it draws on the use of the core-periphery thinking in economics itself and the uneven development of the world economy to provide possible foundations for economics and economic methodology being organized …
(Wp 2018-02) Extending Behavioral Economics’ Methodological Critique Of Rational Choice Theory To Include Counterfactual Reasoning, John B. Davis
(Wp 2018-02) Extending Behavioral Economics’ Methodological Critique Of Rational Choice Theory To Include Counterfactual Reasoning, John B. Davis
Economics Working Papers
This paper extends behavioral economics’ realist methodological critique of rational choice theory to include the type of logical reasoning underlying its axiomatic foundations. A purely realist critique ignores Kahneman’s emphasis on how the theory’s axiomatic foundations make it normative. I extend his critique to the theory’s reliance on classical logic, which excludes the concept of possibility employed in counterfactual reasoning. Nudge theory reflects this in employing counterfactual conditionals. This answers the complaint that the Homo sapiens agent conception ultimately reduces to a Homo economicus conception, and also provides grounds for treating Homo sapiens as an adaptive, non-optimizing, reflexive agent.
(Wp 2018-01) Ethics And Economics: A Complex Systems Approach, John B. Davis
(Wp 2018-01) Ethics And Economics: A Complex Systems Approach, John B. Davis
Economics Working Papers
This chapter examines the nature of ethics and economics as a single subject of investigation, and uses a complex systems approach to characterize the nature of that subject. It then distinguishes mainstream economic and social economic visions of it, where the former assumes that market processes encompass social processes, and the latter assumes that market processes are embedded in social processes. For each vision, strong and weak theses are compared. Both visions are first explained in terms of their respective views of the positive-normative distinction, then in terms of a central normative principle, and then in terms of their policy …