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Articles 1 - 14 of 14
Full-Text Articles in Economic Theory
(Review) A Short History Of Ethics And Economics: The Greeks, Spencer J. Pack
(Review) A Short History Of Ethics And Economics: The Greeks, Spencer J. Pack
Economics Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Ethics And Critical Thinking, Jonathan B. Wight
Ethics And Critical Thinking, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
This chapter seeks to demonstrate that investigations in positive economics rely on ethical perspectives and practices, and further, that critical thinking requires a wider ethical viewpoint than normative economics generally permits. Positive economics generally relies, for example, on the unsung virtues of the investigator who demonstrates honesty and transparency in the search for truth. Ethical failures in this regard are not uncommon (DeMartino, 2011). But another unstated ethical perspective appears in the worldview from which a researcher sets out to model behavior. Modelers almost always assume that rationality requires that an economic actor undertake an action in pursuit of a …
Institutional Divergence In Economic Development, Jonathan B. Wight
Institutional Divergence In Economic Development, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
The Anglo-American capitalist model (AACM) encompasses a set of theories and policies that advance the classical objectives of individual autonomy, wealth acquisition, and economic growth. In the twentieth century, the neoclassical goal of short-run Pareto efficiency was added yet remains in possible tension with these other aims. The AACM generally upholds the primacy of markets as the means for achieving its normative ideals through private, decentralized actions, with some exceptions. In the modern political arena this ideology is associated with the Reagan-Thatcher revolution of the 1980s and provides a framework for many who oppose statist solutions to social problems (Steger …
Moral Reasoning In Economics, Jonathan B. Wight
Moral Reasoning In Economics, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
The Teagle discussion analyzes why economics teachers have become overly narrow in their pedagogical perspectives, thus pulling back from fully supporting the liberal arts agenda. In Chapter 1, Colander and McGoldrick (p. 6) observe that the generalist approach that excites students by asking "big think" questions across disciplinary boundaries fails to generate new knowledge, while the narrow "little think" questions that can be answered often fail to develop the critical thinking skills necessary for liberal education. As one example, the authors cite the decline of moral reasoning in economics, which was once center stage in Adam Smith's analysis of society. …
The Ethical Lacunae In Friedman's Concept Of The Manager, Jonathan B. Wight, Martin Calkins
The Ethical Lacunae In Friedman's Concept Of The Manager, Jonathan B. Wight, Martin Calkins
Economics Faculty Publications
This article challenges along two lines Milton Friedman's injunction that the sole role of the business manager is to maximize profits for shareholders using all legal and ethical means. First, it shows how Friedman overly narrows the manager's moral duties to consequentialist profit maximization and thereby fails to account for a wide range of values and virtues necessary for good management. Second, it illustrates how more oblique approaches to management as well as Adam Smith's virtue-based model better capture the moral imagination and relational aspects of leadership that are critical to good management today. In the end, this article suggests …
Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics: The Principles Course, Jonathan B. Wight
Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics: The Principles Course, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
When we analyze the source of humor, one ingredient is surely incongruity, the juxtaposition of opposites. So when Tom Lehrer, the consummate Harvard mathematician, openly calls for plagiarism, this is funny because it is exactly the opposite of what we expect - it is absurd. And yet, from the viewpoint of modern economics, is plagiarism really so absurd? We teach our students to maximize short-term profits (in a moral vacuum). We drill them that producers minimize private costs of production (without reference to ethical codes of conduct). We expect economic agents to operate with atomistic selfishness, assuring them that this …
(Review) Self-Interest Before Adam Smith: A Genealogy Of Economic Science, Spencer J. Pack
(Review) Self-Interest Before Adam Smith: A Genealogy Of Economic Science, Spencer J. Pack
Economics Faculty Publications
Pierre Force, Self-Interest Before Adam Smith: A Genealogy of Economic Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. ix, 279, $65.00. ISBN 0-521 83060-5.
Adam Smith And Greed, Jonathan B. Wight
Adam Smith And Greed, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
The virtues of greed have been widely promoted by some economists in the 20th century. Allegedly it is Adam Smith who provides this new dignity to greed (Lerner, 1937, ix). Kenneth Arrow and Frank Hahn in the General Equilibrium Analysis (1971), for example, implicitly assume that Adam Smith's self-interest is the greed that promotes economic efficiency (quoted in Evensky, 1993, 203). Walter Williams (1999), a devoted follower of Smith, writes in his column that, "Free markets, private property rights, voluntary exchange, and greed produce preferable outcomes most times and under most conditions." These pronouncements have become part of the cultural …
Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics, Jonathan B. Wight
Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
Some economists consider their discipline a science, and thereby divorced from messy ethical details, the normative passions of right and wrong. They teach in a moral vacuum, perhaps even advocating economic agents' operating independently and avariciously, asserting that this magically produces the greatest good for society.
A Little Adam Smith Is A Dangerous Thing, Jonathan B. Wight
A Little Adam Smith Is A Dangerous Thing, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
Adam Smith was trying to counter medieval church theology, which held that any self-interested behavior was sinful and detrimental. Smith countered that self-interest could yield valuable outcomes for society as people pursued specialization and market trade. Much later these quotes would be used to justify the greedy and grasping personae of homo economicus, illustrating how a little Adam Smith can prove to be a dangerous thing. For example, Max Lerner in 1937 would say that Adam Smith "sanctified predatory impulses" and "gave a new dignity to greed." By the 1980s the movie Wall Street has the financial tycoon Gordon …
Does Free Trade Cause Hunger? Hidden Implications Of The Ftaa, Jonathan B. Wight
Does Free Trade Cause Hunger? Hidden Implications Of The Ftaa, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
Voluntary free trade has the potential, slowly and gradually over time, to create "general opulence" because it allows workers to acquire greater competency and specialization: in a word, workers become more productive. The creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) would expand market areas and thereby potentially contribute to raising future living standards of workers. This paper seeks to analyze the theoretical basis for trade, provide an economic overview of FTAA countries, and analyze the winners and losers from trade.
Will The Real Adam Smith Please Stand Up?: Teaching Social Economics In The Principles Course, Jonathan B. Wight
Will The Real Adam Smith Please Stand Up?: Teaching Social Economics In The Principles Course, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
Part of the difficulty of introducing social economics into the principles course is the perception that social economics is anathema to mainstream economics. As noted by Warren Samuels, however, "neoclassical economics is already a form of social economics" despite its "pretensions of methodological individualism and value-neutrality". Heilbroner also makes the case that the " ... the preponderance of great economists were aware of economics as explanation systems of particular socio-economic formations." Like it or not, economists err in omitting from their models what McCloskey calls "S" variables--variables representing the "social embeddedness" of values which direct human choices.
Adam Smith On The Virtues: A Partial Resolution Of The Adam Smith Problem, Spencer J. Pack
Adam Smith On The Virtues: A Partial Resolution Of The Adam Smith Problem, Spencer J. Pack
Economics Faculty Publications
Adam Smith's definition of justice as a moral virtue based on the "passion" of resentment in 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' (1759), despite seeming contradictions, supports his analysis of an acquisitive, commercial society in 'The Wealth of Nations' (1774) partly by precluding the concept of a just price.
Slavery, Adam Smith’S Economic Vision And The Invisible Hand, Spencer J. Pack
Slavery, Adam Smith’S Economic Vision And The Invisible Hand, Spencer J. Pack
Economics Faculty Publications
Smith was against slavery on moral and economic grounds. The "invisible hand" in societies which allow slavery, operates in such a way that increases in the wealth of the rich, leads to increased misery for the poor free citizens as well as for the slaves themselves. It seems that the beneficial workings of the "invisible hand" are dependent upon commercial societies which arc not based upon the institution of slavery.