Brands of Economics and the Trojan Horse of Pluralism

This paper examines the current status and prospects of heterodox approaches to economics in relation to the problem of marketing ideas to groups of potential users who see the world in very different ways. It draws lessons from the changing status of behavioural economics and highlights the marketing problems that arise between heterodox economists whose perspectives overlap only partially. Its principal message is that the best hope for heterodox economics may lie in taking a less openly combative approach than hitherto when trying to win over mainstream economists and instead using strategies of stealth based on the empirical advantages of pluralistic applied research methods.     

Examining social processes with agent-based models

It is plain that the Austrian revival that began in the 1970s has yet to succeed in convincing the mainstream of the academy to jettison their physics-based mathematical models in favor of the sort of models and forms of argumentation that contemporary Austrians advocate. Agent-based computational modeling is still in its relative infancy but is beginning to gain recognition among economists disenchanted with the neoclassical paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to assuage concerns that readers might have regarding methodological consistency between agent-based modeling and Austrian economics and to advocate its adoption as a means to convey Austrian ideas to a wider audience. I examine models developed and published by other researchers and ultimately provide an outline of how one might develop a research agenda that leverages this technique. I argue that agent-based modeling can be used to enhance Austrian theorizing and offers a viable alternative to the neoclassical paradigm.     

Creationism versus Evolutionism in Economics: Societal Consequences of Economic Doctrine

In the 1940s and 1950s, institutionalist economists rapidly lost their influence over American economics. In parallel, a new mainstream emerged, and the institutionalists were extremely dissatisfied with the path taken by the economic science. We analyze the opinions and feelings about this context to shed light on the institutionalists’ understanding of the new mainstream economics. We construct a historical account of the institutionalists’ dissatisfaction with post-war economics based on archival material from the personal papers of Allan Gruchy, John Gambs, John Blair, and Clarence Ayres. In the period analyzed, the economists, who would later found the Association for Evolutionary Economics, acted as dissenters rather than institutionalists. In part, this explains the pluralistic path that the association has followed ever since its foundation.     

Extending Austrian Economics toward Psychology: Rules in Loan Decisions

The proponents of the Austrian school of economics, like economists in general, often take a negative view of incorporating psychological assumptions in the main body of economic theory. Still they regularly make use of such assumptions while applying the theory. The paper argues for a cautious use of the findings of psychology from the very start of economic reasoning. The examples employed to illustrate the argument are from the loan decision process of a banker.     

Remembering Jim Buchanan

James Buchanan was an important influence on the Austrian revival and not incidentally on my own career. By taking the work of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Israel Kirzner seriously at a time when Austrian economics was ignored by the economics profession and by making his own contributions to subjectivist economics, Buchanan helped make the Austrian perspective professionally respectable, and inspired a generation of young economists interested in the Austrian school.     

Post Keynesianism,Heterodoxy and Mainstream Economics

After briefly presenting the concepts of orthodox, mainstream and heterodox economics, and applying them to the contemporary period, this article discusses the Post Keynesian school and its relation to contemporary orthodox and mainstream economics. While opposed to the neoclassical orthodoxy, the Post Keynesian school has some positive unifying ideas, although some internal tensions remain. There are also some overlaps between Post Keynesianism and other approaches, and a careful combination of contributions from different approaches and different disciplines is not only possible, but also necessary. Post Keynesianism is located outside current mainstream economics, although this argument partly depends on a more precise specification of the concept of uncertainty. The non-mainstream character of Post Keynesian economics has at least two types of important implications. The first involves the approach's ability to influence the economy and the danger of ‘the scholastic fallacy’; the second refers to a reproductive difficulty inside academia.     

Austrian economics at the cutting edge

Austrian economists today have a valuable opportunity to rejoin the mainstream of the economics profession. As Colander, Holt, and Rosser have argued, neoclassical orthodoxy is no long mainstream. What I call the “heterodox mainstream” is an emerging new orthodoxy. The five leading characteristics of the emerging new orthodoxy are bounded rationality, rule following, institutions, cognition, and evolution. When listed in this order, they suggest the acronym BRICE. The Austrian school is also an example of BRICE economics. The shared themes of BRICE economics create an opportunity for intellectual exchange between Austrians and other elements of the heterodox mainstream. Although Austrians should engage the heterodox mainstream energetically, they should also defend the essential elements of an early version of neoclassical economics, elements at risk of becoming half-forgotten themes of an earlier era. These elements are supply and demand, marginalist logic, opportunity-cost reasoning, and the elementary theory of markets. JEL Codes A14, B50, B53 This text is an edited version of a talk given in Washington, D.C. on 19 November 2005 at the SDAE annual dinner. I thank persons present at that time for a helpful discussion. I also thank William Butos, Roger Garrison, Steven Horwitz, and Peter Lewin for useful comments on an earlier draft.     

The Wrong Type of Pluralism: Toward a Transdisciplinary Social Science

When heterodox economists talk of pluralism they are generally talking about pluralism within the economics profession—they are asking: how can we have a more pluralistic economics profession? This paper argues that another, perhaps more useful, way to think of pluralism and economics is from the perspective of all the social sciences. When considered in reference to the social science profession rather than in reference to the economics profession, the amount of pluralism increases significantly, since different social sciences follow quite different methodologies. But looking at pluralism from the social science perspective reveals a different type of pluralism problem in social science. While there may be plenty of pluralism within social science as a whole, there is a serious question about whether it is appropriately distributed. This paper argues that heterodox economists' agenda should be a greater blending of all the social science departments. It summarizes proposals to do so on both the undergraduate level and graduate level, and explains why supporting variations of these proposals would be a strategy that would further the objectives of most heterodox economists more than would their current strategy of pushing for more pluralism in economics.     

Using Psychology to Reinforce the Austrian Argument for Freedom: The Case of Loan Decisions

The emphatic statements of F. A. Hayek, and other members of the Austrian school of economics, in advocacy of a free society have produced much misgivings among the economics profession. The paper aims to make the Austrian views more intelligible by tracing them back to a theory of the mind that Hayek develops in The Sensory Order. More generally, the paper argues that Austrian economics would greatly benefit from extending itself from a pure logic of choice toward psychological analysis. The argument is illustrated throughout the paper by examples taken from the loan decision process of a banker.     

Paths of the Weberian–Austrian Interconnection

This paper centers on the theoretical–methodological interconnections between Weber and the Austrian economists. First, the influence of classical Austrian economics, especially Menger and Böhm-Bawerk, on Weber is reexamined. Then we are concerned with the importance of Weber's ideas in neoclassical Austrian economics, including Schumpeter, Mises and Hayek. Also, Weber's legacy in modern economics is reconsidered. Since little research is done on these interconnections between Weber's sociology and Austrian economics, the paper thereby contributes toward spanning a gap in the present economic and sociological literature.     

James M. Buchanan: An appreciation

James M. Buchanan co-founded the field of Public Choice. He was influenced by Austrian economics, and in turn influenced Austrian economics. In particular, he advanced the understanding of subjectivist cost theory. His individualist approach to public policy making has been adopted by many Austrian economists. With Richard Wagner, he analyzed the politics of Keynesian economics. They explained why Keynesianism in practice led to a larger government, permanent deficits and inflationary monetary policy.     

The economics of Frank H. Knight: An Austrian interpretation

This paper interprets, in the modern Austrian economics perspective, Frank H. Knight's three core contributions; namely, economic methodology, theories of human action, uncertainty and entrepreneurship. Though Knight is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the Chicago School of economics, this paper argues that Knight's contributions are essentially Austrian. Influenced by William James, Henri Bergson and Max Weber, Knight's subjectivist economics can be seen as a link between Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises in the history of Austrian subjectivism. This paper further suggests that Knight may be more appropriately located in the Austrian-German School, for the reason that the term “Austrian School” is too narrow to accommodate german influences. This paper concludes that Knight's legacies have left much to be appreciated by neoclassical mainstream economists in general and Austrian economists in particular. The author thanks Dian Kwan for her proof reading in this essay.     

The economics of ageing and the political economy of old age

Economic discussion of ageing has been largely neoclassical in approach. Ageing has become a specialism within population economics, which is itself a specialism within the neoclassical mainstream. An alternative view has come from authors in sociology and social policy, who have produced their own ‘political economy of old age’. In contrast with neoclassical individualism, sociological depictions of ageing have stressed the social construction of old age and the structured dependency of the elderly. Non-neoclassical economists have had little to say about ageing, despite some relevant work in the early days of Keynesianism. This paper argues that a combination of structural ideas from sociology and disequilibrium ideas from Keynesian and non-neoclassical economics can provide a suitable framework for the economics of ageing.     

The market as a social space: On the meaningful extraeconomic conversations that can occur in markets

Prominent economic sociologist Richard Swedberg has argued that economists have failed to develop a theory of the market that recognizes it as a “social phenomenon in its own right.” While this may be true of mainstream economics, the Austrian school’s theory of the market is much richer than the standard view. For Austrians, the market has always been a central concern. And Austrians have always argued that the market is a social structure where both exchange and competition occurs. Still, Austrians give little more than scant attention to the noneconomic sociality that occurs in markets. The market, however, is both a conversation and an arena where meaningful conversations can occur. This paper is an effort to focus attention on the market as a social space where social activity (beyond competition and exchange) takes place and where noneconomic relationships and economic relationships develop.     

On the Relevance of John Rawls's Theory of Justice to Welfare Economics

Mainstream microeconomic theory makes some use of John Rawls's Theory of Justicein discussing welfare economics and social welfare functionals. While various elements of his approach are usually mentioned, his basic point is generally taken to be his difference principle (maximizing the welfare of the worst off individual) applied as a decision principle for evaluating the equity of resource allocation.

To take the difference principle as the essence of Rawls's work is an error. The present paper reviews the basic argument of the Theory of Justice

compares it with the use that economists make of it, and concludes that in a number of quite specific ways Rawls's ideas are misrepresented and misused by mainstream microeconomists.     

Austrian economics behind the iron curtain: The rebirth of an intellectual tradition

This article documents the spread of the Austrian school of economics in central and eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Extensive research based on interviews, fieldwork and archival analysis records the development of distinct epistemic communities throughout the region and the subsequent networks that have emerged to unite them. In doing so, we provide a rare history of ‘centre-right’ political ideas in eastern Europe, a chronology of the development and influence of libertarianism, cursory intellectual biographies of neglected Austrian economists and empirical evidence that contributes to the epistemic communities approach to the study of idea diffusion. The findings support the view that the policy reforms during the transition process were built on neoclassical orthodoxy rather than ‘neoliberalism’ or ‘market fundamentalism’ but point to a fast-growing epistemic community that has had increasingly significant policy influence.     

Is the economics of time and ignorance a “classic”?

A history of economic thought perspective on The Economics of Time and Ignorance reveals that the book rehabilitates some major themes in the Austrian tradition that were all but lost subsequent to the formalist revolution in economics that took place in the middle of the twentieth-century. The book also anticipates some important ideas that were extended and applied in Austrian economics after it was first published. Reviews have claimed that the book was a “classic” and also “original”. The book is too close in a temporal sense to judge whether or not future generations will canonize it as a “classic”. Using Stigler’s criteria as to what constitutes scientific “originality”, it is concluded that, taken as a whole, the book was not original. From the vantage point of the overall discipline of economics, it was a work advancing controversial ideas that would not easily change the beliefs, practices and interests of economists in general but it offered sound reasons for taking the Austrian thought-trajectory more seriously. It would be more fitting to view the authors as providers of many innovations contributing to the mature Austrian economics of the twenty-first century.     

Heterodox Economics and its Critics

Heterodox economics has its critics. Most of the criticisms are friendly comments and analysis directed towards improving heterodox economic theory. However, the critics and their criticisms that are the concern of this article are the ones that challenge the existence of heterodox economic theory and the community of heterodox economists as manifested through their graduate programs, conferences, journals and identity. These critics observe that the academic status quo in economics, as manifested in its department and journal rankings, rules of academic engagement, and its institutions and organizations, favor mainstream economics and that it is unlikely to change in the future. Consequently, they argue that heterodox economists can survive only if they become more like mainstream economists. With focus on assimilation, the critics direct their criticisms towards the social characteristics of the heterodox community and to the personal characteristics of heterodox economists. This article is a response to the critics.     

An Institutional Explanation for Economists’ Theoretical and Methodological Choices

Scientific research in general and economics research in particular is a social act. More specifically, schools of economic thought as well as associations, research groups and conferences are expressions of social organizations within the realm of economics. Historically, studies investigating the methodologies used in economics have focused on the strengths of these social organizations. This study aims to analyze the key roles played by individuals within social organizations in building and reinforcing economics and, in turn, their influence on these individuals. To achieve this goal, we use an institutionalist approach in a broad sense. We show how economics as an academic environment can be presented as an institutional entanglement and how an institutionalist approach can enhance an understanding of why economists adopt a particular theoretical and methodological perspective. It is argued that habits, observations and cognitive abilities should be seriously considered to understand the logic and decision making of economic researchers. We discuss also the importance of forming groups in the process of institutionalizing elements relevant to an economic researcher’s logic and decision making and present an interpretation of mainstream economics in terms of the analytical approach of our study.     

Imagining Economics Otherwise: Encounters with Identity/Difference

How can theoretical criticisms to economics introduced by feminist economists be addressed empirically? Feminist scholars outside economics have spent considerable time debating appropriate methods and have often argued that interactive, situated research is more appropriate for answering feminist concerns. By telling the stories of three Palestinian women, I provide examples where qualitative research can enhance and even challenge quantitative research. I argue that our understanding of concepts such as power, individualism and preference formation will be enhanced by the use of qualitative methods and that feminist economists should be among those questioning the narrow definition of acceptable evidence articulated by mainstream economists.