A Note on a Conversation with Geoff Harcourt

In this note Geoff Harcourt offers his views, via a face to face interview, on a wide range of issues relating to the discipline of economics. He recalls his time as a student at University of Melbourne, his choice of doctoral study and experiences at University of Cambridge, his original intellectual influences and affiliation, and his contributions to economics. He also discusses how economics have evolved over the years, comments on the current status of economic teaching, research and policy advice in Australia, and makes some recommendations to early career researchers. The note also includes a brief bio sketch of Professor Harcourt.     

“双一流”建设与经济学发展的中国贡献?

作为社会科学的“皇冠”,经济学的学科建设在中国“双一流”建设中,尤其在世界一流学科建设中具有重要意义,也将对中国全面深化改革以实现国家治理现代化提供重要的现实指导。文章首先分析了世界一流经济学科建设之于“双一流”战略导向的契合度,然后探讨了中国的世界一流经济学科建设所面临的难点及其突破点,进而阐述了中国可从哪些方面为经济学的发展和创新做出贡献。研究认为,打造中国的世界一流经济学科需要按照国际同行学术标准进行评价,所研究的问题(包括中国问题)应该是国际同行关注的问题,从而需要从完善学科分类评价体系、加强原创性研究和高层次人才集聚等方面加以突破。与此同时,针对经济学在中国的发展和创新,研究指出,对于中国传统经济思想的历史禀赋和现代价值的挖掘、具有原创性的理论研究和方法论研究创新以及基于中国经济改革发展实践的理论提炼升华,是中国经济学界可以且应该做出重要贡献的三个方向。     

The Editorial Boards of Italian Economics Journals: Women,Gender, and Social Networking

In Italy, women's advancement in economics has been curtailed by the structure of editorial boards of Italian economics journals. In this paper, we examine the presence of men and women economists on the editorial boards of thirty-six Italian economics journals published since 1970 and analyze the gender distribution across different kinds of boards, roles, and fields. Because boards are hierarchically ordered, women work mostly in the lower positions, and the increase in women's participation has led only to more "editorial secretaries." Since men and women tend to have different scientific interests and men's standards of academic value prevail, women economists cannot build publication records as strong as those of their male colleagues, which, in turn, affects women's hiring, promotion, and wages, as well as the shape of the discipline.     

保险经济学研究述评

保险经济学是用一般经济理论来研究有关保险领域问题的一门学科。作为一门独立的学科 ,保险经济学在国外已经得到较大的发展 ,它所探讨的问题和分析方法在主流经济学和金融经济理论中也占有很重要的位置。然而在我国 ,该学科的研究还很不充分 ,很少有人使用规范的经济学研究范式对我国的保险业进行深入而细致的分析。本文按照保险经济学历史发展的逻辑顺序 ,对该学科发展过程中的几个重要方面做了简要评述 ,在此基础上分析了保险经济学在结合我国的实际情况时应注意的几个方面 ,以期引起这方面更深入的讨论。     

On the intergenerational transmission of preferences

Recent contributions in economics have argued for a re-introduction of preference-based approaches to economic behavior and have called for an empirical investigation of preferences in order to overcome the prevalent skepticism against such explanations within the discipline. The present paper contributes to this discussion by assessing the extent, specificity, and malleability of preference transmission from parents to their children, and thus provides evidence for the clustering of preferences along family lines. Using data on eight activity choices from the British Household Panel Survey, we find strong (and positive) correlations between preferences of parents and their adult children. These correlations are found to be robust to a wide number of robustness checks but to vary considerably across activities, suggesting that parents may have more influence over some preferences than over others. Further investigations also show that this influence is surprisingly robust to a wide number of potentially intervening factors.     

Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia, 2008: Alan Woodland

This citation acknowledges Professor Alan Woodland as an eminent Australian economist and surveys his exceptional international record of scholarship and research with a selection of his insightful contributions to the understanding of the complex issues of international trade, taxation and welfare. These issues are at the forefront of our nation's economic priorities and it is appropriate that we formally recognise his outstanding contributions to the discipline study of economics with the award of Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia.     

A review of Personalist Economics

The recent focus on sustainability as guiding principle for economic activity has generated many (often conflicting) definitions of sustainable economic development. Yet while the terminology may be new, the discussion is not. It parallels the discussion about biases of economic valuation concepts that have led to the neglect of the domestic and subsistence contributions relegated to the "informal" or household sector. This paper argues that the narrow definition of economic theory, methodology, and valuation concepts has led to the detrimental neglect of sustaining functions without which economic activity is impaired. To move toward sustainability it is imperative to regain a broader understanding of economics. Three principles are identified as essential for this conceptual expansion of economics. They are: concreteness rather than abstraction, connectedness rather than isolation, and diversity rather than homogeneity. All three are informed by feminist theory. Thus it is argued that the voices of women who have gone largely unheard in economics are essential to reconceptualizing economics as sustainable.     

Contributions to Law and Economics: A Survey of Recent Books

The interaction between law and economics has become an important specialty of the economics discipline. This article reviews several of the important books in this field and the schools of thought they embody. The review provides a useful guide for personal reading in this specialty as well as for course needs.     

The impact of economics on management

This article analyzes the impact of economics on management by examining citations of 71 management journals. AER, JPE, Econometrica and QJE have the highest impact. Industrial organization journals also have a particularly large impact. The share of economics in management citations drops from 9.91 percent until 1995 to 5.70 percent for 1996–2005. Three possible explanations for this decrease are analyzed: economics research became more mathematical; because management is a younger discipline, it grew faster than economics in quantity and quality of research; and interdisciplinary spillover of research is slower than the spillover within a discipline. Only the second explanation is supported by the data.     

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.     

Radical scholarship taking on the mainstream: Murray Rothbard’s contribution

Does one have to make a choice between ideological purity and success as an economist? Many free-market economists believe that one has to choose one or the other. Murray Rothbard (1926?C1995) held views on economics and government far outside the accepted mainstream. Nevertheless he was extremely prolific in both mainstream and non-mainstream outlets and his work has influenced many people. This article surveys Rothbard??s contributions to top ranked economics journals and discusses some of the attention his work received in those journals and elsewhere. Rothbard left a bold and uncompromising research program in political economy that has inspired many to follow.     

A Century of Scottish Economics

A review of the development of economics, and of university teaching and research in economics since the foundation of the Scottish Economic Society a century ago. Contrasts the Victorian world of do-it-yourself economics with no economic journals or societies and university teaching in the hands of the professor of moral philosophy with the current situation with 12 Scottish universities in place of 4 and a staff of over 240 in Scotland compared with a total of 30 in the United Kingdom in 1890. Economists have multiplied, new branches of the discipline have developed, the subject has been revolutionised.     

The future of economics: A Delphi Study

In an attempt to forecast the shape of economics in the year 2001, a Delphi study was undertaken, involving over 200 professional economists from 18 different countries. The end result was a list of 28 breakthroughs thought likely to occur in the next 20 years. The paper describes each breakthrough in detail, the process by which consensus and dissent were communicated, and the method used to select the panel of experts surveyed. Although the overall outcome of the study can be interpreted from several perspectives, one inescapable impression that emerges is that the liberal tradition in economics is latent but not dead, or equivalently, that the present conservative drift in the discipline is likely to be shortlived.     

Five reasons for the use of network analysis in the history of economics

ABSTRACT

Network analysis is increasingly appreciated as a methodology in the social sciences. In recent years, it is also receiving attention among historians of science. History of economics is no exception in that researchers have begun to use network analysis to study a variety of topics, including collaborations and interactions in scientific communities, the spread of economic theories within and across fields, or the formation of new specialties in the discipline of economics. Against this backdrop, a debate is emerging about how network analysis can help address questions that are pertinent to the history of economics. With this paper, we want to push this debate one step forward by offering and discussing five reasons why network analysis should have a future in the history of economics.     

论人口、资源与环境经济学学科构架的理论基础

人口、资源与环境经济学是一门正在形成中的横跨生态学、经济学、社会学、战略学和法学的新兴学科。构建这一学科体系的理论基础是什么?人口、资源与环境之间及其经济运行过程是否具有内在的本质的联系?至今还未获得令人满意的答案。提出由物质本源论构建起人口、资源与环境经济学的广义物质变换理论基础;由社会发展构成要素论构建科学发展观的认识论基础;由广义经济学和人口、资源与环境之间的转换、循环、代谢与平衡理论构建人口、资源与环境经济学的学科理论体系的理论思路。试图揭示人口、资源与环境问题的实质,以期从根本上解决构建人口、资源与环境经济学学科的理论基石问题。     

关于现代经济学的几个误读

对现代经济学的阐释中学界普遍存在着以下误读:(1)把市场经济的本质归结为"自由"和"平等",或仅仅是"资源优化配置".遗憾的是,这种脆弱到只敢"说物"而羞于"见人"的市场经济在现实中并不存在.(2)某些主流经济学家在失业问题上的全部智慧,就是终于发现了失业的"深层次"原因在于"都是计划经济惹的祸".市场经济生的病,却要计划经济吃药.这种做法显然连现代经济学的初级水平都不及格.(3)面对两极分化愈演愈烈的态势,现代经济学把分配关系与生产关系完全割裂开来,根本就不承认今日的收入分配问题与市场经济的内在联系.这就使得现代经济学的解释力大打折扣.(4)在今天的经济学界,现代经济学已然被认定为"唯一科学的"经济学.这个"认定"其实是很可疑的,因为经济学不仅过去是而且现在仍然是"一门历史的科学".     

试论混沌经济学对管理会计的影响

随着科学的发展,科学的视界越来越宽,世界的复杂性已经日渐成为科学研究的中心.混沌经济学是研究经济现象复杂性的一门学科,它在方法论、时空结构、建模方法及追求目标等方面与传统经济学存在较大分歧,但在描述和解释经济现象方面更具现实性和优越性,它必将对建立在传统经济学基础上的管理会计产生影响,本文分别从管理会计的三个职能阐述这种影响.     

Environmental and resource economics: A Canadian retrospective

The paper reviews research contributions to environmental and resource economics by scholars in Canada. We focus mainly on work from the past 25 years but also highlight earlier pathbreaking work. We begin by looking at broad trends in research both internationally and within Canada. We then review Canadian contributions to various topics in the field. Canadians have played a leading role in the development of the field, especially in resource economics, international environmental economics and the valuation of environmental amenities.     

Ronald Coase and law and economics in Europe

Ronald Coase himself never wrote about law and economics in Europe. Yet many of his insights about the development of the discipline in the United States are extremely useful to our understanding of the methodological and practical challenges faced by European law and economics (as in most civil law jurisdictions). This paper argues that a careful consideration of Coase’s insights might address some of the current limitations.     

The end of economic transition

The transition from plan to market was the largest natural experiment in economics ever. Now, 20 years from the start of transition, all former socialist countries are market economies at the middle stage of economic development, and convergence with neighbours, if not with the developed world, is largely achieved. With hindsight, it is clear that economists have spent too much time debating proper sequencing of reforms and the fine‐tuning of reform packages. At the same time, the magnitude of the output and consumption fall in some countries was vastly underestimated, while the benefits of reforms have taken longer to materialize than expected. Successful practitioners of reform praise perseverance during and after the initial setbacks and willingness to make political compromises. At the conclusion of the natural experiment, transition economics has all but vanished as an academic discipline, although it played a crucial role in the formation of modern political economics.