The Impact of Nobel Prize Winners in Economics: Mainline vs. Mainstream

We assess the impact of two groups of economists: mainline economists, who regard economics primarily as the science of exchange and mainstream economists, who perceive economics primarily as the science of choice. To control for scholarly quality we investigate the citation impact of Nobel Prize winning economists, who we break up into the two groups, mainline and mainstream. We find that over the period from 1970 to 2007 mainline economists had more of an impact than mainstream economists.     

Laurence Steven Moss, 1944–2009

Larry Moss lived a busy life as an academic, a professor, an attorney, a journal editor, and a skilled magician. He was a prolific publisher of scholarly articles and books, and an editor of scholarly volumes. With friendly charm and humor, he sought to encourage others in their scholarly pursuits. He employed his magical skills to enliven his courses and to illustrate certain economic phenomena. Larry served the History of Economics Society in important capacities, including its presidency. He sought "methodological tolerance" and interacted with scholars of different philosophical persuasions. He organized memorials for numerous other economists; it thus is fitting that we do so here for him.     

ARE ECONOMISTS ‘MARKET FUNDAMENTALISTS’?

We summarise Bryan Caplan's defence of economists from The Myth of the Rational Voter, in which he argues that economists undersell the benefits of markets. We also elaborate on his conclusions and discuss applications to specific topics, such as the minimum wage, as well as how Caplan's results might affect the way economics courses are taught.     

The CAPITAL in Social Capital: An Austrian Perspective

In recent decades economists started discovering the importance of the social dimension of economic interactions. Contemporary economics has borrowed several sociological concepts for its own use, among the most important being the concept of social capital. However, this transfer within disciplines did not occur without a loss—the nature of social capital in economics remains confused and obscure. The purpose of this article is to clarify it, specify the possibilities for its use, and discuss their limits. It is argued that economics once also possessed a view of human beings that was more “socialized” than the modern neoclassical Homo oeconomicus, and that this more “socialized” view still exists in the Austrian school of economics. Because this tradition of economic thought has also developed an elaborate capital theory, it can serve as an ideal source where we can look for inspiration in the current social capital debate. First, social capital is (re)defined along these lines as an individual's asset connected with recognized reciprocity (as opposed to interactions usually classified as “altruistic”). Then major critical claims about the relation between social and physical capital are answered and the connection between social capital, trust, and social norms is described.     

Different but Equal? On the Contribution of Dissident Economists

The availability of publication and citation databases facilitate construction of rankings of economics journals, economists, and departments. Mainstream economists typically find the research questions and methods of heterodox economists dubious, and this reaction creates a bias against heterodox research in peer review, which extends to traditional bibliometric rankings. University administrators interested in improving the quality of the economics department, as conventionally measured, will see heterodox economists as a liability. But establishing the bias of conventional metrics of scholarship quality and the consequences of these biases does not establish the comparable worth of the contributions of dissident economists. This special issue seeks innovated ways to document the relative quality of the contributions of dissident economists.     

A Natural Science Version of Socioeconomic Evolution: Copeland's Essays Are His First Sustained Attempt to Apply His Approach to Economic History

A bstract . Morris A. Copeland advanced a theory 50 years ago based on the idea, widely accepted in the social sciences at that time, that the society and its economy and polity are products of socioeconotnic evoltttion. Hence, he reasoned, any theoretical economic statement is temporally and culturally relative. Therefore, he held, the concern of economics as a science is with the way economic activity is now organized as well as how it originated and developed over time in specific cultures. After applying it with history-making results to the contemporary economy, he now, in his new book of Essays , applies his approach to economic history, achieving an important methodological contribution.     

Economy as a Social System: Niklas Luhmann's Contribution and its Significance for Economics

Niklas Luhmann's (1927–1998) ambitious research project was aimed not only at describing society as a global social system, but it also analyzed various subsystems (including an economic one). The article assesses Luhmann's vision of the economy, summarized mainly in his Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, wherein he addresses basic economic notions: the economic system, money, prices, rationality, and the market. I then interpret his ideas in the context of modern discussions in economics (intersubjective structures, complex systems, and evolutionary modeling). I also propose some heuristics implied by Luhmann's economic ontology, which are potentially interesting for methodological and theoretical strategies of modern economics.     

Professional Research on Minority Economic Problems and its Effect on Academic Hiring

A bstract . This study in the sociology of economics analyzes the probable effects of selected social and institutional variables on the academic hiring of economists. Authorship data on minority economic problems in 29 principal economic journals were related to data on the ranking of graduate programs in economics and to data on the ranking of economic journals. Formally, this is a problem in conditional probabilities, suggesting the use of transition matrices with elements P_ij. High ranking schools tend to be net Ph.D. producers, thus exporting their "surpluses", and perhaps ideas, to other institutions. Graduates of these schools, reflecting a homogeneous grouping, tend to publish in the high ranking economic journals. Examination of the relationship between the school that granted the author's Ph.D. and his academic employment reveals a picture of interinstitutional concentration and hierarchy. Through the hiring process, these social and institutional variables probably significantly influence the direction and pace of economic idea production.     

Henry George: The Economist as Moralist*

Abstract . Henry George derived his economic theory from his personal experience. He had the good fortune to be living in California during his formative years; there the economic events which transpired during the settlement of the North American continent—the passing of the frontier and its consequences—occurred within a time span of a few years and the telescoping of history gave him the framework for an original economic system, as well as a utopian vision of a free society. Much attention has properly been paid to George's economic ideas but he was also a moralist, one accepted by some philosophers as among the greatest. This aspect of his work, and particularly his value theory, have been neglected.     

浅论消费者垄断

在很长时间以来,经济学家忽视了一个与市场结构相关的重要问题,这就是在几乎所有的市场结构理论中,厂商或供给者一直是市场结构不变的主导力量。这种假说在古典经济时代有其理论意义,但是却会令理论经济学对于现实社会的经济情况的解释能力大大缩水。有鉴于此,本文针对与厂商相对立的经济主体对于市场的影响,提出一种全新的市场结构假说,即———消费者垄断。     

Three Kinds of Economists:

A bstract . The diversity of thought among American economistsis investigated using samples of the memberships of the American Economic Association, the Union for Radical Political Economists and the Association for Evolutionary Economics. Discriminant analysis reveals a complex web of theoretical and organizational integration and separatism involving theoretical orientation in economics, emulative economists, scholarly research focus, organizational membership, and political values. The modal radical economist espouses a radical political economic philosophy and pursues Marxist/radical scholarship in an academic setting. The modal neoclassical economist , radical in neither disciplinary nor personal political beliefs, is found, more often than the other types, in nonacademic administrative work. Marxist/radical and institutionalist scholarship are mutually exclusive. Other dimensions of the professional role, as well as a number of social and biographical background characteristics, do not differentiate between types of economists.     

Are Mainstream and Heterodox Economists Different? An Empirical Analysis

We explore the differences between mainstream and heterodox economists based on the responses to a questionnaire from a representative sample of Italian economists. Using different definitions for mainstream and heterodox economics, we compare the individual and academic characteristics of the economists belonging to these groups. We measure the within and between disagreement for each group and we test whether belonging to one or the other group predicts differences in economists' opinions on economic policy. Results show that: 1) mainstream and heterodox economists differ as to individual and academic characteristics and political views; 2) the disagreement within heterodox economics is lower than within mainstream economics; 3) some of commonly used ways of grouping heterodox and mainstream schools of thought have little explicative power in relation to individual opinions; 4) on critical economic policies, the opinions of heterodox and mainstream economists are significantly different even after controlling for a number of individual characteristics, including political opinions.     

The Uses of Authority in EconomicsShared Intellectual Frameworks as the Foundation of Personal Persuasion

Why do economists believe what they believe? Why do they not all believe the same things? Our answer to these questions revolves around the nature, variety, and uses of authority in economics. Our data are the various frameworks that economists, knowingly and unknowingly, employ to formulate their questions and organize their intellectual endeavors. We call these devices patristic traditions, or cultural and intellectual frameworks, or governing legacies, or several other phrases. They all connote authority systems, traceable to specific intellectual or cultural precursors, or authorities. Our central proposition is that the specific set of governing legacies that each individual economist possesses effectively guides his or her thinking. By recognizing these authorities we can more effectively understand others' minds, understand our own, and increase our ability to persuade. So our propositions concern the uses of authorities—how economists of the past have used them and how we ourselves use them, but especially how we might use them to productive ends.     

The Economics of Edward Alsworth Ross

A bstract . Edward Alsworth Ross gained fame as a founding father of American sociology; however, he was trained as an economist by Richard T. Ely and made significant contributions in economics before he moved into sociology. Ross was the John Kennneth Galbraith of the popidist-progressive era. The similarity in background, methodology, Weltanschauung , and controversial academic and political styles of these men is discussed. Ross became a cause célébre after his dismissal from Stanford University in 1900 which became a major academic freedom case. Although he was a professional economist for only six years, Ross made original contributions in the areas of taxation, debt management, value theory, uncertainty , and location theory. The discussion of uncertainty as a factor in production precedes Knight's concept of risk and uncertainty and challenges neoclassical policy conclusions in a dynamic environment. His treatment of location theory includes a discussion of agglomeration, externalities, regional dualism, factor endowment, and comparative advantage to explain economic mobility.     

NIGHT LIGHTS IN ECONOMICS: SOURCES AND USES1

Night lights, as detected by satellites, are increasingly used by economists, typically as a proxy for economic activity. The growing popularity of these data reflects either the absence, or the presumed inaccuracy, of more conventional economic statistics, like national or regional GDP. Further growth in use of night lights is likely, as they have been included in the AidData geoquery tool for providing subnational data, and in geographic data that the Demographic and Health Survey links to anonymized survey enumeration areas. Yet, this ease of obtaining night lights data may lead to inappropriate use, if users fail to recognize that most of the satellites providing these data were not designed to assist economists, and have features that may threaten validity of analyses based on these data, especially for temporal comparisons, and for small and rural areas. In this paper, we review sources of satellite data on night lights, discuss issues with these data, and survey some of their uses in economics.     

Markets? Yes,but…

Liberal market economics is assailed in a spirited appraisal of its methodology and policy conclusions as seen by a noted critic. Professor Alec Nove, author of The Economics of Feasible Socialism , It shows how he regards market economists as moving from disregarded outcasts in the Keynesian heyday to the centre of the stage of economic thinking and teaching. Prominent offenders respond.     

THE INTERSECTION OF THE FIELDS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS: A REVIEW TOWARDS A NEW VIEW

Despite the popularity of promoting entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for economic development, there is little scientific basis on which policy makers can lean. The scholarly fields of entrepreneurship economics and development economics have been elaborated in isolation and only recently started to intersect. This growing intersection is, however, still fragmented, ad hoc, not based on a unifying theoretical approach and suffering from lack of proper measurement. Better policy making will hence benefit from the extension and deepening of the intersection of these fields. We contribute in this regard by providing a conceptual basis for the eventual elaboration of such a unified theoretical approach. We do so by providing an up‐to‐date review of the intersection of the two fields by noting the progress and gaps; by delineating the externalities associated with entrepreneurship in development and by proposing a synthesis definition of entrepreneurship.     

Agency in Health Care: Lessons for Economists from Sociologists

A bstract . What economists can learn from sociologists with regard to the economic theory of agency in health care is considered. Whilst the concept of agency has become widely accepted in health economics , its application to the doctor-patient relationship remains somewhat limited. Research is needed on the nature of the patient's and doctor's utility functions before an efficient outcome in health care can be achieved. Economists have much to learn from sociologists concerning the nature of patient's and doctor's utility functions. Only when economists take account of this literature will moves towards an efficient outcome in health care be achieved.     

Max Weber as an Economist and as a Sociologist

A bstract In this article I first give a picture of Weber as an economist, mainly by focussing on a text which he distributed to his students when he taught economics in the 1890s. From this text it is, for example, clear that Weber was positive to the use of marginal utility theory in theoretical economics, but also felt that this approach was insufficient, by itself, to analyze empirical phenomena. I then outline Weber's work in economic sociology, relying primarily on Economy and Society and its central Chapter 2 ("Sociological Categories of Economic Action"). The differences between the approaches of economic theory and economic sociology, as seen by Weber, are summarized, and an account is given of some of Weber's most suggestive concepts in economic sociology. In the concluding section the question is raised as to when the analyst, according to Weber, should use economic sociology rather than economic theory, and vice versa. Weber's ideas about a broad economic science–what he termed Sozialökonomik or social economics–are also presented.     

Pope Francis on Overcoming Exclusion: A Theological Vision with Economic and Social Implications

The ethical imperative to overcome exclusion is a key component of the social teachings and advocacy efforts of Pope Francis. At the very core of the pastoral and social vision he proposes is a drive to resist the global trend toward growing inequality and to encourage greater solidarity, which includes extending economic opportunities much more broadly. Even more vehemently than his papal predecessors, Francis insists on prioritizing the concrete well‐being of people facing hardship and oppression, so that nobody is relegated to the category of “the throwaway.” While the theme of mercy (a “soft” virtue, inasmuch as it involves voluntary action to overcome indifference and suffering) is prominent in many of his ethical appeals, Francis notably displays a distinctive structural analysis (a “hard” diagnostic tool) when addressing injustices in the global economy. The plights of victims of human trafficking, of global climate change, of restricted work opportunities due to globalization, and other causes of human suffering are best analyzed with ample attention to structures that require transformation. While economists and sociologists may be less interested in the underlying moral anthropology and spirituality that grounds the social teachings of Francis, it is undeniable that a coherent social vision undergirds the insistence of the Jesuit pope on greater social inclusion—a vision that applies to the full range of economic, environmental, and social issues. These concerns are on especially full display in two major teaching documents of Francis: his 2013 exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel” and his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’. In each, the pope employs an astute structural lens that reveals injustices and allows him to propose strategies to overcome inequality and exclusion.