Research Ethics Education in Economics

Abstract

In this paper, we report the findings from the data we collected from a survey in order to measure how common research ethics education in economics is. We have found out that (1) research ethics is taught in only a very few economics departments around the globe; (2) topics related to research ethics are not taught in courses on economics and ethics; and (3) the number of papers published in specialised peer-reviewed journals on economics education is only a tiny fraction of the number of papers published in these journals. There has been no evidence in economics showing that economics departments have taken strong initiative on teaching research ethics to undergraduate and graduate students.     

In Defense of Orthodox Economics

In addition to costs of time and money, joining an organization involves costs of conformity – a giving up of a certain amount of control over one’s own actions. The paper is an exploration of why this is a widespread choice. As an alternative to a cost/benefit type of analysis, social empowerment is proposed. Voluntary organizations, being a type of formal institution, are viewed as instruments which members can use for power, status and control.     

Economic Power and the Firm in New Institutional Economics: Two Conflicting Problems

The objective of this study has been to undertake an analysis of the economic and institutional determining factors of fiscal pressure in a group of European countries with different levels of economic development, recent history, or level of cooperation and integration among them. We have used a panel of data from 40 countries and a time period of eleven years. Apart from the variables generally used, we have introduced additional ones such as governing party ideology, rate of economic freedom of Euro-area countries, together with another set of institutional variables. Results obtained show that the purely economic model improves when institutional and geopolitical variables are included and, in this way, it is possible to see which countries governed by the left, belonging to the Euro-area or having been members of the Soviet block, and with economic freedom, are more liable to increase fiscal pressure.     

Organized Labor and Institutional Economics

This presidential address to the Association for Evolutionary Economics was delivered at the annual meeting in San Diego, California, on January 5, 2013.     

The Role of Nonattenuated Rights in Positive Economics: A Critical Appraisal

This article assesses the institutionalist elements of Friedrich Hayek's neoliberal political economy by presenting his views on the entangled relations between the state and markets in capitalism. Through the analysis of Hayek's work, the article contributes to further consolidating the view that neoliberalism is an ideological project of institutional transformation which, despite some enduring myths, has an irreplaceable role for a state with many important functions in a more limited democracy. Markets, for their part, are politically contested social constructions that depend on previous non-market institutions for their existence and legitimation. This paper argues that Hayek's work corroborates this institutionalist claim.     

Economics: Unfit for Purpose

This paper is a shortened and revised version of the Closing Plenary given to the World Congress of the Association of Social Economics, and Cairncross Lecture, University of Glasgow, June 2012. Mainstream economics is seen as unfit for purpose because of deficiencies that have long been criticised by a marginalised heterodoxy. These include the taking out of the historical and social even if bringing them back in on the basis of a technical apparatus and architecture that is sorely inappropriate. These observations are illustrated in passing reference to social capital but are particularly appropriate for understanding the weakness of ethics within mainstream economics. An alternative is offered through taking various “entanglements” (such as facts and values) as critical point of departure, leading to the suggestion that ethical systems are subject to the 10 Cs—Constructed, Construed, Conforming, Commodified, Contextual, Contradictory, Closed, Contested, Collective and Chaotic.     

The Health Services Industry: Realism in Social Control

The aim of the paper is to investigate the relationship between institutions and development ethics. In a value context, the center of the discussion between institutions and development ethics is based on confronting ethics as "means of the means," which implies that ethics is not only concerned with the ends of human action but also enters into the value dynamisms of the instruments utilized by development agents in achieving these ends: the means. A common acceptable definition of development ethics is the ethical reflection of the ends and means for any purposeful social-economic activity toward development. Institutions are the social cement that condition and enhance the roles agents play in economic life. We argue that development ethics and institutions are entwined: development ethics influence institutions and institutions influence development ethics.     

The 2016 Veblen-Commons Award Recipient: Daniel W. Bromley: Institutional Economics

Institutional economics remains impaired by a lack of agreement as to the meaning of the concept “institution.” At the practical level, this conceptual muddle prevents progress in the crucial task of helping problematic states in Africa, parts of South Asia, and the Middle East. Thousands of refugees seeking to enter Europe are a reminder of the tragic consequences of dysfunctional states. Standard international development programs — emphasizing economic growth and fighting poverty — are counter-productive because they fail to address the underlying institutional incoherence in fragile states. They are flawed because they focus on symptoms rather than reasons. A focus on the reasons for current dysfunctional states would bring attention to the defective institutional architecture — legal relations — that prevents the emergence of economic coherence where dysfunction now reigns. We must help countries craft economic institutions that will improve livelihoods. But conceptual coherence about institutions must first emerge from the academy.     

Institutionalism and the New Classical Economics

Neoliberalism has transformed markets supplying public goods. Analysis of five real-world Australian markets reveals the eligibility rules for access and ongoing participation, interaction of participants, the role of intermediaries and government, the extent of competition, complex regulatory regimes shaping and controlling these markets, and key market outcomes. Contrary to neoliberalism's free market rhetoric and the view promulgated by mainstream economics, a spectrum of market configurations and governance regimes were found along with participation being highly dependent on technology access and skills, market outcomes inconsistent with policy rhetoric, market interrelationships posing adverse cumulative impacts, and government is strongly interventionist through multiple roles.     

市场结构及市场效率的实验经济学综述

实验经济学对于市场效率和市场结构的研究最早在1948年由Chamberline开创。经济学家经过大量实验发现,不但市场前提假设关系到市场均衡结果及效率,交易制度也会对均衡产生重大影响。并且,不符合完全竞争市场假设的市场结构也有可能实现资源有效配置。本文对实验经济学关于市场结构及市场效率的相关研究进行了回顾与综述,并重点阐述其对完全竞争市场的研究,以揭示交易制度及市场前提对市场效率的综合影响。本文得到的结论显示：即使没有达到完全竞争市场的严格假设,也可能达到完全竞争市场的均衡状态,因而达到最优的配置效率。并且,对于市场结构——完全竞争、垄断和寡头垄断市场的实验研究也表明,并不是如传统古典经济学模型所言：只有完全竞争的市场结构才能够达到资源的有效配置,垄断市场效率也并不是完全与模型所言一致。而且不同于古典经济学,实验经济学将交易制度看作外生变量,认为其对最终市场效率也会产生很大影响。     

Pragmatism,Instrumental Value Theory and Social Economics

In an effort to restore trust in the banking sector, the Advisory Committee on the Future of Banks in the Netherlands made a recommendation, which has since been adopted, that bank executives be required to swear an oath akin to the physician's Hippocratic Oath. This examination of the prospects of the Dutch banker's oath addresses two broad issues. One issue is the efficacy of oaths themselves as instruments for achieving the desired end. A second issue concerns the extent to which this particular oath is a useful guide to ethical banking practice. One conclusion of this study is that it would be difficult for any oath in banking to serve a role that is analogous to the Hippocratic Oath in medicine because of the many dissimilarities involved, most notably the lack in banking of a singular focus on service. Second, the Dutch oath, while admirable in its lofty exhortations, fails to provide a reliable guide through the many difficult judgments that must be made in banking.     

生态危机语境下的林业院校生态伦理教育

21世纪是我国社会经济资源和环境进入可持续发展良性循环的世纪,生态伦理教育是解决生态危机和建设生态文明的重要途径。林业院校大学生作为新生社会生产力的中坚力量,其生态道德的水平和观念决定着我们民族的发展和未来。生态危机语境下对大学生开展生态伦理教育有利于使大学生确立生态危机和环境保护参与意识,培养对大自然的敬畏之感与欣赏之情,引导他们做一个保护生态、尊重生命、善待自然和适度消费的理性生态人。     

经济学研究的两大基本内容及其对知识结构的要求——对日益狭隘化的现代主流经济学之反思

经济学的根本目的是提高国民和社会的福利,这不仅关涉到自然资源的利用问题,而且关涉到人与人之间的社会关系。相应地,经济学的研究内容包含了伦理学和工程学两个方面:它们是相辅相成的,共同构建了整个经济学的理论大厦。事实上,不仅经济学与伦理学之间的关系源远流长,而且即使是专注于研究自然资源配置问题的主流经济学,也根本无法脱离具体的社会关系。正因如此,经济学的研究需要非常广泛的知识;否则,根本无法理解具体的经济现象,也无法提供合理的政策建议。然而,现代主流经济学日益局限于工程学一个方面,并极端地采取抽象化的分析路线,偏重于数理的训练而疏忽其他社会科学领域知识的吸收,从而造成了理论与现实的脱节。     

中国市场经济背景下诚信纳税的伦理问题浅析

在我国市场经济背景下,诚信是税收的保障,诚信纳税问题也越来越被人们所关注。历史因素的积淀,对我国税收征纳双方的行为产生了一定的影响,也影响了人们对税收的认识,并呈现出诚信纳税的伦理问题。针对诚信纳税伦理问题的研究,对规范税收征纳主体行为和实现诚信纳税提供对策和依据。     

商业道德行为缺失的经济学分析——基于信息不对称理论的视阈

信息不对称理论下,商业道德缺乏的表现形式有:商业欺诈、商业贿赂和道德风险等。当前我国的商业道德缺失已超越通常所理解的道德范畴,须以制度约束力加以矫正。这就需要政府、行业协会、企业和消费者等多方协调,齐抓共管,综合治理商业道德缺失的社会现象。     

An Alternative Approach to the Institutional Economics of the Eurozone Crisis

I argue that the Eurozone crisis is neither a crisis of European sovereigns in the sense of governmental over-borrowing, nor a crisis of sovereign debt market over-lending. Rather, it is a function of the “sovereign debt market” institution itself. Crisis, I argue, is not an occurrence, but an element fulfilling a precise technical function within this institution. It ensures the possibility of designating — in the market’s day-to-day mechanisms rather than analytical hindsight — normal (tranquil, undisturbed) market functioning. To show this, I propose an alternative view on the institutional economics of sovereign debt markets. First, I engage literature on the emergent qualities of the institutions “market” and “firm” in product markets, concluding that the point of coalescence for markets is the approximation of an optimal observation of consumer tastes. I then examine the specific institution “financial markets,” where the optimal observation of economic fundamentals is decisive. For the specific sub-institution “sovereign debt market,” I conclude that the fundamentals in question — country fundamentals — oscillate between a status of observable fundamentals outside of markets and operationalized fundamentals influenced by market movements. This, in turn, allows me to argue that the specific case of the Eurozone crisis is due to neither of the two causes mentioned above. Rather, the notion of “crisis” takes on a technical sense within the market structure, guaranteeing the separation of herd behavior and isomorphic behavior on European sovereign debt markets. By the same token, the so-called Eurozone crisis ceases to be a crisis in the conventional sense.     

Economics,Ethics and Thanatology: Lessons from the Ancients

The normative presuppositions motivating rational choice decision-making based on optimizing objectives amount to a thin account of ethical economic behavior. Ancient thought offers insights that can provide a firmer basis both for personal, individual choice as well as for public policy. After a brief review of Epicurean and Stoic ethical principles, a comparison is made of modern economic and Hellenistic conceptions of rationality and rational behavior. These competing conceptions are then applied to an examination of a contemporary public policy problem, namely health care, particularly as this applies to “end-of-life” issues. The argument concludes that decision-making based on a eudaimonic conception of the good has the potential to provide us with a more efficient health care system as well as one that more satisfactorily addresses the needs of the chronically ill and dying patients who account for a highly disproportionate share of health care expenditures.     

Economics,Ethics, and the Long Arc of Public Utilities: A Paper in Honor of Harry M. Trebing

Harry M. Trebing has made substantial contributions to the understanding of social control of economic enterprise, particularly in the regulation of public utilities. Imbued with institutional economic ways of knowing, he sustained the construct of progressive-era public interest regulation during a period of neoclassical economic assault on regulatory institutions.     

Kenneth Boulding's Theories of Evolutionary Economics and Organizational Change: A Reconstruction

I identify a discrepancy between Kenneth Boulding's wide-ranging contributions to evolutionary economics and his professed ecological approach to it. I argue that Boulding has undersold his true contributions to evolutionary economics by trying to embed them into the ecological approach. I endeavor to overcome this discrepancy by differentiating between two types of evolutionary change analyzed in Boulding's writings: ecological change and civilizational change. In contrast to ecological change, civilizational change entails the possibility for the evolving system to overstrain the carrying capacity of the environment, thus suggesting the precarious relationship between civilizational complexity and sustainability. This argument sheds new light on Boulding's theory of “social organizers,” such as exchange, threat, and the integrative system. Boulding's understanding of civilizational change envisages the key role of threat and exchange in enabling civilizational complexity, while the integrative system is called upon to make this complexity sustainable.     

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.