The Positive and the Normative in Economic Thought

The Positive and the Normative in Economic Thought PDF Author: Sina Badiei
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000604071
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
The book responds to the need for greater clarity regarding the relationship between descriptive, evaluative and prescriptive approaches within positive and normative economics. It also analyses the entanglement between evaluative and prescriptive perspectives within several theoretical frameworks in normative economics such as social choice theory, the capability approach, behavioural welfare economics and various theories of justice. It provides a forum for discussion between various schools of economic thought and several theoretical frameworks on the relationship between the study of facts, norms and values, with particular emphasis on classical political economy, the Marxian school of economics, the Frankfurt School, the Austrian school, the Chicago school, rational choice theory, expected utility theory, behavioural economics, experimental economics, development economics, welfare economics, public economics, constitutional political economy, the capability approach and politico-economic theories of justice. Given the scope of questions treated in this book, it will be of interest to economists, historians of economic thought, political philosophers and philosophers of science, especially those interested in the philosophy and epistemology of economics.

The Positive and the Normative in Economic Thought

The Positive and the Normative in Economic Thought PDF Author: Sina Badiei
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000604071
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Get Book Here

Book Description
The book responds to the need for greater clarity regarding the relationship between descriptive, evaluative and prescriptive approaches within positive and normative economics. It also analyses the entanglement between evaluative and prescriptive perspectives within several theoretical frameworks in normative economics such as social choice theory, the capability approach, behavioural welfare economics and various theories of justice. It provides a forum for discussion between various schools of economic thought and several theoretical frameworks on the relationship between the study of facts, norms and values, with particular emphasis on classical political economy, the Marxian school of economics, the Frankfurt School, the Austrian school, the Chicago school, rational choice theory, expected utility theory, behavioural economics, experimental economics, development economics, welfare economics, public economics, constitutional political economy, the capability approach and politico-economic theories of justice. Given the scope of questions treated in this book, it will be of interest to economists, historians of economic thought, political philosophers and philosophers of science, especially those interested in the philosophy and epistemology of economics.

The Foundations of Positive and Normative Economics

The Foundations of Positive and Normative Economics PDF Author: Andrew Caplin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199890110
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
The Foundations of Positive and Normative Economics: A Handbook is the first book in a new series by Andrew Caplin and Andrew Schotter. There is currently no guide available on the rapidly changing methodological frontiers of the field of economics. Economists have been introducing new theories and new sources of data at a remarkable rate in recent years, and there are widely divergent views both on how productive these expansions have been in the past, and how best to make progress in the future. The speed of these changes has left economists ill at ease, and has created a backlash against new methods. The series will debate these critical issues, allowing proponents of a particular research method to present proposals in a safe yet critical context, with alternatives being clarified. This first volume, written by some of the most prominent researchers in the discipline, reflects the challenges that are opened by new research opportunities. The goal of the current volume and the series it presages, is to formally open a dialog on methodology. The editors' conviction is that such a debate will rebound to the benefit of social science in general, and economics in particular. The issues under discussion strike to the very heart of the social scientific enterprise. This work is of tremendous importance to all who are interested in the contributions that academic research can make not only to our scientific understanding, but also to matters of policy.

Positive Economics and Policy Objectives

Positive Economics and Policy Objectives PDF Author: T.W. Hutchison
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136519254
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
This book examines important issues on the relationship between economics and political values or ideologies, by analysing the main branches of economic theory in an historical perspective and their impact on economic policy. The book is structured as follows: Part I: Positive Economics? 1. The Positive-Normative Distinction in the History of Economic Thought Part II: Policy Objectives 2. The Objectives of Economic Policies: An Historical Review

The Methodology of Positive Economics

The Methodology of Positive Economics PDF Author: Uskali Mäki
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521867010
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
A team of world-renowned experts cast new light on Milton Friedman's 1953 essay 'The methodology of positive economics'.

Normative Economics in the History of Economic Thought

Normative Economics in the History of Economic Thought PDF Author: Sina Badiei
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781032423425
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"This book examines the role of normative economics in the writings of Karl Marx, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman and Karl Popper. The book shows that while distinguishing positive from normative economics can be helpful, this distinction should not minimize the importance of normative economics or reject the possibility of offering objective evaluations of social phenomena and policies in normative economics. The book offers a critical assessment of the attempts by Marx, Mises and Friedman to reduce scientific economics to the positive analysis of social phenomena alone. Through a meticulous analysis of their work, the book shows that their positive theories fail to justify their evaluations of economic phenomena and policies. The book then draws on the writings of Popper to maintain that we should place normative economics at the center of economics. The book argues that normative economics can choose the norms underlying its evaluations of social situations and policies objectively and relies on some of Popper's ideas to offer some criteria that can facilitate the selection of these norms. The book will be of interest to economists, historians of economic thought, philosophers of economics and political theorists and philosophers"--

Religion and Economics: Normative Social Theory

Religion and Economics: Normative Social Theory PDF Author: J.M. Dean
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940114401X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Normative Social Theory James M. Dean and A. M. C. Waterman University of Manitoba 1. Economics and Religion Once Again This hook is a sequel to Economics and Religion: Are They Distinct? (Brennan and Waterman 1994). That volume was motivated by a frustration born of many disappointing encounters between economists and theologians in the 1980s. Can bishops, synods, and other voices of organized religion bring any interesting (and disinterested) contribution to the public policy debate? If so, what is the relation of their contribution to that of the purely "secular" knowledge economists believe they can supply? Can economists bring any interesting (and disinterested) contribution to the public policy debate? If so, what is the relation of their contribution to the fundamental values that inform social ethics and that are still guarded to a large extent by religious tradition? All too often the two sides talked at cross-purposes. Well-intentioned economists coexisted for a few hours or days with well intentioned theologians whose manner of conceiving social reality was radically incompatible with their own. There seemed to be no common ground. The first requisite of any genuine conversation is an agreed conceptual framework that is able to accommodate the peculiar social vision both of the economist and of theologian, and to display the logical relation between the two.

The Nature and Method of Economic Sciences

The Nature and Method of Economic Sciences PDF Author: Ricardo F. Crespo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429842082
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
The Nature and Method of Economic Sciences: Evidence, Causality, and Ends argues that economic phenomena can be examined from five analytical levels: a statistical descriptive approach, a causal explanatory approach, a teleological explicative approach, a normative approach and, finally, the level of application. The above viewpoints are undertaken by different but related economic sciences, including statistics and economic history, positive economics, normative economics, and the ‘art of political economy’. Typically, positive economics has analysed economic phenomena using the second approach, causally explaining and often trying to predict the future evolution of the economy. It has not been concerned with the ends selected by the individual or society, taking them as given. However, various new economic currents have emerged during the last 40 years, and some of these do assign a fundamental role to ends within economics. This book argues that the field of positive economics should adapt to deal with the issues that arise from this. The text attempts to discern the nature of economic phenomena, introducing the different approaches and corresponding economic sciences. It goes on to analyse the epistemological characteristics of these in the subsequent chapters, as well as their disciplinary interrelations. This book is a valuable resource for students and scholars of the social sciences, philosophy, and the philosophy of economics. It will also be of interest to those researching political economy and the development of economic thought.

Essays in Positive Economics

Essays in Positive Economics PDF Author: Milton Friedman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226264033
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This paper is concerned primarily with certain methodological problems that arise in constructing the "distinct positive science" that John Neville Keynes called for, in particular, the problem how to decide whether a suggested hypothesis or theory should be tentatively accepted as part of the "body of systematized knowledge concerning what is."

Reassessing the Paradigm of Economics

Reassessing the Paradigm of Economics PDF Author: Valeria Mosini
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136658203
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
When President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher adopted the neoliberal doctrine as the paradigm of economics, there was no evidence that the move would have been successful, but thirty years on, the recurrent crises that culminated in 2008 suggest a serious mis-match between expectations and outcomes: a re-examination of the paradigm is in order. This book focuses on Milton Friedman’s formulation of the neoliberal doctrine, and analyses two aspects that were essential to turning it into a fully-fledged paradigm: the attribution of scientific status to positive economics, which led to informing public policies on the requirements of the market; and the characterisation of economic freedom as capable of promoting political freedom, which led to identifying free market with democracy. The book exposes Friedman’s methodological argument for attributing positive economics scientific status as a failure, and his characterisation of economic freedom as a delusion; it identifies in the emergence as the mainstream in economics of the neoclassical synthesis, which borrowed from Walras’ the mathematical treatment of equilibrium but not the ethical and social framework in which it was inscribed, a development that facilitated the transition from the Keynesian to the neoliberal paradigm. Dr. Mosini shows that the gigantic bail-outs carried out courtesy of the public purse, which institutionalised the practice of collectivising losses while keeping profits private, were no accident, but the consequence of the rethinking of the function of lender of last resort according to Friedman’s conception of rationality in relation to risk, combined with his interpretation of the 1930s recession. The book concludes that the neoliberal paradigm has served the interests of the economically powerful social strata it was designed to benefit extremely well, but that the deep, and deepening, injustice it has brought about calls for a complete rethinking of the paradigm of economics according to ethical principles respectful of human values. This book should be of interest to students and researchers of Political Economy, Economic Methodology, History of Economic Thought and Philosophy.

Where Economics Went Wrong

Where Economics Went Wrong PDF Author: David Colander
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691179204
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
How modern economics abandoned classical liberalism and lost its way Milton Friedman once predicted that advances in scientific economics would resolve debates about whether raising the minimum wage is good policy. Decades later, Friedman’s prediction has not come true. In Where Economics Went Wrong, David Colander and Craig Freedman argue that it never will. Why? Because economic policy, when done correctly, is an art and a craft. It is not, and cannot be, a science. The authors explain why classical liberal economists understood this essential difference, why modern economists abandoned it, and why now is the time for the profession to return to its classical liberal roots. Carefully distinguishing policy from science and theory, classical liberal economists emphasized values and context, treating economic policy analysis as a moral science where a dialogue of sensibilities and judgments allowed for the same scientific basis to arrive at a variety of policy recommendations. Using the University of Chicago—one of the last bastions of classical liberal economics—as a case study, Colander and Freedman examine how both the MIT and Chicago variants of modern economics eschewed classical liberalism in their attempt to make economic policy analysis a science. By examining the way in which the discipline managed to lose its bearings, the authors delve into such issues as the development of welfare economics in relation to economic science, alternative voices within the Chicago School, and exactly how Friedman got it wrong. Contending that the division between science and prescription needs to be restored, Where Economics Went Wrong makes the case for a more nuanced and self-aware policy analysis by economists.