scholarly journals Cooter and Rappoport on the Normative

1990 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Research Agenda ◽  
Utility Theory ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Neoclassical Economics ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Cardinal Utility ◽  
Ordinal Utility ◽  
Widespread Acceptance ◽  
The One ◽  
Interpersonal Utility Comparisons

In a recent examination of the origins of ordinal utility theory in neoclassical economics, Robert D. Cooter and Peter Rappoport argue that the ordinalist revolution of the 1930s, after which most economists abandoned interpersonal utility comparisons as normative and unscientific, constituted neither unambiguous progress in economic science nor the abandonment of normative theorizing, as many economists and historians of economic thought have generally believed (Cooter and Rappoport, 1984). Rather, the widespread acceptance of ordinalism, with its focus on Pareto optimality, simply represented the emergence of a new neoclassical research agenda that, on the one hand, defined economics differently than had the material welfare theorists of the cardinal utility school and, on the other, adopted a positivist methodology in contrast to the less restrictive empiricism of the cardinalists.

DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS AND THE “RUSSIAN CASE”: THE IMPACT OF RUSSIA’S REALITIES AND THINKERS IN THE MID-TWENTIETH-CENTURY DEBATE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
EZEQUIEL ADAMOVSKY
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

The aim of this article is to explore whether there is a relevant impact of the Russian case and of Russian economic thought on the twentieth-century Western debate on economic development. It is argued that things Russian continued to have an impact on this notion, similar to the one we have found for the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Russia’s historical experience provided an important standpoint from which to think and rethink the meaning of economic development. As in the previous centuries, Russia’s paradoxical presence—between Europe and Asia, backward but also modern, an “apprentice” who now claimed the position of a teacher—helped to spark new thinking. The resistance of some of her intellectuals and policy makers to accept the certainties of the mainstream of the economic science contributed to raise doubts regarding the validity of Western conceptual frameworks.

From Freakonomics to Political Economy

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Fine ◽  
Dimitris Milonakis
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Neoclassical Economics ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

AbstractIn this response to the symposium on our two books we try to deal as fully as possible in the brief space available with most of the major issues raised by our distinguished commentators. Although at least three of them are in agreement with the main thrust of the arguments put forward in our books, they all raise important issues relating to methodology, the history of economic thought (including omissions), and a number of more specific issues. Our answer is based on the restatement of the chief purpose of our two books, describing the intellectual history of the evolution of economic science emphasising the role of the excision of the social and the historical from economic theorising in the transition from (classical) political economy to (neoclassical) economics, only for the two to be reunited through the vulgar form of economics imperialism following the monolithic dominance of neoclassical economics at the expense of pluralism after the Second World War. The importance of political economy for the future of economic science is vigorously argued for.

scholarly journals CUESTIONES ÉTICAS Y EMOCIONALES ALREDEDOR DEL EGOÍSMO ECONÓMICO

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (304) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Patrici Calvo
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Psychological Egoism ◽  
The Game Theory ◽  
Siglo Xix ◽  
Joseph Butler ◽  
The One ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Bernard Mandeville

<p><strong>RESUMEN</strong></p><p>El autointerés constituye el principal postulado de la teoría económica ortodoxa. Se trata de una perspectiva que ancla sus raíces en el egoísmo psicológico del siglo XVII, que se abre paso en el pensamiento económico a través de los trabajos de autores como Bernard Mandeville y Joseph Butler durante el siglo XVIII, y que encuentra su lugar en la ciencia económica con la revolución marginalista y la posterior emergencia de la escuela neoclásica a lo largo de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. Sin embargo, la teoría de juegos, en su versión tradicional, evolutiva y neuronal, lleva décadas mostrando una realidad comportamental del agente económico motivacionalmente heterogénea y moralmente comprometida. Por ello, el objetivo del presente estudio será doble. Por un lado, mostrar cómo nace, concreta y desarrolla la perspectiva egoísta para la economía, y, por otro, dilucidar cuál es la perspectiva comportamental que subyace de los últimos estudios neuroeconómicos.</p><p><strong><br /></strong></p><p><strong>ETHICAL AND EMOTIONAL QUESTIONS ON ECONOMIC EGOISM</strong></p><p><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p><p>Self-interest is the main postulate of the orthodox economic theory. It is a perspective that takes root in the psychological egoism of the 17th century, which opens out to economic thought through the works of authors like Bernard Mandeville and Joseph Butler in the 18th century, and which has found its place in economic science with the marginalist revolution and the subsequent appearance of the Neoclassic School in the second half of the 19th century. Nonetheless, in its traditional evolutionary and neuronal version, the Game Theory has spent decades showing a completely different behavioural reality of the economic agent: One that is motivationally heterogeneous and morally compromised. Therefore, the objective of the present study is twofold: on the one hand, to show how the egoistic perspective for economy comes about, is specified and develops; on the other hand, elucidate the behavioural perspective that underlies the latest neuroeconomic studies.</p>

Cardinal Versus Ordinal Utility: António Horta Osório's Contribution

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Eugénia Mata
Keyword(s):  
General Equilibrium ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Cardinal Utility ◽  
Demand Theory ◽  
Ordinal Utility ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Utility Indifference

The history of economic thought remembers António Horta Osório for Schumpeter's reference to him in the History of Economic Analysis, in the context of a general appraisal of available works using mathematical instruments and language. This, however, does not do him justice, as he should also be praised for his pioneering interpretation of Pareto's general equilibrium. According to Stigler (1965), the definitive substitution of the cardinal utility hypothesis for the ordinal utility perspective was achieved by Johnson (1913) and Slutsky (1915). Weber (2001) discusses how far Pareto used cardinality, elects Slutsky (1915) as a pioneer of demand theory and prefers to reserve to R. G. Allen (1932–34), L. R. Klein and H. Rubin (1947–48), Samuelson (1947–48), R. C. Geary (1950–51), and Richard Stone (1954) the role of establishing ordinal utility in studying the utility function. This paper shows that Osório (1911) considered the subject of ordinalism before Johnson and Slutsky addressed the issue, as he had rejected the possibility of measuring utility and clearly stated that general equilibrium is not affected if cardinality is replaced by the ordinal conception for utility, according to Pareto's last formulation. Upon reading his book it becomes clear that not only was he perfectly aware of Edgeworth's contribution on the utility indifference curves, but also of Pareto's attempts to preserve general equilibrium from Fisher's criticism against cardinalism. Historians of economic thought have forgotten one of the early twentieth-century neoclassical economists. In this way the History of Economics has neglected an interesting proof of the consolidation of the Paretian ideas on ordinality, an issue that was an exciting and uncharted territory at that moment.

Plotinus’ “Reverse” Platonism: A Deleuzian Response to the Problem of Emanation Imagery

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gina Zavota
Keyword(s):  
Widespread Acceptance ◽  
The One

Gina Zavota’s “Plotinus’ ‘Reverse’ Platonism: A Deleuzian Response to the Problem of Emanation Imagery” attempts a radical rethinking of the Plotinian question of emanation through the lens of Deleuze’s account of ontological individuation and actualization. Zavota notes that, despite its widespread acceptance as a Plotinian concept, Plotinus himself acknowledges the inadequacy of the language of emanation. Rather, just as Deleuze’s virtual Idea does not impose order upon the plane of consistency but instead simply indicates divergent lines of generation, Plotinus’ One does not predetermine the organization of things from above. Instead, the variety of generated objects, from the Intellect down to the barest material particulars, self-organize through the inherently generative operation of contemplation or turning towards the One. Thus contemplation is an act of differentiation, and Plotinus’ philosophy can be read as a counter-Platonism or divergent-Platonism.

Körper und Krankheit, Maschine und Mechanik

2016 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristoffer Klammer
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
The Other ◽  
Specific Structure ◽  
Economic Crises ◽  
The One

AbstractEconomic language as well as figures of economic thought and bodies of knowledge are to a great extent organized in metaphorical terms. Certainly, the metaphorical content of discourse on economic crises cannot be ignored. In fact metaphors are fundamental elements of these discourses. This contribution addresses two especially prevalent and efficacious groups of metaphors: on the one hand, images of body and disease, on the other those of machinery and mechanics. Drawing on the examples of three economic crises of the 20th century, different manifestations of these verbal images are identified and their discursive features illustrated. Finally, the question is examined which factors influence the specific structure of “metaphor households” in crisis discourses.

scholarly journals Antonio Rosmini’s Social Ethics and his Relationship to German Thought

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-50
Author(s):  
Markus Krienke
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Social Ethics ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Market Economy ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
The One ◽  
Social Market

Abstract Putting the economic and social–ethical thought of Rosmini in relationship to the German tradition of social market economy, either a pertinent collocation of the liberal catholic thinker Rosmini or new perspectives for the concept of social market economy, which is in search for a new identity, have been made. The justification of this paper lies in the fact that Rosmini introduced the idea of social justice right in the sense of social market economy, on the one hand, and in the way in which the late 19th-centrury economic theory in Italy received his economic thought, on the other hand. Hence, despite his theoretical and cultural distance from Röpke, both have many interesting economic reflections in common.

scholarly journals The Cost of Information in Dependence on the Investor Relation to the Risk

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-85
Author(s):  
Simona Hašková
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Utility Theory ◽  
Investment Decision ◽  
Investment Decisions ◽  
Reliable Estimate ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Cardinal Utility ◽  
Finance Theory ◽  
The Cost

Abstract The contribution sets simple mathematic models describing and explaining the way of behavior of various types of investors (the private and institutionalized ones). The models come from the cardinal utility theory which is used for explaining the connection between the subjective relationship towards risk and some pathologic phenomenon of finance theory (for example the moral hazard question of institutionalized investors) and takes into account the decision making of both ordinary people and professional investors. A reliable estimate of the economic surroundings where the investment should run contributes significantly to a quality of the particular investment decisions. The article contributes to a quality of the investment decision by the original and primary approach to pricing information that lowers the uncertainty in occurrences of the relevant scenarios of the project’s development. At the conclusion there is shown how the shift of the decision breaking point shapes the amount of the acceptable price of the information.

Conventions, Operations, Predictions

2018 ◽  
pp. 193-214
Author(s):  
Ivan Moscati
Keyword(s):  
Expected Utility ◽  
Utility Theory ◽  
Choice Behavior ◽  
Expected Utility Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Utility Analysis ◽  
Utility Measurement ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Phase ◽  
Ordinal Utility

Chapter 12 analyzes the third phase of the debate on expected utility theory, from the end of 1952 to 1955. The issues concerning the nature of utility measurement gained an autonomous status in this phase. Milton Friedman, Leonard J. Savage, Robert Strotz, Armen Alchian, and Daniel Ellsberg argued that measuring utility consists of assigning numbers to objects by following a definite set of operations. While the particular way of assigning utility numbers to objects is largely arbitrary and conventional, the assigned numbers should allow economists to predict individuals’ choice behavior. This is similar to the operational conception advanced by psychologist Stanley Smith Stevens and definitively liberates utility measurement from its remaining ties with units and ratios. The novel view of measurement quickly became standard among mainstream utility theorists, and its success helps explain the peaceful cohabitation of cardinal and ordinal utility within utility analysis that began in the mid-1950s.

scholarly journals THE DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIST AS HISTORIAN OF ECONOMICS: THE CASE OF WILLIAM J. BARBER

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (03) ◽  
pp. 325-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Boianovsky
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Time Span ◽  
East India Company ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
British East India Company ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

The paper shows how William Barber’s background as a development economist influenced his research agenda in the history of economic thought, in terms of the questions he asked and the way he approached them. The links between the history of economic theory and of policy-making are highlighted, as well as Barber’s investigation of the engagement of British economists with India’s economic matters throughout the time span of the British East India Company.

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