Jacob Mincer
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199211319
- eISBN:
- 9780191705748
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199211319.003.0008
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, History of Economic Thought
This final chapter sums up the analysis of Jacob Mincer's prolific and interesting career. It also highlights the hallmarks of Mincer's approach to economic analysis. It points out his major ...
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This final chapter sums up the analysis of Jacob Mincer's prolific and interesting career. It also highlights the hallmarks of Mincer's approach to economic analysis. It points out his major contributions to economic analysis and suggests the topics and features by which his work will continue to influence future generations of (labor) economists.Less
This final chapter sums up the analysis of Jacob Mincer's prolific and interesting career. It also highlights the hallmarks of Mincer's approach to economic analysis. It points out his major contributions to economic analysis and suggests the topics and features by which his work will continue to influence future generations of (labor) economists.
David Colander and Craig Freedman
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691179209
- eISBN:
- 9780691184050
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691179209.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
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 ...
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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. This book argues 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 book explains 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, the book examines 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, the book makes the case for a more nuanced and self-aware policy analysis by economists.Less
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. This book argues 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 book explains 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, the book examines 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, the book makes the case for a more nuanced and self-aware policy analysis by economists.
Ibrahim Warde
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748612161
- eISBN:
- 9780748653072
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748612161.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
Any successful belief system, whether religious or secular, has contradictory characteristics: it is flexible enough to adapt to several geographical settings and to survive the test of time, but it ...
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Any successful belief system, whether religious or secular, has contradictory characteristics: it is flexible enough to adapt to several geographical settings and to survive the test of time, but it must also be able to maintain its specificity, or it would disappear or become fused with the competing belief system. It is idealistic or sometimes utopian, yet it is capable of adjusting to human imperfection and making the kind of compromises that are endemic to political and economic life. Bearing this in mind, a better understanding of how a system rooted in the Middle Ages could have survived and thrived in the global economy can be derived. Following a broad overview of the parallel evolution of religion and history, this chapter explores and examines the ways in which Islam and Islamic economics and finance have adapted to and thrived against the changing circumstances and the advent of globalisation. It also explains how Islam came to accommodate itself within modern economics and finance given the characteristics of Islamic finance, which is tightly bounded to religion and the Shariah principles.Less
Any successful belief system, whether religious or secular, has contradictory characteristics: it is flexible enough to adapt to several geographical settings and to survive the test of time, but it must also be able to maintain its specificity, or it would disappear or become fused with the competing belief system. It is idealistic or sometimes utopian, yet it is capable of adjusting to human imperfection and making the kind of compromises that are endemic to political and economic life. Bearing this in mind, a better understanding of how a system rooted in the Middle Ages could have survived and thrived in the global economy can be derived. Following a broad overview of the parallel evolution of religion and history, this chapter explores and examines the ways in which Islam and Islamic economics and finance have adapted to and thrived against the changing circumstances and the advent of globalisation. It also explains how Islam came to accommodate itself within modern economics and finance given the characteristics of Islamic finance, which is tightly bounded to religion and the Shariah principles.
Roger W. Spencer and David A. Macpherson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027960
- eISBN:
- 9780262325868
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027960.003.0003
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This chapter describes the life of Paul A. Samuelson, who received the Nobel Prize in 1970. It examines the years of his development as an economist. He was born in 1915, and studied economics at the ...
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This chapter describes the life of Paul A. Samuelson, who received the Nobel Prize in 1970. It examines the years of his development as an economist. He was born in 1915, and studied economics at the University of Chicago, Midway, in the 1930s, and received his Ph.D from Harvard in 1941. While still an undergraduate student, he discerned that mathematics was to revolutionize modern economics. He was then professor of economics at MIT until 2009. His Foundations of Economic Analysis contributed to his being awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize. His success it seems was due to his tremendous energy in writing articles about economics and economic relationships. He also wrote many technical articles. Among his key publications are Foundations of Economic Analysis and Linear Programming and Economic Analysis.Less
This chapter describes the life of Paul A. Samuelson, who received the Nobel Prize in 1970. It examines the years of his development as an economist. He was born in 1915, and studied economics at the University of Chicago, Midway, in the 1930s, and received his Ph.D from Harvard in 1941. While still an undergraduate student, he discerned that mathematics was to revolutionize modern economics. He was then professor of economics at MIT until 2009. His Foundations of Economic Analysis contributed to his being awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize. His success it seems was due to his tremendous energy in writing articles about economics and economic relationships. He also wrote many technical articles. Among his key publications are Foundations of Economic Analysis and Linear Programming and Economic Analysis.
Matt Price
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226136806
- eISBN:
- 9780226136820
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226136820.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter explores a specifically twentieth- (and now twenty-first) century conundrum: how to assess the value of nature and natural goods, and to weigh that value against other goods in a moral ...
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This chapter explores a specifically twentieth- (and now twenty-first) century conundrum: how to assess the value of nature and natural goods, and to weigh that value against other goods in a moral calculus. The contemporary obsession with nature's value reopens a question that John Locke thought he had solved in the seventeenth century. Indeed, modern economics begins with his all-but-categorical denial of the value of nature's works. The labor theory of value required it: Locke needed to show that human activity was the true source of all value, thereby grounding his theory of property, his liberal version of the social contract, and his arguments on political authority. If the lands untouched by human toil, and their value, had to be sacrificed on the altar of property, that was hardly controversial in an era when “wilderness” was a term of abuse. But ever since the hedonic theory of utilitarianism captured political economy from the dismal scientists, economists have rejected toil in favor of pleasure, and spaces once called wastelands are now more often named wetlands.Less
This chapter explores a specifically twentieth- (and now twenty-first) century conundrum: how to assess the value of nature and natural goods, and to weigh that value against other goods in a moral calculus. The contemporary obsession with nature's value reopens a question that John Locke thought he had solved in the seventeenth century. Indeed, modern economics begins with his all-but-categorical denial of the value of nature's works. The labor theory of value required it: Locke needed to show that human activity was the true source of all value, thereby grounding his theory of property, his liberal version of the social contract, and his arguments on political authority. If the lands untouched by human toil, and their value, had to be sacrificed on the altar of property, that was hardly controversial in an era when “wilderness” was a term of abuse. But ever since the hedonic theory of utilitarianism captured political economy from the dismal scientists, economists have rejected toil in favor of pleasure, and spaces once called wastelands are now more often named wetlands.
Adrian Kuenzler
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- August 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190698577
- eISBN:
- 9780190698607
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190698577.003.0006
- Subject:
- Law, Company and Commercial Law
This chapter contrasts the accepted account with more progressive notions of what constitutes progress. It shows that scholars of information production, software development, and the networking ...
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This chapter contrasts the accepted account with more progressive notions of what constitutes progress. It shows that scholars of information production, software development, and the networking industries have long recognized that the fundamental economic characteristics of the social organization of production can be framed not only based on an argument around scarcity—as the present market regulatory account does—but alternatively also on a story about abundance. This reading involves the promotion of new innovation through commons-based systems of economic production that underlie new models of technological and cultural innovation, as well as the teachings and lessons from open source, intellectual property law’s negative space and the literature on spillover effects and modern infrastructure economics. The chapter shows how market access thinking can be applied not only to traditional infrastructure resources such as waterways, highways, or bridges but also to everyday consumer goods and services.Less
This chapter contrasts the accepted account with more progressive notions of what constitutes progress. It shows that scholars of information production, software development, and the networking industries have long recognized that the fundamental economic characteristics of the social organization of production can be framed not only based on an argument around scarcity—as the present market regulatory account does—but alternatively also on a story about abundance. This reading involves the promotion of new innovation through commons-based systems of economic production that underlie new models of technological and cultural innovation, as well as the teachings and lessons from open source, intellectual property law’s negative space and the literature on spillover effects and modern infrastructure economics. The chapter shows how market access thinking can be applied not only to traditional infrastructure resources such as waterways, highways, or bridges but also to everyday consumer goods and services.
Herbert Hovenkamp
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199782796
- eISBN:
- 9780190261351
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199782796.003.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, History of Economic Thought
This chapter focuses on the classical economic theories that influenced modern economics in Western Europe and the United States. It considers two movements: the “classical political economy” ...
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This chapter focuses on the classical economic theories that influenced modern economics in Western Europe and the United States. It considers two movements: the “classical political economy” associated with Adam Smith, whose work The Wealth of Nations is considered to be the origin of free market ideology, and neoclassical economics or “political economy”, with emphasis on thinking mainly about policy. It looks into the development of classical political economy in England by analyzing Smith's theories together with his followers, and describes how this affected economic policy in the United States. It considers the differences in labor practices between England and America and how this became the basis for the development of neoclassicism in the U.S., with one of its highest points being the passing of the Sherman Act.Less
This chapter focuses on the classical economic theories that influenced modern economics in Western Europe and the United States. It considers two movements: the “classical political economy” associated with Adam Smith, whose work The Wealth of Nations is considered to be the origin of free market ideology, and neoclassical economics or “political economy”, with emphasis on thinking mainly about policy. It looks into the development of classical political economy in England by analyzing Smith's theories together with his followers, and describes how this affected economic policy in the United States. It considers the differences in labor practices between England and America and how this became the basis for the development of neoclassicism in the U.S., with one of its highest points being the passing of the Sherman Act.
