The Economics of Economists: Institutional Setting, Individual Incentives, and Future Prospects

Description

The profession of academic economics has been widely criticized for being excessively dependent on technical models based on unrealistic assumptions about rationality and individual behavior, and yet it remains a sparsely studied area. This volume presents a series of background readings on the profession by leading scholars in the history of economic thought and economic methodology. Adopting a fresh critique, the contributors investigate the individual incentives prevalent in academic economics, describing economists as rational actors who react to their intellectual environment and the incentives for economic research. Timely topics are addressed, including the financial crisis and the consequences for the discipline, as well as more traditional themes such as pluralism in research, academic organizations, teaching methodology, gender issues and professional ethics. This collection will appeal to scholars working on topics related to economic methodology and the teaching of economics.

Alessandro Lanteri is Assistant Professor of Management in the Olayan School of Business at the American University of Beirut. His research rests at the border between economics, ethics and psychology and has appeared in the European Journal of the History of Economics Thought, Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies and the Journal of Business Ethics. Jack Vromen is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is also academic director of EIPE (Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics). His research focuses on theoretical and meta-theoretical issues in economics and evolution. Recently he has also developed research interests in neuro-economics, in social mechanisms and in the popularizing 'Economics Made Fun' genre.

'This is a very important and much-needed contribution to scholarship on the economics profession. Is there herding behavior in economics? Is the profession unable to address issues of fundamental concern on account of its social organization? These questions and many others are investigated in this very welcome volume.' John B. Davis, Marquette University, Wisconsin and Universiteit van Amsterdam 'This collection of essays offers vivid images of the academic economic profession, taken from various angles and perspectives. It is attentive to the practices, self-representations and stereotypes of this tribe and judicious on the conflicting evidence emerging from the literature. It turns a non-distorting mirror on the dismal science players, revealing an interesting and informative picture, but it is also thought-provoking in mapping wrong routes and suggesting alternative travel.' Maria Cristina Marcuzzo, Universita degli Studi di Roma 'La Sapienza', Italy 'Immersion in the science studies literature ought to lead economists into engaging in the self-referential enterprise of rethinking their own presuppositions. Since the phenomenon of science revolves around the process of learning about the intrinsically unknown and inherently unforeseeable, it provokes reconsideration of many of the deep issues dividing economists, such as rationality, uncertainty and methodological individualism. This volume takes important steps in opening up space for a more synergetic approach to 'science' and the 'economy'.' Esther-Mirjam Sent, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen