İktisat doga bilimlerinin Mekke’si mi oluyor?: Toplumsal ve doga bilimleri iliskisi uzerine bir atıf analizi

This essay argues that articles in economics, especially in the fields of evolutionary and institutional economics, are as much cited in biology as in economics. The citation analysis conducted in the essay suggests that economics is now becoming the Mecca of biology

İktisat doga bilimlerinin Mekke’si mi oluyor?: Toplumsal ve doga bilimleri iliskisi uzerine bir atıf analizi

This essay argues that articles in economics, especially in the fields of evolutionary and institutional economics, are as much cited in biology as in economics. The citation analysis conducted in the essay suggests that economics is now becoming the Mecca of biology

The ‘Coase Theorem’ vs. Coase theorem proper: How an error emerged and why it remained uncorrected so long

The question of what is the 'Coase Theorem?' has no simple answer. The majority of articles covering a variety of issues on the 'Coase Theorem' still misrepresent the main message of Coase (1960). The remaining controversy over the 'Coase Theorem' is because the literature on Coase (1960) has been locked into a pathway which was set out by Stigler’s 1996 book, The Theory of Price. Even almost 50 years after the publication of Coase’s original article, the consequence of the initial condition under which Coase’s contribution was first formulated (Stigler 1966) is not perfectly eliminated. The evolution of the 'Coase Theorem' has now become an example to intellectual path dependence in economics

The Oomph in economic philosophy: a bibliometric analysis of the main trends, from the 1960s to the present

In this essay, I quantitatively analyze the significance of scholarship in economic philosophy since the 1960s. In order to do so, I examine, through the number of publications and citations, the evolution of the main trends in economic philosophy over a fifty years period. This paper will develop a better conception of how the pathways of major debates, in particular rhetoric of economics (RoE) versus realism in economics (RiE), helped economic philosophy achieve its present status in economics. Viewed through this lens, it is clear that the main trends in the recent history of the discipline have emerged out of the concerns of non-mainstream economists since the 1980s

On error: undisciplined thoughts on one of the causes of intellectual path dependency

Is there not any place in the history of ideas for the imperfect character of human doings (i.e. capability of error) that is repeated for so long until we lately start to think that it had long been wrong? The answer is: In the conventional histories of ideas there is almost none. The importance of the phenomenon,however, is immense. Intellectual history is full of errors. Scholarly errors are among the factors that generate intellectual pathways in which consequences of historical small events feed back up on each other positively and give rise to historical pathologies in the end. Pathways hold the intellectuals dependent on the consequences of errors which interact upon each other and prevent resulting pathologies to disappear fully. As a result, ideas do not converge to a level of perfection. Evolutionary account of errors suggests that errors in the history of ideas matter even though they are often corrected

Stories of Error and Vice Matter: Path Dependence, Paul David, and Efficiency and Optimality in Economics

Abstract: History books are full of success stories. Intellectuals are interested in such stories because they are important in human history – they are important especially for those who are willing to know more about how we have reached the peak points of human civilization. History books, however, do not always credit issues of human failure and error. The social element – that is, the set of undesirable consequences of the imperfect character of human doings – are thus left out as irrelevant. Oddities and wrongheadedness, for instance, are not at the forefronts of human notice. They are seen only as peculiarities to be corrected sooner or later. Human failure and error are important as they are often left uncorrected in time. That is to say, we keep repeating the same errors through time. Uncorrected errors of the past sometimes generate undesirability, dissatisfaction, and disappointment in the future, because such errors prevent us from producing pragmatic solutions to practical problems in the economy and society. They prevent us from reaching “the general equilibrium.” They prevent us from getting at “the fundamental truth.” The world is, therefore, not the best of all possible worlds. The world, unlike the portrayals of neo-classical economics in general and Paul Samuelson in particular, is a world of transaction costs, as Ronald Coase argued, in the form of human failure and error. Consequences of such errors, which do not disappear easily and without causing further trouble, make the idea impossible – the idea that perfection in the world of humans is achievable. I illustrate in the paper that there are such errors in human history that cause path dependence in the economy and society. Many errors in the past, I argue, are not corrected – they linger. History is therefore not only a bunch of success stories in the form of efficiencies and optimizations. History is also the stories of error – stories of path dependence. And such errors, too, should matter for historical economists

The ‘Coase Theorem’ vs. Coase theorem proper: How an error emerged and why it remained uncorrected so long

The question of what is the 'Coase Theorem?' has no simple answer. The majority of articles covering a variety of issues on the 'Coase Theorem' still misrepresent the main message of Coase (1960). The remaining controversy over the 'Coase Theorem' is because the literature on Coase (1960) has been locked into a pathway which was set out by Stigler’s 1996 book, The Theory of Price. Even almost 50 years after the publication of Coase’s original article, the consequence of the initial condition under which Coase’s contribution was first formulated (Stigler 1966) is not perfectly eliminated. The evolution of the 'Coase Theorem' has now become an example to intellectual path dependence in economics

The Oomph in economic philosophy: a bibliometric analysis of the main trends, from the 1960s to the present

In this essay, I quantitatively analyze the significance of scholarship in economic philosophy since the 1960s. In order to do so, I examine, through the number of publications and citations, the evolution of the main trends in economic philosophy over a fifty years period. This paper will develop a better conception of how the pathways of major debates, in particular rhetoric of economics (RoE) versus realism in economics (RiE), helped economic philosophy achieve its present status in economics. Viewed through this lens, it is clear that the main trends in the recent history of the discipline have emerged out of the concerns of non-mainstream economists since the 1980s

The Economics of Rhetoric: On Metaphors as Institutions

The professional life of economists takes place within the boundaries of the institution of academic economics. Belonging to the institution enable economists in many ways. It provides a context wherein their contribution is meaningful. But it constrains, too, what economists are allowed to do or say. Thus, institutions both enable and constrain individual action. Metaphors do the same and are therefore, in this respect, institutions. They are place-holders to communicate our beliefs, feelings, and thoughts. So far, there is nothing wrong. This may become a problem, however, as Richard Rorty has once said, when the “happenstance of our cultural development [is] that we got stuck so long with place-holders.” In the essay we focus on the enabling and disabling roles of metaphors as institutions in the rhetoric of economics. We argue, from the perspective of economics of rhetoric, that some of the metaphors can lead us to path dependent circumstances where the performance of the metaphors is not as desirable as it was when the metaphors were first introduced. Sometimes certain metaphors undergo exaptation, and are employed with new functions. Altogether, we believe, the tools of institutional economics can be fruitfully employed to study metaphors.Economics of rhetoric; metaphors as Institutions; path Dependence; exaptation