Ethical Assumptions in Economic Theory: Some Lessons from the History of Credit and Bankruptcy

This paper evaluates the economic assumptions of economic theory via an examination of the capitalist transformation of creditor–debtor relations in the 18th century. This transformation enabled masses of people to obtain credit without moral opprobrium or social subordination. Classical 18th century economics had the ethical concepts to appreciate these facts. Ironically, contemporary economic theory cannot. I trace this fault to its abstract representations of freedom, efficiency, and markets. The virtues of capitalism lie in the concrete social relations and social meanings through which capital and commodities are exchanged. Contrary to laissez faire capitalism, the conditions for sustaining these concrete capitalist formations require limits on freedom of contract and the scope of private property rights.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42724/1/10677_2004_Article_2202.pd

Is group selection necessary? An alternative interpretation of homogeneous Middleman groups: Comments on Janet Landa’s paper

Clubs, Group selection, Inclusive fitness, Social networks and norms, D71, Z13,

Community Values In Southwest Water Management

This paper challenges the applicability of the policy framework, labeled the new resource economics, to Western water management, particularly as applied to two examples examined in the paper: the Papago Tribe in South Central Arizona, and Hispanic villages along the Upper Rio Grande River. Contrary to the assumptions of new resource cconomics, water is regarded by these communities not just as an economic commodity but as a special resource closely related to community values. The paper concludes that should policy prescriptions of the new resource economics framework be adopted, community control over resources and the maintenance of traditional values would be eroded. The political system for all its shortcomings serves these communities better than pure market allocation of water. Copyright 1985 by The Policy Studies Organization.

NEW INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS AND THE ANALYSIS OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR

The development of New Institutional Economics (NIE), and especially its core components agency theory, property rights economics and transaction costs economics, appears to have provided policy analysts with powerful tools for the analysis of public sector organisational behaviour and design. In particular, the adoption by NIE of the concept of "bounded rationality" and its employment of a "comparative institutions" approach to the question of economic efficiency seems especially applicable to public bureaucracies. However, NIE is difficult to define with any degree of precision and may well possess an inherent bias towards normative policy prescription favouring market solutions to public sector problems. Copyright 2001 by The Policy Studies Organization.