Economics, social policy and social administration: the interplay between topics and disciplines

The article uses a distinction between topic and discipline to argue that social administration, like economics, is characterized by both, but that social administration has the special advantage, in treating the topic of social policy, of being multi-disciplinary. An account is presented of why economics is underrepresented among the disciplines of social administration and three important contributory roles are outlined for economics to play in the development of social administration

Economics, social policy and social administration: the interplay between topics and disciplines

The article uses a distinction between topic and discipline to argue that social administration, like economics, is characterized by both, but that social administration has the special advantage, in treating the topic of social policy, of being multi-disciplinary. An account is presented of why economics is underrepresented among the disciplines of social administration and three important contributory roles are outlined for economics to play in the development of social administration

Welfarism vs. extra-welfarism

'Extra-welfarism' has received some attention in health economics, yet there is little consensus on what distinguishes it from more conventional 'welfarist economics'. In this paper, we seek to identify the characteristics of each in order to make a systematic comparison of the ways in which they evaluate alternative social states. The focus, though this is not intended to be exclusive, is on health. Specifically, we highlight four areas in which the two schools differ: (i) the outcomes considered relevant in an evaluation; (ii) the sources of valuation of the relevant outcomes; (iii) the basis of weighting of relevant outcomes and (iv) interpersonal comparisons. We conclude that these differences are substantive. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved