Capabilities and Well-being

Introduction The Capability Approach (CA) has been initiated and guided by Amartya Sen, since the 1980s, as an alternative to neoclassical welfare economics. The approach emerged gradually ou

From Gender as Exogenous to Gender as Endogenous in the New Economics

This chapter argues that gender is endogenous to the economic process. It demonstrates a two-way relationship between the economy and gender relations, and emp

Would We have had this Crisis if Women had been Running the Financial Sector?

__Abstract__ The two main ethical approaches, utilitarianism and deontology, have not been able to prevent some of the behaviors underlying the financial crisis. A third ethics, the ethics of care might have been more effective than the other two in preventing the last financial crisis. Ethics of care is a feminist ethical theory concerned with relationships. It can be applied to a wide variety of relationships, including market relationships, and has been tested in experimental settings, suggesting that women tend to behave more in ways that can be understood in terms of relationships, whereas men tend to behave more in terms of rules. Using these ethical theories we analyze the crisis pointing at what are its causal behavioral attitudes and institutions and at the very low representation of women at the financial top

Mind & Matter: Developing Pluralist Development Economics

Introductory: Almost twenty years ago, a plea for pluralist economics was published in a top journal of the discipline, the American Economic Review (1992). It was signed by various Nobel laureates, including the Dutch development economist Jan Tinbergen, several of whose inspiring lectures I had the privilege of attending as a student at Erasmus University. The main message of the plea was that many economists advocate free competition but don’t practice it in the marketplace of ideas. The minds, in other words, were rather closed and united in ignoring different perspectives when it came to exchanging ideas about the economy and economics as a discipline. The plea recognized that the great majority of economists has been trained as neoclassical economists and a small minority is either formally trained in, or has turned, like myself, into self-made heterodox economists, for which, unfortunately, there remains rather little room in top economic journals, mainstream teaching programmes and general economic policy debates: except for rare places like the Institute of Social Studies, where I found an intellectual home...

The Ethics of the Financial Crisis and Financial Reform

The paper analyses the financial crisis and financial reform from two alternative ethical perspectives as compared to the mainstream one in economics, utilitarianism. It contrasts deontology with the ethics of care and argues that the rule-based deontological approach is not able to prevent a next serious crisis. It argues instead that apart from a minimum of rules, the contextual, relationship-oriented ethics of care is necessary for a stable and client-oriented financial sector. It poses the hypothesis that such an ethics of care is already available in the sector, although marginally, and quite effective. This hypothesis is tested with exploratory survey data from the Netherlands as well as two case studies of caring financial innovation from the Netherlands

Kapitalisme is niet de markt

__Abstract__ Er is tachtig jaar lang hardnekkig geprobeerd de markt af te schaffen. De ijzeren les van de Sovjetunie was echter dat een economie niet zonder markt kan. Dat had de economisch antropoloog Karl Polanyi begin vorige eeuw trouwens al ontdekt bij zijn vergelijking van lokale economieën wereldwijd: elke economie combineert ruilen, herverdelen en geven

Klantbelang centraal bij medewerker maar niet in bankcultuur

__Abstract__ Bankmedewerkers willen het klantbelang voorop zetten maar voelen zich belemmerd door de bankcultuur. Het vertrouwen in de organisatie hapert, medewerkers worden niet gemotiveerd door de gestelde prestatiedoelen en krijgen te weinig ruimte van de leidinggevende. Een verdere afname van het belang van prestatiedoelen kan het klantbelang ten goede komen