Homo economicus has justly been identified as the universal bogeyman of economics. Economic man, having been showered with criticism for a century and a half, continues to occupy critics to this day. Plenty of economists in the previous century have proclaimed the death of homo economicus and...

The vast majority of economists reject the relevance of theology for their discipline. This paper challenges that consensus. Theological anthropology sees human beings as simultaneously created in the image of God, but also as fallen (through original sin). I argue that the combination of the...

This paper critiques constrained optimization as the dominant framework in contemporary economics by revealing its implicit theological flaw: the assumption that constraints are inherently bad. The author traces the development of Homo Economicus from Mill through Robbins to Becker, examining...

The well-known prisoner's dilemma shows why cooperation may be difficult to achieve even when cooperation would create value for all partners. In particular, material interests conflict because reciprocity cannot be enforced, while agents give priority to their material self-interest. This paper...

This paper discusses how hope and love help to facilitate cooperation in sequential games by removing conflicts of interests. Rationality combined with material self-love induces players to build institutions that ensure that interests run parallel by constraining people from obtaining material...

In years to come, the "community mechanism" will become increasingly important. This is a mechanism in which at least one person voluntarily offers cooperation and is not rejected. The community mechanism complements the workings of the market mechanism (a mechanism based on price and...

Western thought has developed a view of human nature-which we call homo dignus-which focuses on human dignity as the core of human existence. Human dignity (related to human rationality and morality) entails a moral calling, on the fulfilment of which human flourishing depends. Incorporating the...

Can theologians, philosophers and economists have a fruitful conversation about human flourishing? In practice, that does not appear to be so easy. Nevertheless, I believe it is worthwhile to bring knowledge from different disciplines into conversation. In doing so, I choose an approach that...

Aristotle's conceptualization of chremastikè and oikonomia offers a foundational framework for understanding the distinction between an economy focused on the accumulation of wealth, as represented by chremastikè, and one that prioritizes the needs of all members of a "household," as embodied...

Libertarian paternalism is "the set of interventions aimed at overcoming the unavoidable cognitive biases and decisional inadequacies of an individual by exploiting them in such a way as to influence her decisions (in an easily reversible manner) towards choices that she herself would make if...