This paper develops a hypothesis of the economist Albert Hirschman in: The Rhetoric of Reaction, Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy (Harvard 1991) regarding the history of the Independence of Colombia. The Rhetoric of Independence extended the geographical worldview of the people of Spanish...

Many people believe that economists in general are more selfish than other people and that this greater selfishness is due to economics education. This paper offers empirical evidence against this widely held belief. Using a unique data set on giving behaviour in connection with two social funds...

Rational Choice Theory is often criticized to indoctrinate students in a negative, which is supported by some laboratory experiments. But do students of Rational Choice Theory really behave more selfishly? This paper presents evidence from a natural decision on voluntary donation at the...

In this paper we have presented arguments for simplicity as epistemological criterion of economic research. In particular, have been important aspects that show how the tradition of the theory, to make principle simplicity to represent many empirical data of experience or information, was one of...

This article offers an approach to the general structure of the controversy in economy. In our case we adopted a perspective to study a particular aspect of the rhetoric that comes from the context of a particular controversy: the controversy on the advantages of the free commerce between Daly...

Most professional economists believe that economist in general are more selfish than other persons and that this greater selfishness is due to economic education. In this paper we offer empirical evidence against this widely held belief. Using a unique data set about giving behaviour to two...

Business students are portrayed as behaving too egoistically. The critics call for more social responsibility and good citizenship behavior on the part of business students. We present evidence of pro-social behavior in business students. Every student at the University of Zurich has to decide...

Scholars today are under increasing pressure to publish in A-journals, the main role of which consists in certifying that a paper meets traditional academic standards. Consequences of this pressure are multiple authorship, slicing of ideas and incentives to deviate from the truth. The...

Scholars today are under increasing pressure to publish in A-journals, the main role of which consists in certifying that a paper meets traditional academic standards. Consequences of this pressure are multiple authorship, slicing of ideas and incentives to deviate from the truth. The...

Most professional economists believe that economists in general are more selfish than other persons and that this greater selfishness is due to economics education. This paper offers empirical evidence against this widely held belief. Using a unique data set about giving behavior in connection...