One of the defining features of modern social science and economics in particular is the hard break it posits between everyday and scientific knowledge. French philosophers have called this characteristic the epistemological break. One of the key consequences of this break is that scientists...

We argue in this article that constant-quality models like the one used to derive the Alchian-Allen effect are of very limited use in the analysis of the regulation of repugnant goods (morally contested goods ranging from human organs to sex work, pornography, and surrogate motherhood). The...

In this paper we contextualize Carl Menger's work in relation to the transformations of German political economy from the 1860s to the 1890s. We demonstrate that his Grundsätze ( 49 ) was a culmination of the German subjectivist tradition which had started in the early nineteenth century....

Market exchanges are widely believed to rely on an overlap of interest, this paper argues that many market exchanges actually rely on a broader agreement between buyer and seller. The broader agreement includes the moral justification of the exchange and the associated norms of propriety. To...