Economists are often called on to help address pressing problems of the day, yet many economists are uncomfortable about disclosing the values that they bring to this work. This essay explores how an inadequate understanding of the role of methodology, as related to ethics and human emotions of...

Problems of identification of equivalence scales, on both philosophical and mathematical grounds, are discussed. Scales are estimated using an Almost Ideal Demand System and data from the 1980's United States Consumer Expenditure Survey. Resulting parameter estimates are reasonable for income...

Argues the case for reform of US tax codes from a feminist viewpoint. “The household” and “the individual” are falsely distinguished in the tradition of taxing only adult male breadwinners ‐women being engulfed in “the household”. Describes recent analysis of human identity in...

A number of recent discussions about ethical issues in climate change, as engaged in by economists, have focused on the value of the parameter representing the rate of time preference within models of optimal growth. This essay examines many economists’ antipathy to serious discussion of...

Feminist scholars examine not only the gendered impacts of development programs whose design has been influenced by disciplines such as economics, but also the gendered biases that permeate the models and methods of the disciplines themselves. This essay draws on aspects of feminist critiques of...

Buddhist philosophy teaches a thoroughly relational ontology, holding that what really is are relations and processes enfolding out of a common substrate though time. Often, however, attempts to apply Buddhist thinking to economic issues seem to forget this. Corporations and markets are...

Does Rational Choice Theory (RCT) have something important to contribute to the humanities? Jon Elster and others answer affirmatively, arguing that RCT is a powerful tool that will lend clarity and rigor to work in the humanities just as it (presumably) has in economics. This essay examines the...

This essay discusses the origins, biases, and effects on contemporary discussions of economics and ethics of the unexamined use of the metaphor “an economy is a machine.” The neoliberal view that the self-regulated workings of free markets should be kept free of impediments is based on this...

Advocates of a more socially responsible discipline of economics often emphasize the purposive and unpredictable nature of human economic behavior, contrasting this to the presumably deterministic behavior of natural forces. This essay argues that such a distinction between “social” and...

This paper explores the implications for economic analysis, societal well-being, and public policy of the movement of care services (such as child and elder care) from home to market. A broad empirical overview sets the stage for the argument that this process cannot be properly evaluated using...