Neoclassical economists of the current era frequently pay lip service to Adam Smith’s theories to certify the validity of natural-laws-based, laissez-faire policies. However, neoclassical theories are fundamentally disconnected from Adam Smith’s notion of value, his understanding of the...

As economists increasingly help governments design new policies and regulations, they take on an added responsibility to engage with the details of policy making and, in doing so, to adopt the mindset of a plumber. Plumbers try to predict as well as possible what may work in the real world,...

Die Finanz- und Eurokrise sind das gegenwärtig wichtigste wirtschaftliche und wirtschaftspolitische Thema, welches auch wirtschaftswissenschaftlich noch stärker untersucht und diskutiert werden sollte. Etliche Akteure haben zu diesen Krisen beigetragen, darunter auch...

Das Spring Meeting of Young Economists (SMYE) – eine große Konferenz von jungen Wirtschaftswissenschaftlern für junge Wirtschaftswissenschaftler – wird jedes Jahr im Auftrag der European Association of Young Economists (EAYE) in einer anderen europäischen Stadt durchgeführt. Vom 23. bis...

This paper explores lock-in and lock-out via economic policy. It argues policy decisions may near-irrevocably change the economy's structure, thereby changing its performance. That causes changed economic outcomes concerning distribution of wealth, income and power, which in turn induces...

We explore the relationship between collaborations in writing papers and the academic productivity of economists and, particularly, we describe the magnitude and intensity of co-authorship among economists. To that end, we employ interaction maps from Complex Systems methods to study the global...

We analyze the drivers of the size of the audience and number of questions asked in parallel sessions at the annual conference of the German Economics Association. We find that the location of the presentation is at least as important for the number of academics attending a talk as the combined...

'Es ist mir egal, wer die Gesetze einer Nation schreibt - solange ich ihre Volkswirtschaftslehrbücher schreiben kann.' Der Ausspruch des Ökonomie-Nobelpreisträgers und Lehrbuchautors Paul A. Samuelson gilt als symptomatisch für den Einfluss von Ökonom_innen in der modernen Gesellschaft und...

The market for voluntary carbon offsets has grown steadily in the last decade, yet it remains a very small niche. Most emissions from business travel are still not offset. This paper exploits a unique dataset examining the decision to purchase carbon offsets at two academic conferences in...

We analyze the drivers of the size of the audience and number of questions asked in parallel sessions at the annual conference of the German Economics Association. We find that the location of the presentation is at least as important for the number of academics attending a talk as the combined...

We explore the relationship between collaborations in writing papers and the academic productivity of economists and, particularly, we describe the magnitude and intensity of co-authorship among economists. To that end, we employ interaction maps from Complex Systems methods to study the global...

The previously documented trend toward more co- and multi-authored research in economics is partly (perhaps 20 percent) due to different research styles of scholars in different birth cohorts (of different ages). Most of the trend reflects profession-wide changes in research style. Older...

This paper presents the results of a text based exploratory study of over 20,000 academic articles published in seven top research journals from 1960 - 2010. The goal is to investigate the general research foci of economists over the last fifty years, how (if at all) they have changed over time,...

We analyze the drivers of presence (size of audience) and participation (number of questions asked) in parallel sessions at a large economics conference, using the annual meeting of the German Economics Association in 2012 as a case study. We find that the location of the presentation is at...

This paper presents the results of a text based exploratory study of over 20,000 academic articles published in seven top research journals from 1960-2010. The goal is to investigate the general research foci of economists over the last fifty years, how (if at all) they have changed over time,...

The historical forerunners of contemporary austerity are still largely unexplored. This essay considers the "liberal phase" of Fascist Italy (1922-1925) as a case study to explain austerity as a full-blown rationality, that is intrinsically, and simultaneously, theory and practice, encompassing...

Economists, and also economic research institutes, differ in their attitudes towards desirability of economic policies. The policy positions taken can often be determined by ideology. We examine economic policy positions by investigating minority votes in the Joint Economic Forecast of German...

Das vorliegende Papier zeigt, dass die seit Jahrzehnten andauernde Klagen wissenschaftlich tätiger Ökonomen, dass Öffentlichkeit und Politik nicht genug auf Ergebnisse der ökonomischen Forschung hören, zumindest für Deutschland im Quervergleich zu anderen Wissenschaften in Bezug auf das...

Die aktuelle Diskussion um die Ausgestaltung der wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Politikberatung und die zum Teil harsche Kritik von Politikern am Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung in jüngster Zeit lenkt den Blick auf den Einfluss von Ökonomen auf die...

Das hohe Angebot und die Zunahme von Absolventinnen und Absolventen geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlicher Disziplinen rücken diese in regelmässigen Abständen in den Fokus bildungs- und arbeitsmarktpolitischer Diskussionen. Nicht selten werden in diesem Zusammenhang Zulassungsbeschränkungen...

Moral narratives have a substantive effect on the research conclusions of economists. This is one of the findings from a recent survey of economists that we conducted, which found a relationship between views on empirical economic propositions and moral judgments. This finding may help to answer...

The neoclassical problem of distortionary taxation and the Hayekian knowledge problem are two different lines of argumentation against government interventions. When it applies, the Hayekian argument against government intervention is stronger than the neoclassical argument, because...

Mainstream academic economists fall disproportionately into two opposing groups. In one of these groups, the members see free markets as tending to fail relative to formal theoretical conditions for optimality. In the other group, the members see free markets as tending to work better than any...

It is not fruitful to puzzle over the question whether economists and others ‘favor’ or ‘lean’ toward the regulatory or welfare state; that is an unhelpful and confusing question, one that orients people in the wrong way. It is better to begin by emphasizing that the first should be...

This essay takes issue with the idea that liberals are necessarily enamored with either regulation or large government programs. It argues that regulations to protect workers and consumers become necessary in a context where the rules have been written to disadvantage them. Different rules can...

This paper argues that the welfare state and regulation are not inevitably in harmony. In the post-Keynesian period of ‘austerity,’ the tendency is for state regulation to focus more on supporting market-creating activities of capital than of market-controlling features that would protect...

Economists view activist government policy and social insurance as potentially protecting individuals from risks and from market failure. Perhaps differences among economists in support for activist government policy in social insurance and regulation reflect differences in beliefs about the...

I suggest that the growing divide between economists on the left and right reflects three factors: epistemic differences (that is, differences in assessing empirical matters), values, and tribalism. I begin by sketching out a simple model to explain the epistemic divide between economists on the...

In the United States, on matters of the welfare state and the regulatory state, virtually no economist favors one while opposing the other. Such pattern is a common and intuitive impression, and is supported by scatterplots of survey data. But what explains the pattern? Why don’t some...

We analyze the drivers of presence (size of audience) and participation (number of questions asked) in parallel sessions at a large economics conference, using the annual meeting of the German Economics Association in 2012 as a case study. We find that the location of the presentation is at...

Economists and war : introduction / FABRIZIO BIENTINESI, ROSARIO PATALANO -- An Austrian point of view on total war : Stefan T. Possony / FABRIZIO BIENTINESI -- The evolution of the economic thought confronted with World War I : and the reparations' issue / FANNY COULOMB -- Third way, liberalism...