Identity, Capabilities, and Changing Economics

Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-1-009-43823-0
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 304 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 576 g

Mainstream economics assumes economic agents act and make decisions to maximize their utility. This model of economic behavior, based on rational choice theory, has come under increasing attack in economics because it does not accurately reflect the way people behave and reason. The shift towards a more realistic account of economic agents has been mostly associated with the rise of behavioral economics, which views individuals through the lens of bounded rationality. Identity, Capabilities, and Changing Economics goes further and uses identity analysis to build on this critique of the utility conception of individuals, arguing it should be replaced by a conception of economic agents in an uncertain world as socially embedded and identified with their capabilities. Written by one of the world's leading philosophers of economics, the book develops a new approach to economics' theory of the individual, explaining individuals as adaptive and reflexive rather than utility maximizing.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Davis, John B

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface; Acknowledgements; Part I. The Failed Pathway and Exit Strategies: Introduction; 1. Objectivity in economics and the problem of the individual; 2. The untenability of the unembedded Homo economicus; 3. The 'reconciliation problem' and an individuality reconstruction problem; Part II. Rebuilding the Individual Conception: Introduction; 4. Adaptive reflexive individuals: a capabilities conception of the person; 5. A general theory of social economic stratification: stigmatization, exclusion, and capability shortfalls; 6. Roads not taken yet to be taken: enhancing capabilities; Part III. Value and Subjectivity: Introduction; 7. Economics as a normative discipline: value dis-entanglement in an objective economics; 8. Individual realization? Rethinking subjectivity in economics; 9. Change in and changing economics; References; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Davis, John B
John B. Davis is Professor Emeritus of Economics: Marquette University, University of Amsterdam. He is the author of Keynes's Philosophical Development, The Theory of the Individual in Economics, and Individuals and Identity in Economics, and a former co-author of the Journal of Economic Methodology.