Philosophy & Ethics

This research project explores the underlying limits—especially of the social and economic sciences—in identifying causalities including, among other aspects, the strong epistemological and statistical limitations of and assumptions behind the methods applied.

This research project shows what economists can learn from political philosophers in thinking about economic inequality while also investigating the philosophical significance of recent empirical work on inequality, within economics and elsewhere.

The World Economic Roundtable seeks to help the business, investment, and policy communities understand ongoing changes in the world economy and to promote a discussion of ideas that can advance the goal of a widely shared global prosperity.

To celebrate the release of our new series “What Money Can’t Buy” join Harvard University Professor Michael Sandel and INET for a live conversation exploring the role of money and morals in today’s world.

Young Scholars from the YSI working groups on Innovation, Complexity Economics, Philosophy of Economics and Financial Stability will present their research at a one-day workshop following The Economics of Post-Factual Democracy conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

YSI Philosophy of Economics working group is organising a workshop preceding the INEM conference.

The History of Economic Thought and the Philosophy of Economics working groups are organising a Young Scholars Workshop on the methods and approaches to the history of economics that have consolidated during the last two decades.  

Economics is not, nor can it be, value-free.

In recent decades, market values have crowded out non- market norms in almost every aspect of life—medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. Without quite realizing it, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. Is this where we want to be?

A transition from the conventional policy of “redistributing income” to “redistributing membership”, could promote economic integration across communities and intergenerational mobility.

What happens when a market-based economy becomes a market-based society?

A recent New York Times article observed that Americans want action to address inequality. 2016 presidential candidates from both parties also acknowledge that inequality is a pressing concern. But not one of the candidates has proposed to do anything meaningful about it, sharing wealthy Americans’ (understandable) opposition to any solution (Scheiber 2015). Perhaps nothing has been done because there is nothing to do about it.

In much of Europe, the social rights and social protections won in the first post-war decades, by labour movements in particular, have subsequently been seriously eroded, and are further threatened by neoliberal austerity.

This text is part of a research project still in working progress that collects different contributions by the author and rewrite and reanalyse some reflections, already present, in a different form, in some publications:

The vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 50 years later, and the relevance of his economic ideas today

McCloskey discusses her career, critiques of economics, and offers advice for young economists.

Eurocentric modernism has unhinged us from our human nature, argues Rajani Kanth in his new book

Policies based on faith in the “market” as a principle of social organization have wrought havoc with a founding principle of American democracy

A presentation from The Economics of Post-Factual Democracy, the first annual conference of The Center for Information and Bubble Studies (CIBS) at The University of Copenhagen

Notes from the Institute’s Director of Research on some significant papers and contributions produced in 2016 under the INET rubric 

Extract from the keynote speech by the Rev. Dr. William Barber III at the Institute for New Economic Thinking conference on race and economics in Detroit on November 11

Pernicious cultural norms inside American banks and regulatory agencies have crowded out fundamental moral principles. Ed Kane proposes an antidote.

Since Aristotle the question about the potential relationship between economic inequality and democratic changes has been studied and debated – but scientifically our ability as researchers to assess and understand how such complex social phenomena may be related is much more limited than recognised.

How much does the standard theory of externalities and public goods really say?

News about a wonderful workshop, “Knowledge Transfer and Its Contexts”

How do we create a “change in culture”?

Most sociologists believe that formal and informal institutions are more critical in explaining the rising inequality observed in advanced economies. In this light, changing institutions such as the ascendance of shareholder-centered corporate governance model, finance-friendly policies since the late 70s, credentialism, and deunionization all contribute to the earnings dynamics at different parts of the distribution.

Can we learn something from philosophy students?

“You are now leaving the world as you know it.”

What happens when professionals lose touch with the people they’re supposed to serve?

what is economically correct must always be balanced with what is morally right.

“Four men sat at a table. Raised sixty floors above the city, they did not speak loudly as one speaks from a height in the freedom of air and space; they kept their voices low, as befitted a cellar.”

What is the purpose of economics?