Beyond positivism, behaviorism, and neoinstitutionalism in economics / Deirdre Nansen McCloskey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCloskey, Deirdre N., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economics--Philosophy.

Economics.

Positivism.

Philosophical behaviorism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (229 pages)

Place of Publication:

Chicago, Ill : The University of Chicago Press, [2022]

Summary:

A penetrating analysis from one of the defining voices of contemporary economics. In Beyond Positivism, Behaviorism, and Neoinstitutionalism in Economics, Deirdre Nansen McCloskey zeroes in on the authoritarian cast of recent economics, arguing for a re-focusing on the liberated human. The behaviorist positivism fashionable in the field since the 1930s treats people from the outside. It yielded in Williamson and North a manipulative neo-institutionalism. McCloskey argues that institutions as causes are mainly temporary and intermediate, not ultimate. They are human-made, depending on words, myth, ethics, ideology, history, identity, professionalism, gossip, movies, what your mother taught you. Humans create conversations as they go, in the economy as in the rest of life. In engaging and erudite prose, McCloskey exhibits in detail the scientific failures of neo-institutionalism. She proposes a “humanomics,” an economics with the humans left in. Humanomics keeps theory, quantification, experiment, mathematics, econometrics, though insisting on more true rigor than is usual. It adds what can be learned about the economy from history, philosophy, literature, and all the sciences of humans. McCloskey reaffirms the durability of “market-tested innovation” against the imagined imperfections to be corrected by a perfect government. With her trademark zeal and incisive wit, she rebuilds the foundations of economics.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction. The Argument in Brief

Part I. Economics Is in Scientific Trouble

Chapter one. An Antique, Unethical, and Badly Measured Behaviorism Doesn’t Yield Good Economic Science or Good Politics

Chapter two. Economics Needs to Get Serious about Measuring the Economy

Chapter three. The Number of Unmeasured “Imperfections” Is Embarrassingly Long

Chapter four. Historical Economics Can Measure Them, Showing Them to Be Small

Chapter five. The Worst of Orthodox Positivism Lacks Ethics and Measurement

Part II Neoinstitutionalism Shares in the Troubles

Chapter six. Even the Best of Neoinstitutionalism Lacks Measurement

Chapter seven. And “Culture,” or Mistaken History, Will Not Repair It

Chapter eight. That Is, Neoinstitutionalism, Like the Rest of Behavioral Positivism, Fails as History and as Economics

Chapter nine. As It Fails in Logic and in Philosophy

Chapter ten. Neoinstitutionalism, in Short, Is Not a Scientific Success

Part III Humanomics Can Save the Science

Chapter eleven. But It’s Been Hard for Positivists to Understand Humanomics

Chapter twelve. Yet We Can Get a Humanomics

Chapter thirteen. And Although We Can’t Save Private Max U

Chapter fourteen. We Can Save an Ethical Humanomics

Acknowledgments

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780226818313

0226818314

OCLC:

1321788648