The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics

For over a century the economics profession has extended its reach to encompass policy formation and institutional design while largely ignoring the ethical challenges that attend the profession's influence over the lives of others. Economists have proven to be disinterested in ethics. Embracing emotivism, they often treat ethics a matter of mere preference. Moreover, economists tend to be hostile to professional economic ethics, which they incorrectly equate with a code of conduct that would be at best ineffectual and at worst disruptive to good economic practice. But good ethical reasoning is not reducible to mere tastes, and professional ethics is not reducible to a code. Instead, professional economic ethics refers to a new field of investigation-a tradition of sustained and lively inquiry into the irrepressible ethical entailments of academic and applied economic practice. The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics explores a wide range of questions related to the nature of ethical economic practice and the content of professional economic ethics. It explores current thinking that has emerged in these areas while widening substantially the terrain of economic ethics. There has never been a volume that poses so directly and intensively the question of the need for and content of professional ethics for economics. The Handbook incorporates the work of leading scholars and practitioners, including academic economists from various theoretical traditions; applied economists, beyond academia, whose work has direct and immense social impact; and philosophers, professional ethicists, and others whose work has addressed the nature of "professionalism" and its implications for ethical practice.

Auteur

George F. DeMartino is a Professor of International Economics and Co-Director of the program in Global Finance, Trade, and Economic Integration in the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Deirdre N. McCloskey is UIC Distinguished Professor of Economics and History, Professor of English, and Professor of Communication, Emerita, at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Contenu

Foreword William Easterly PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Introduction, or Why This Handbook? George F. DeMartino and Deirdre N. McCloskey PART II: UNCERTAINTY, RISK AND PROFESSIONAL ECONOMIC ETHICS 2. The Skin in the Game Heuristic for Protection Against Tail Events Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Constantine Sandis 3. The Ethics of Economic Decision Rules Sven Ove Hansson 4. In Praise of Imperfect Commitment: An Ethic of Power, Professionalism, and Risk Sharon D. Welch 5. 'Econogenic Harm': On the Nature of and Responsibility for the Harm Economists Do as They Try to Do Good George F. DeMartino PART III: THE ETHICAL NATURE OF ECONOMIC PRACTICE 6. About Doing the Right Thing as an Academic Economist Erwin Dekker and Arjo Klamer 7. The Social Responsibility of Economists Peter J. Boettke and Kyle W. O'Donnell 8. The Ethical Economist: Duty and Virtue in the Scientific Process Jonathan B. Wight PART IV: THE ETHICAL ENTAILMENTS OF ECONOMIC THEORY 1. General Issues 9. Ethics in Relation to Economics, Ecology, and Eschatology Herman Daly 10. Poisoning the Well, or How Economic Theory Damages Moral Imagination Julie A. Nelson 11. Economists' Odd Stand on the Positive-Normative Distinction: A Behavioral Economics View John B. Davis 12. The Complex Ethical Consequences of "Simple" Theoretical Choices Robert H. Frank 13. Good, Evil, and Economic Practice Tomas Sedlá?ek 2. Economic Theory and the Great Recession 14. Alternative Ethical Perspectives on the Financial Crisis: Lessons for Economists Irene van Staveren 15. Economists' Ethics in the Build-Up to the Great Recession Robert H. Wade PART V: ETHICAL ISSUES IN ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1. Experimental Economics 16. Ethics and Advances in Economic Science: The Role of Two Norms Jingnan Chen, Angelina Christie, and Daniel Houser 17. The Meaning of Deceive in Experimental Economic Science Bart J. Wilson 2. Econometrics 18. Honesty and Integrity in Econometrics Thomas Mayer 19. Lady Justice v. Cult of Statistical Significance: Oomph-less Science and the New Rule of Law Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey 3. Field Research 20. Balancing Risk and Benefit: Ethical Tradeoffs in Running Randomized Evaluations Rachel Glennerster and Shawn Powers 21. Conducting Ethical Economic Research: Complications from the Field Harold Alderman, Jishnu Das, and Vijayenera Rao 22. The Unprincipled Randomization Principle in Economics and Medicine Stephen T. Ziliak and Edward R. Teather-Posadas 4. Conflict of Interest 23. Professional Disequilibrium: Conflict of Interest in Economics Dennis F. Thompson 24. Considerations on Conflicts of Interest in Academic Economics Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth and Gerald Epstein PART VI: ETHICAL ISSUES IN APPLIED ECONOMICS 1. Development 25. Ethics, Economic Advice, and Economic Policy Joseph E. Stiglitz 26. Neoclassical Economics as the New Social Engineering: The Debacle of the Russian Post-Socialist Transition David Ellerman 27. The Ethics of Economic Development and Human Displacement Des Gasper 28. How Can We Better Address the Gaps in our Knowledge about Development Effectiveness? Martin Ravallion 2. Economic Advising in Government and Beyond 29. Confessions of a Policy Analyst Robert Nelson 30. Ethics and the Government Economist Susan Offutt 31. The Ethics Problem: Toward a Second-Best Solution to the Problem of Economic Expertise David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart 32. First Tell No Untruth Alan Freeman 3. Forensic Economics 33. Ethical Issues in Forensic Economics Robert J. Thornton and John Ward VII. ETHICAL ISSUES IN ECONOMIC EDUCATION 34. Exposure and Dialogue Programs in the Training of Development Analysts and Practitioners Ravi Kanbur 35. Ethics and Learning in Undergraduate Economics Education Robert F. Garnett, Jr. VIII. LOOKING AHEAD 36. Creating Humble Economists: A Code of Ethics for Economists David Colander 37. Codes of Ethics for Economists, Pluralism, and the Nature of Economic Knowledge Sheila C. Dow