1st Edition

From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics The Shifting Boundaries between Economics and other Social Sciences

By Ben Fine, Dimitris Milonakis Copyright 2009
212 Pages
by Routledge

216 Pages
by Routledge

216 Pages
by Routledge

Is or has economics ever been the imperial social science? Could or should it ever be so? These are the central concerns of this book. It involves a critical reflection on the process of how economics became the way it is, in terms of a narrow and intolerant orthodoxy, that has, nonetheless, increasingly directed its attention to appropriating the subject matter of other social sciences through... Read more

1. Introduction and Overview 2. The Historical Logic of Economics Imperialism 3. The Economic Approach: Marginalism Extended 4. New Economics Imperialism: The Revolution Portrayed 5. From Economics, through Institutions to Society? 6. From Social Capital to Freakonomics 7. Economics Confronts the Social Sciences: Resistance or Smooth Progression? 8. Whither Economics? 9. Whither Social Science? 10. Whither Political Economy?

Biography

Ben Fine is Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is the author of Social Capital Versus Social Theory (2001), The World of Consumption (2002), the co-editor of Development Policy in the 21st Century (2001), and co-author of From Political Economy to Economics (2009) all published by Routledge.

Dimitris Milonakis is Associate Professor and Head of the Economics Department at the University of Crete. He is the co-author of From Political Economy to Economics (2009) published by Routledge.

Winner of the Deutscher Memorial Prize for 2009

As economic events have rocked the foundations of efficient market theory and forced economists to look more critically at rational markets, Fine and Milonakis offer a timely analysis of the emergence of economic imperialism, "the extension of economic analysis to subject matter beyond its traditional borders". - CHOICE