Economics in Context : On Institutions, Civic Ethics, and Liberal Civil Society

Academic departmentalization has limited the dimensionality and thus the richness of analysis in the social sciences. The author examines the case of a modem economics as an example. He reviews the ideas of Williamson (2000), who cites the limits of scope in the New Institutional Economics; Buchanan, who lays bare the ethical foundations of political economy in his constitutional eco­nomics; and Adam Smith, whose moral philosophy reflects a fully dimensional analysis. The author cites examples of how modem economic analysis can be enhanced by a reintegration with the other social sciences