John Rawls's remarks on race are sparse in his writings. However, three key moments in his conceptual apparatus wherein racial issues appear explicitly can be be highlighted: (1) the status of race as a feature of the veil of ignorance; (2) racial minorities, the least advantaged, and the...

We argue, in the spirit of some of Jean-Yves Jaffray's work, that explicitly incorporating the information, however imprecise, available to the decision marker is relevant, feasible and fruitful. In particular, we show that it can lead us to know whether the decision maker has wrong beliefs and...

Are scientific arguments used for analysing "sustainable development" ? This issue is at the core of the EBP-biosoc research project of which we present a few aspects on the use of scientific knowledge through "Evidence Based Policy" method. The use of such a framework in social sciences...

The market for autographs has become more open to international buyers since 1990. Our data set features a large sample of store and auction sales for selected authors every five years from 1960 to 2005. The estimation of a hedonic price function shows that page count, type of author, date and...

Lawrence R. Klein (1920-2013) played a major role in the construction and in the further dissemination of econometrics from the 1940s. Considered as one the main developers and practitioners of macroeconometrics, Klein's influence is reflected in his application of econometric modelling “to...

The purpose of the paper is to provide a methodological framework for a critical analysis of a specific class of macroeconomic models, namely the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models (DSGE). We suggest some epistemological reflections to explore the underlying methodology and history of...

Since the 1950's, Nobel Prize economists such as Akerlof, Arrow, Becker, Heckman, Phelps and Stiglitz have analyzed discrimination in an economic framework, essentially in "positive" perspective. The two seminal models – Becker's model based on a "taste for discrimination" and Arrow and...

The aim of this article is to analyze the economic literature from the last thirty years in the field of addiction and to study its relation to the theory of rational choice (TRC). We show that the application of the TRC to addictive behaviors appeared in a context of reciprocity of stakes, i.e....

This paper argues that mainstream economic theory, far from providing an indisputable plea in favor of shareholder value-maximization, offers striking arguments showing quite the opposite: profit-maximization cannot be a legitimate goal for private firms. This opens the door for a widening of a...

This paper defends the idea that Western modernity can be characterized by the rivalry of two institutions, the state and the market, competing for the charge of maintaining security against social violence while both are major sources of violence. It is so because the possibility of violence...