The paper analyzes economic evaluations by distinguishing evaluative statements from value judgments proper. Building on this basis, it compares four solutions to the value-neutrality problem in economics. After rebutting the strong theses about neutrality (normative economics is illegitimate)...

This paper discusses Islamic principles and how they can help in achieving efficiency along with equity in a market system. We start with the concept of ‘human welfare’ in Islam and show how it is distinct from the concept of welfare in western social sciences. The difference comes from the...

Economic choices influenced by animalistic instincts in an ethically neutral framework have not only resulted in huge disparity in distribution of income, wealth and standard of living, but, as we now realize, it has also resulted in unprecedented loss to ecology and environment with...

This paper analyses a tax reform, explicitly conceived by policy makers to be climate-friendly, that partly replaces a high vehicle registration tax by road user charging and allows for differentiation of the remaining registration tax by fuel efficiency. A microeconomic framework is proposed to...

This book presents the distributional implications inherent to cost-benefit analysis, shows how distributional value judgements underly traditional efficiency analysis and the treatment of accounting prices, and provides guidelines for estimating the distributional effects of investment...

Islamic finance industry mostly uses LIBOR linked financial contracts which are akin to debt financing than the more preferable participatory modes of Mudarabah and Musharakah. As per the current orthodox understanding and practice of Islamic finance, the often cited preferable modes like...

The Stern Review adopts two interesting elements in its calculation of the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation. First is a ‘global welfarist’ approach that values the utility of the World’s people (now and into the future) equally, and sets global utility maximization as the...

A general theory is developed to analyze the efficiency and income distribution effects of a biofuel consumer tax credit and the interaction effects with a price contingent farm subsidy. Using the U.S. ethanol market as a stylized example, ethanol prices rise above the gasoline price by the...

This paper examines the implications for African economies of the possible outcomes from the ongoing agriculture negotiations in the Doha Round. The paper defines scenarios that capture key elements of the modalities negotiations and undertakes simulations using a global dynamic general...

Conventional economics, both in its free enterprise and command versions sought to delink the science of economics from moral religious values and reduce it to a positive science. Now most economists feel an urgent need for objective analysis of the entire economic landscape with a view to...