What is the value of self-interest? The article critically reviews past and current justifications for the theoretical use of the behavioral assumption of self-interest, explanatory, normative, representional and critical, focusing on the critical function. This latter emerges from an incursion...

We present a general equilibrium model where profit-maximizing firms and non-profit organizations coexist, and the people’s propensity to devote efforts to non-profit activities increases with the stock of social capital. In its turn, the formation of social capital is stimulated by an...