This book is based on the premise that mainstream economics has become excessively specialized and formalized, entering a state of de facto withdrawal from the study of the economy in favour of exercises in applied mathematics. The editors believe that there is much scope for synergies by...

In the 1990s, institutional and evolutionary economics emerged as one of the most creative and successful approaches in the modern social sciences. This timely reader gathers together seminal contributions from leading international authors in the field of institutional and evolutionary...

The Elgar Companion to Economics and Philosophy aims to demonstrate exactly how these two important areas have always been linked, and to illustrate the key areas of overlap. The contributors are well-known and distinguished authors from a variety of disciplines, who have been invited both to...

Are humans at their core seekers of their own pleasure or cooperative members of society? Paradoxically, they are both. Pleasure-seeking can take place only within the context of what works within a defined community, and central to any community are the evolved codes and principles guiding...

<DIV>A few centuries ago, capitalism set in motion an explosion of economic productivity. Markets and private property had existed for millennia, but what other key institutions fostered capitalism’s relatively recent emergence? Until now, the conceptual toolkit available to answer this question...</div>

Of paramount importance to the natural sciences, the principles of Darwinism, which involve variation, inheritance, and selection, are increasingly of interest to social scientists as well. But no one has provided a truly rigorous account of how the principles apply to the evolution of human...

Economics in the Shadows of Darwin and Marx examines the legacies of these two giants of thought for the social sciences in the twenty-first century.

Rethinking Economics is a major contribution to the reconstruction of an economic theory appropriate to the 21st century. Just as major changes are occurring in the world economy, economics itself is on the brink of change. Orthodox economics is now widely criticized for its sterility and its...