In der Ökonomik tritt der zirkuläre unechte Fortschritt auf, der sich z.B. vom kumulativen, besonders für die Naturwissenschaften charakteristischen Fortschritt abgrenzt. Die Ideen- bzw. Dogmengeschichte kann somit eine wertvolle Erkenntnisquelle sein. In diesem Papier wird das Konzept der...

This paper concerns a neglected aspect of Lucas's work: his methodological writings, published and unpublished. Particular attention is paid to his views on the relationship between theory and ideology. I start by setting out Lucas's non-standard conception of theory: to him, a theory and a...

Recent literature on Adam Smith and other 18th-century Scottish thinkers shows an engaged conversation between the Scots and today's scholars in the sciences that deal with humans—social sciences, humanities, as well as neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. We share with the 18th-century...

Der diesjährige Nobelpreis für Ökonomie ging an einen Wirtschaftswissenschaftler, der sich mit dem Wettbewerb auf Märkten und der Regulierung von Unternehmen befasst und dies solide - auch spieltheoretisch - fundiert. Jean Tirole hat allerdings ein sehr breites Forschungsspektrum, das Fragen...

Key Messages * The industry is suffering a downturn that might lead to a wider economic crisis. The negative stage experienced by the housing sector is recognizable in the increasing number of unsold units, in the declining number of transactions and in the progressive cooling down of prices....

The link between demographic pressure and economic conditions in pre-Famine Ireland has long interested economists. This paper re-visits the topic, harnessing the highly disaggregated parish-level data from the 1841 Census of Ireland. Using population per value adjusted acre as a measure of...

Paul Samuelson's famous 1948 "factor price equalization theorem" was his main contribution to international trade theory. He demonstrated conditions under which trade in goods only would lead to full equalization of the remuneration of productive factors across countries. In practice, general...

In der ökonomischen Theorie haben Metaphern (als Formen eines bildhaften Sprachgebrauchs) immer eine besondere Rolle gespielt. Nach einem historischen Überblick über das Konzept von Metaphern wird die Geschichte des dominanten Stranges in der ökonomischen Theorie als Geschichte einer...

In this paper we address the issue of the role of ideology and political preferences of publically engaged economists and contribute to the debate on consensus in economics. To do so, we conduct a social network analysis on the signatories of economist petitions, which we identify as one channel...