The welfare state is often portrayed as provider of insurance against ‘uncertainties’, in Knight's (1921) sense of the term, which would be refused or underinsured on private markets. This image conflicts with the standard economic model of risk exchange founded on the subjective...

Bayesian decision theory and inference have left a deep and indelible mark on the literature on management decision-making. There is however an important issue that the machinery of classical Bayesianism is ill equipped to deal with, that of “unknown unknowns” or, in the cases in which they...

It is the purpose of this essay to consider but three questions regarding the social philosophy of Henry George that have to now received insufficient attention: George's views with respect to the nationalization of land, the efficacy of socialism, and the place of the individual. One may...

A number of scholars have noted that Ellsberg’s seminal 1961QJE critique of the subjective expected utility model bears certain resemblances to ideas expressed in J. M. Keynes’s earlier 1921 A Treatise on Probability. Ellsberg did not mention Keynes’s work in his article, but did do so in...

<i> Incertezza Knightiana, fallimenti di mercato e Stato sociale</i> (di Alberto Feduzi) - ABSTRACT: This paper examines the possibility of providing a rigorous theoretical foundation to the piggy-bank function of the welfare state, by considering a recent contribution in the modern decision theory...

Various modern decision theories seek to capture the intuition behind Keynes's conception of evidential weight. Keynes was nevertheless hesitant about the practical relevance of weight in the process of rational decision making because of the 'stopping problem' of finding a rational principle to...

The purpose of this essay is to identify certain points at which the presentation in "Vanity" appears incomplete or in error, especially as regards the interpretations of Mill and Spencer. It is shown that, while the authors have stated their case well, certain mischaracterizations,...

Much of the literature surrounding Schumpeter's 1942 Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy has focused on his reformulation of democratic theory rather than on the perceived tensions in the classical variant which motivated his reorientation. In contrast to the position of Schumpeter, the rational...